Life

I'm sitting on the futon in my office with a warm orange purring ball of kittyfur curled up next to me and making my left leg warm.  This is inherently soothing.  Purring cats are the best thing on the planet.

As mentioned previously (not that this is in any way escapable outside of the realm of this blog), it's March Madness pt. 1 this week.  And I love March Madness.  And my team played tonight.  Brownie and I spent way too much time coming up with game plans (probably because talking about anything else - aka "where the hell will we get paychecks after May 30th - is too depressing).  We were about halfway into the first half, excited and squealing and cheering, when Brownie got a call from his mother: his grandfather just had a stroke and is now in the hospital.  He'll be there at least overnight, and we have no idea what all is going on.

Poof: the oxygen was sucked out of the room, and we spent the rest of the first half pretty much silent.  Brownie finally managed to get ahold of his mom again during half time.  We found pretty much nothing else - we have no idea what condition he's in exactly, or where they think the stroke hit, or if he's in danger or what.  Brownie then watched about 3 minutes of the second half, cheered some, and packed it off to bed.  His mom called right as the game ended to find out the final score.  I think she and Brownie's dad were leaving the hospital then.  I think. 

Right after we heard, we both settled into the really helpless feeling of knowing that someone's life is in danger, that there's nothing we can do, and that a lot of people are really upset because of this but there isn't really any way to help.  Add to that Brownie dealing with the possibility of losing his grandfather.  He clammed up and didn't really want to talk (he was getting really sleepy), so I don't know exactly what he's feeing.

I'm torn, really.  I started initially to feel guilty for being able to enjoy the game again after halftime, after we'd gotten just enough news to know that his grandfather hadn't died on the way to the hospital.  I don't know if I need to feel guilty though.  I don't really think so.  The thinking goes like this:  if it had been necessary or if us being there would have been able to help anything in some small way, we would have quit the game, hopped in the car, and joined his parents and aunt and uncle at the hospital.  And that would have been more than fine.  However, we were told to stay home and enjoy the rest of the game.  Brownie was tired and went to bed and eventually I really did enjoy the rest of the game.  But I wondered: should I?  or should I worry? or fret? or... what?  There really is nothing I can do for anyone.  Therefore, it's better that I enjoyed the rest of the game, rather than that I sat and worried and did nothing, isn't it?

Brownie's family (very Catholic) is fond of teasing me (Episcopalian) that I have no sense of Catholic guilt whatsoever.  I'm typically very proud of this.  I can't, however, figure out if what I'm feeling right now is a type of guilt, that I'm having fun when something awful has happened to a family member, or if I did the smarter thing by managing to let go of some of the worry once I knew I couldn't do anything, couldn't help anyone, wouldn't be sitting by someone in a hospital waiting room all night.

Is there a script out there for this sort of thing?  Something out there somewhere that I missed?

Nearing the year's end

Brownie's interview seems to have gone well. The only sucktastic thing about it was that it was being held in the ballroom. In order to walk into the ballroom, he had to register for the conference. $65 that we really don't have after Christmas (plus $27 for parking and $5.50 for tolls), he was able to sit down at a table for an hour and interview. Nearly $100 to interview. Thanks, MLA.

I'm momentarily feeling pretty good, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that I've actually remembered for the past few days to take my Vitamin D supplement. If I'm just feeling good, then fantastic. If it's the Vitamin D helping, also fantastic. I have to remember to take it out to KS with me just in case that's what it is and I'm not just spontaneously feeling alright with the world. All of the thoughts that were weighing me down in the last post are still there, but I feel at least right now like it's manageable and that something will work out eventually.

Brownie and I are heading out to visit my parents tomorrow for a couple of weeks of decompression time before all hell breaks loose for the final semester of grad school. Going home is always weird. I love it and I have a blast with my family and I adore the friends I have out there. It's just that I have many more friends out there than I do where I am now, and all of those friends want to hang out, and I want to hang out with them, so I end up with an insanely packed social schedule that leaves me drained and moody and not wanting to go out at all (see: I'm an introvert) even as I feel pressured to because x or y night is the only night that I'll be able to see persons Q and V until next summer etc etc. And I feel guilty if I can't fit someone in, which adds to the moody. So the goal for this trip is to avoid the guilty and tired feelings by not overcommitting myself, but as I didn't manage to avoid it last year when I was out there for three weeks, I'm not sure I have much hope of being able to avoid it now when I'm only out there for two.

New Year's Resolution is quite simply to be awesome. I'd love to say something about "I'm going to blog more" or "I'm going to write more" or "I'm going to finish the fucking dissertation if it kills me" but resolutions like that never seem to stick and just add to the perpetual pile of guilty "there's something I should be doing now that I'm not because I'm doing x instead" feeling that's become so entrenched during grad school that I literally no longer can imagine the inside of my mind without it. It is a feeling I'm working on ridding myself of.

My cat is next to me on the couch and snoring. I am ded of cute.