Updates

1) Jeff is not good. The pollyp things on his lungs are bigger now. I only have three days scheduled to come home for Christmas so I can't spend much time with him when I come. It's freakin me the heck on out. My Christmas retail job will fire me if I don't work the day after Xmas, and my boss just told me yesterday that she will be able to hire me on permanently after the holidays, so I need not to get fired. Rarrr...

2) Teaching is going pretty well - I need to get ready to regroup and re-plan for the second half of the year, to figure out what I'm doing wrong and right. My plan for this semester was basically "survive and don't quit" so on that scale it's been a rousing success.

3) Grandma and Mom came for Turkey Day. We braved the scary mall sales with the objective of using my Employee Discount. My grandma wanted to buy me a purse. So I picked one out., but grandma continued showing me purses - she actually made a line of purses on a shelf and said, "ok, I'll buy you any of these." Keep in mind, the purse I wanted was a perfectly respectible, blue-gray faux alligator Liz Claiborne, on sale for $16. Ok so blue alligator is kinda weird. But I'm kinda weird! I won out, and when I brought it to the register, the sales lady goes, "cute purse!" Grandma and Mom, who were slap-happy from the long day of sightseeing and shopping, not to mention the Purse Debacle, laughed so hard they had to walk away from the counter.

Jeff

My brother has cancer, of the lining of the blood vessels. He's doing chemo. He's got some time, unless the cancer spreads to organs. He has a lot of pain because it hardens blood vessels, and gives him crazy headaches. Also it causes polyps in the lungs, though those are clearing up. It's terminal, and there's no cure. My brother is 39, and newly married.


FUCK.

Kim accidentally watches a movie about lesbians, again

Without properly reading the back cover, I rented Julie Johnson, a movie about a working-class woman who throws out the husband who doesn't believe in her, and finds a new career and true love. Oh, and she also realizes she's a lesbian. Actually I have nothing against movies about lesbians, and have been known to rent them on purpose (Kissing Jessica Stein was really good, Saving Face was ok). But lately I keep renting them by accident, and getting home and saying, "oh man, girls kissing. again!"

Anyway with that vaguely homophobic diatribe over, this movie was pretty good. I can't resist a movie about a woman who throws off her old life and goes after her dreams. In Julie's case, it's a career in science. Movies about that make me realize what I've gained by not taking a more traditional direction. Freedom is lonely, but worth it.

I feel like a new boy

Random thoughts:

1) The Dems took control of the House and Senate, and Rummy is gone, all in one day! Yippee! And Iowa has a Democratic governor. In Iowa City, this guy who ran a progressive thinktank in the building next to me (actually his window was directly across from mine. Hope I closed the blinds when changing clothes) is going to congress for the first time. Seriously, it's like Christmas in Nov.

2) One of my students called me "Mom" accidentally yesterday. I laughed my ass off which embarrassed the hell out of the student. That probably further reinforced the connection between me and said maternal figure, if you think about it.

3) I had a dream last night that I was watching a video of my friends and I working on some sort of craft project for charity. I was wearing a bandana covering my hair, I had lost weight, and I was wearing a button-up shirt with cargo pants. I was quickly drawing designs on a piece of fabric and cutting them out, working feverishly and impulsively. Most of the shots of me were in profile, so my nose was sort of prominent. I looked like someone, not me, and I couldn't figure it out - and then it dawned on me, I looked like the artist formerly known as OOMMA!

4) Carolyn came to visit last weekend. Now she is back in MD. :(