Seriously, for a minute -

I'm scheduled to have surgery for my sinus woes on Friday, and the date of doom is rapidly approaching. I've tried not to think about it too much, because I'm kind of a wimp. And when I don't feel good, I'm rather worthless and whiny. I know that this surgery and the subsequent recovery will bring with it a good bit of the worthless whining wimpitude. Wimpiness isn't attractive on most people, including me.

Fortunately Hubs helps to distract me by talking about how much housework I could do "ahead of time" - because that's a direct relationship, isn't it? Can't have surgery with a dirty house, now, can I? He also reminds me regularly that he won't be around to help me at certain times, so I'll need to figure out workarounds for changing diapers and other tasks which would ordinarily require a bit of lifting. No lifting more than 15 pounds during my recovery - so Two will have to bring his little step stool around the house and get himself to any heights. I have a vague sense that I may regret encouraging a do-it-yourself climbing practice later on.

The main idea that keeps sticking in my brain, when I move past the hesitancy, is how fortunate I am, to have health insurance to reduce the cost of my surgery, to have access to a friendly doctor who will perform the procedure, to have parents to care for me and my children later in the day. The kids will even have a sleepover at their grandparents' house the first night post-op, so I can rest and recover in a quieter environment at home. I keep coming back to the unbelievable expense involved in this surgery. I would never have it if I didn't have insurance. I feel guilty knowing that we'll be paying for this procedure in monthly installments for some time to come. And yet I dream of feeling much better than I have in months, of relief from sinus pressure and misery, of freedom from knowing every cold will become an infection. This isn't a major life-or-death procedure. It's largely a quality of life concern, and one that many people likely cannot consider due to problems with cost and access.

My qualms about the current status of our medical system are considerable. I am a former child of privilege, now a woman of privilege, in comparison to so many. If I get sick, I go to the doctor, and I'm outraged to think that some people have to decide between medical care and food, or medicine and basic living expenses. I know this is often a problem for elderly individuals on fixed incomes, and yet the problem is so much more widespread. I catch glimpses of it from women who write on parenting boards and blogs I follow. I don't know what to do about the unbelievable impediments to proper medical care faced by so many people in this supposedly-privileged country. I'm not an expert. But my worries about being a whiner and dealing with housework before surgery pale in comparison. I hope whoever we elect tomorrow (you know my choice) comes up with some viable solutions and implements them, asap.

New plan...

I've been a bit disorganized and lackadaisical in my approach to blogging, and so I've decided to develop a plan, a schedule, as it were (I had a professor in college who used to say "as it were" all the time and it cracked me up). So, I'm going to incorporate a couple of regularly scheduled features into my blogging, in addition to my random stream-of-consciousness posts. Once a week, generally on Tuesdays, I'm going to start posting a recipe. And on Thursdays, I'll post about a book, either one I've read/am reading/want to read, or one that I like for the younger set. Since things are getting increaingly hectic IRL, and I'm trying to impose a little more order to that chaos, I'll bring a little more order to this place too. Feedback welcomed!

Horcruxes

I feel increasingly scattered, as though I have created numerous little electronic horcruxes and scattered them all over the Internet. I have numerous e-mail addresses, each for a different purpose. I have profiles on so many sites that I cannot remember them all, for networking, socializing, buying things, selling things, commenting on news, commenting on gossip, commenting on books or movies... which leads to that strange sense of disconnect when I realize that I have lost track of some portion of myself. Now, where exactly did I leave that little piece of me? And what's the user name? The password? Nope, wrong password. What was the challenge question again? Oh - I wonder if I abbreviated that. Nope - denied! I hope I don't fail too many times in my attempted logins and lock myself out of this account...

I signed up for Facebook recently, after a friend told me that many of the cool kids I couldn't find on MySpace were over on Facebook. So now I'm divided - because I want to keep up with people in both places. And LinkedIn, let's not forget that. I can tie some things together and create some connections between these bits of myself (I can display GoodReads stuff on Facebook and here, for example), but not all (and whether I would want it all tied together is another question - do I really want people who remember me from elementary school to read my blog? I'm not sure). I have to try to remember to bookmark different sites so I don't forget them, only to find, after a period of months, that someone tried to reach me there weeks ago without a response from me (have I mentioned how susceptible I can be to guilt?).

I could rant at length on other topics - it has been one of those days - but I would rather have a beer.

Why am I being so vague?

I'm not sure why I'm being vague about the details of my new job here. I'm doing children's ministry work at my church. It's a big change for me - I've always taught really big kids (and some adults, but not all college students are adults ;) . Now I'm going to be working with wee folk at the new job. I'm really excited about this, because I love spending time with my kids and helping out with their activities at church, and now I think I'll just feel more invested - plus how many jobs really let you take your kids to work this way? I'll be doing a lot of coordinating, really - lining up volunteers to do a lot of the teaching and supervision stuff, plus doing some of that myself.

Today was good, although I can't say I accomplished anything momentous on my first day on the job. I spent the morning learning how the copier works, trying to organize my office (I get an office, a real office, and it's fabulous) and get all of the items that were stored in there out of the way. The office is still in need of a lot of attention, and all of the files and books that were left behind by the previous occupants were in disarray. The job I have has been held by many people for brief tenures over the years. I hope I'll be the one to break that trend - a lot of people have apparently taken the job until something better came along, something full-time or with better perks I guess.

Although for me, having an office with all of the books and office supplies and a computer is a big perk, and being able to hang out with kids is a pretty sweet job. I guess all people don't share my strange passion for office supplies. But when I teach, to any group of whatever age, it's a great high for me to feel like I'm making connections and I'm learning and they're learning. I hope and dream that working at the church will have plenty of those rewarding moments to feed and sustain me, and that I'll actually be a positive force in these kids' lives. When I start thinking about the possibilities and the ideas my mind just starts racing, and it's hard to keep focused because there's so much going on in my head.

I don't know what this job, and its possibilities, mean for me on a longterm basis. I can't figure out if I will finish my dissertation. It's an odd beast. I love being a student, and I love teaching, but I have to force myself to write about literature. I could talk all day, and I love reading groups, but it's hard to force myself and I have no willpower on a broader scale when it comes to doing things I don't enjoy. I know that I would enjoy being finished with the stupid thing, but I can come up with a million different tasks to do instead of it. After all, I've been procrastinating for years about it. My daughter will be four soon, and I (should have) started on it before she was born.

I don't know what to do with my life. How old am I, and I still can't figure out what to be, even though I've been grown up for years? Anyway, I guess I need to figure out if I'm going to finish with the dissertation and get the PhD, just to have it, because I hate to think that I've wasted so many years working on it not to finish it (but then part of me thinks - if I have learned and grown through the work, isn't that a reward too?). I know I would disappoint my parents, and probably Hubs, and other people if I dropped the PhD. The question I can't answer yet is, would I disappoint myself?