A Mini-Celebration

I just turned in my thesis proposal, which has been my obsession, my baby, and the source of at least 70% of my stress for the past 10 months. This is a very exciting, albeit terror-inducing, moment. On the one hand, I have the knowledge that I'm done with the written part (!), but on the other hand are the dreaded facts that (a) I can't make any more changes, so if I misspelled "psychology," or "stereotype," or "the," there's nothing I can do about it and (b) in 13 days, I have to stand up in front of three (3!) tenured faculty members and explain to them why this is a worthy project. Gah!

My printer, for its part, did an admirable job of printing out the 70-page document twice (I apologize to all the trees that made the ultimate sacrifice so that I could be one step closer to having the initials "M.S." behind my name). Now that it has completed that task, however, it has decided that it no longer wishes to be associated with academia and has handed in its resignation so that it can go join a commune in Sri Lanka.

4 Months To Go!

I put on a pair of shoes this morning that I haven't worn in a while and I've spent the past five hours coming to terms with the fact that my feet are growing. As a result of which, my shoes are now sitting under my desk and my feet are wandering around the office with no footwear whatsoever. I'm hoping there aren't any gross fungi in the carpet, but if the alternative is to squish my feet back into those ridiculously tiny shoes? I'll just pick up some anti-fungal cream on my way home.

And another thing. I have stretch marks on my knees. MY KNEES, for crying out loud. I just want to take this opportunity to point out the fact that my knees? THEY AREN'T STRETCHING. There is no baby growing there. So what's with the marks?

I'm assuming that The Bug is in some way responsible for both the clown feet and the oddly placed stretch marks, as well as the fact that my belly button has migrated to the outside of my body. Mostly, I'm okay with all of this, but this kid had better be really, really cute to compensate for all the not-so-cute things he's doing to me.

On the plus side, there are few greater motivators to getting your thesis done than the knowledge that in exactly 4 months, you will be responsible for an actual, human person who will wake you up at all hours of day and night and who will probably not let you write a coherent sentence, let alone a well-analyzed thesis.

Mr. Mailman, Bring Me A Box

McMoose gets lots of packages, mostly because he orders random things online--cards for his favorite game, books, gemstones, etc. And he's ridiculously, annoyingly patient, which means that he has no problem waiting for these things to get here in the mail. I, on the other hand, am very into instant gratification and if I decide to buy something, I like to have it in my possession NOW. So whenever possible, I shop at actual, physical stores. Except that it isn't always possible and then I have to order something online and then? I spend the next 5-7 days thinking "Is it here yet? I wonder when it'll get here. Maybe it's here now. Ooh, was that the mail truck? I'd better go check."

I ordered contacts online last weekend because I've been slowly running out since November and I think that after a month of use, my last set of two-week contacts is finally at the end of its rope. And since then, I've checked the website no fewer than four times a day to see the status. Now mind you, they didn't provide a tracking number or anything, so the status always reads "Shipped." That's it. No further details. And yet, I still check. FOUR TIMES A DAY.

And so far today, I've checked the mailbox three times under the guise of taking The Dog for a walk. The Dog, by the way, is now hiding under the bed because he's worried that if he shows his face, he might have to go on another walk. I don't know how McMoose does this, because waiting for things to come in the mail is EXHAUSTING.

A Mish-Mash of A Post

• My car insurance bill this month had a very strongly worded statement about how, if I can't manage to pay my monthly bills on time, the privilege of being able to pay each month instead of every six months would be taken away. And? The statement was even IN BOLD. With RED LETTERING. It was all very official and I imagine this is what it feels like to be called to the Principal's office.
• I had a meeting with my advisor this morning. I promised her it would take no more than 20 minutes. In reality, it took nearly 50. But it was quite possibly the most helpful 50 minutes I've had since beginning my graduate program 2-and-a-half years ago, thanks in part to the statement made by my advisor that she will do physical harm to anyone who asks foolish questions about my research. Now that that's taken care of, all I have to worry about is the 20,000 possible NON foolish questions I might have to answer.
• Before I left the house this morning, I put one sock on my foot and the other sock in my purse. I'm still completely confused about this because WHAT in the world would possess a person to do that? I mean, it's not like putting on two socks is a complicated or novel process. It's something I do EVERY SINGLE DAY. There should be no room for error at this point.

My Triumph

If I were a comic book character, my arch-nemesis would be the newspaper salesman who sits outside my building for the three days at the start of every semester and tries to lure me into buying newspapers for three months. Last semester, I fell for it and from September through December, we got a newspaper delivered at an ungodly hour every morning and all these newspapers sat in a pile in our dining room because even though the IDEA of reading a newspaper every day is very appealing, the reality is that I'm not a newspaper-reading type of person. I'm more of a read-the-news-online-at-random-intervals type of person. So finally, before we left town for the holidays, we took three months worth of papers to the recycling facility and I promised McMoose that I would never fall for the evil newspaper salesman's pitch again.

And that promise might be the most difficult one I've ever had to keep. Because the newspaper salesman? He is the devil incarnate. He sees into my soul and he knows exactly what pitch to use and before I know it, I find myself standing there thinking how nice it would be to read the newspaper every day. So when I passed him on Monday morning, I kept my head turned resolutely forward and didn't even pause on my way into the building. And when I passed him on Monday afternoon, I paused for a quick minute when he revealed to me that I could subscribe to just the Sunday paper for the low, low price of $6 per month. But I marshaled all my willpower and kept on walking. And I avoided campus yesterday, partly because I didn't want to deal with the likes of him.

And then came today. I forgot he'd be there, so I was completely unprepared when he greeted me with, "Did you know you could get the paper delivered every other day for just $45 for three months? AND you'd get a free hat with out logo on it!" And I thought wow! A free hat! And a newspaper every other day! For just $45! How cool! And just as I was about to go fill out the subscription form, it occurred to me that last semester, when I got the newspaper EVERY SINGLE DAY, I paid just $30 for three months. So I'd be paying an extra $15 AND only be getting half the number of papers. Which means, basically, that I'd be paying $30 for a hat which I'd never wear. It was much easier to walk away today.

The Most Ridiculous Advice Ever

At the start of this pregnancy, I was super excited about each one of my doctor's appointments because they were so exciting. Plus, until I started showing, the 35 minutes per month that I spent in the obstetric waiting room was the only time when I felt like a Pregnant Person as opposed to, say, a Person With Food Poisoning. Now that I look like I've swallowed a (very large) bowling ball and The Bug spends all his waking moments testing out his leg muscles, "feeling pregnant" is no longer a problem for me, so the doctor's appointments are significantly less exciting.

Of course, this drop in the excitement levels probably also have a lot to do with the fact that at each of my last four appointments, I've been told to drink more water. It was sensible advice the first time I received it because I was legitimately dehydrated. But at this point, I'm already drinking 100-120 oz of water a day, so to tell me to drink more water? Not really helpful. Furthermore, when you spend half your day drinking water, you tend to spend the other half of your day running to the bathroom.

As it turns out, when you reveal to the Doctor that you spend half your day running to the bathroom, it causes her to get a very concerned look on her face and then order Tests X, Y, and Z. Which in turn caused my anxiety levels to go THROUGH THE ROOF. And 20 minutes later, at the end of what turned out to be an unexpectedly painful and complicated visit, she said, "Oh, everything looks fine, but make sure you DRINK MORE WATER."

And then, my water-logged head exploded in frustration.

Back In The Saddle Again

First, Happy 2009!

Second, the past two weeks have been the fastest two weeks of my life. Here's a (very) abbreviated summary:
-Drove to Mississippi. Had lots of contractions, and therefore, lots of related panic. But 800 ounces of water later, all was well.
-Nephew had a first birthday party, where he looked warily at the people, but enjoyed his toys.
-We had a not-so-much surprise baby shower, where we looked warily at the people who participated in the Sniff The Diaper game, but enjoyed the toys. And the food.
-McMoose got to feel The Bug kick for the first time, which means that I no longer have to wonder if I'm just hallucinating the movements.
-The poor, sad Matrix now has TWO cracks on the windshield instead of one. On the plus side, this will probably encourage me to (finally) take it in to be fixed. And on the plus-er side, at least this happened BEFORE I got the first crack fixed.
-The Dog has spent the past two weeks having his nose and eyes poked, his tail pulled, and his feet stepped on by our one-year-old nephew. And at some point, the kid found out that if he whapped The Dog's head with hard toys, it makes a funny hollow sound. It was also at this point that The Dog began sighing dramatically every time the kid entered the room. However, any time the kid fell and hurt himself, The Dog was the first responder on the scene, so I'm hoping that once The Bug gets here, his protective instincts will win out over his eat-the-annoying-small-person instincts.
-The cats are alive and well and very curious about the hand-me-down baby things we brought back with us. I'm still trying to convince McMoose it would be fun to see if Yellow Cat will fit into a newborn outfit, but so far, no luck. Yellow Cat probably appreciates McMoose's stance on this issue.