We're here!

Writing dropped off the priorities list after my last post in October because we did, in fact, move to Snowy State (although there's still no snow here).  J got a job in Snowy State literally days after my last post--a college friend called on a Thursday to say that if J could be there on Monday, there was a job waiting for him, so he drove off with a car full of stuff and the cat.  It's not a super reliable job, since theater work is unreliable work: when it rains it pours, but when there's nothing, there's nothing.  Because J works on the technical set construction end, his kind of jobs dry up once the acting starts, as with the start of all the big Christmas shows.  

Between my stipend and pinching our pennies, we're doing ok.  J lived with my mother in October/November while looking for an apartment, and I stayed in Cloudy City to finish teaching, sublet our apartment, and finish the move out on that end.  The Post Office has lost at least two of the twenty-three boxes (yes, 23!) of books I mailed, which concerns me since my academic and craft books are hard to find and expensive.  

My sewing machine is also somewhere in transition across the country, so with the unpacking and holidays there will be minimal craft making.  I've felt a little at loose ends since getting unpacked because I usually mix writing time with craft project time, and most of my sewing/craft things are either still in the mail or were donated.  I'm trying to keep purchases minimal right now because of J's job situation and all the travel I'll be doing for research after the holidays (hello, airplane craft projects), but it just feels odd to have so much of our usual stuff around and then reach for a pair of scissors and not be able to find them or be sad to not have glitter.  (Although there is no such thing as too much glitter anyway).

Moving forward . . .

My mother works with a lot of corporate bureaucrats, although she isn't one herself, so "moving forward" is one of her favorite phrases to use when she's annoyed with the way things are (not) progressing.

J had another job interview yesterday, near Major Metropolis.  It was a place that sounded good at first: union, union wages, health care, good pay, good location.  But at his interview he was told that overtime is mandatory, there are layoffs every three months of people who are deemed "no longer useful" and the shop only works when there is work, and sometimes there isn't work.  That last part is pretty standard in the theater business, but the rest sounds sketchy, especially since we would have to move long distance for him to work there and there isn't much other work for him in the area if he were to be laid off.

Moving home to Snowy State is looking more and more likely, since he's gotten some offers for short term work there, his professional network is pretty strong there, and our families are both nearby if he can't find something for a while.  Cost of living is also lower.

Moving to Snowy State is looking so likely, in fact, that we're selling a lot of our furniture this week and making preparations for him to drive out there at the end of the week if we don't hear a gold plated offer from the sketchy place.  It's a bit jarring, because we've been sitting on our hands for so long and now things are suddenly moving forward so quickly.

I had to go through my fabric stash to get rid of things for the move (Snowy State is a multi-day drive, and we can't afford movers or to ship much).  Some of it I was able to get rid of with a sense of relief, because I've been sitting on it for so long that it's no longer exciting, and there's an awesome sewing/fabric thrift store in our town that only does donated fabric and notions, so it's going to a good cause.  But I still have a ton that I have plans for but no time for.  I'm increasingly excited to move near family in Snowy State, but parring down my fabric stash and the plans I had for it feels like a big break with the plans I had in Cloudy City.

Where have I been?

Out of the stockpot, into the fire?

It's been since July since I posted!  It got so easy to push off posting until next week, then the week after, then the week after.  Mostly this has been because of anxiety over two big issues that came up over the summer.

J has done lots and lots of applications, and even got a job offer, but the place that offered him the job stopped responding to phone calls or emails before he had a chance to start.  He's currently in limbo at another place where he got to the final round of interviews (as in, he was one of three candidates), but the hiring committee has pushed off notifying for two weeks running now.  Both of these would have meant major interstate moves for us, as would all the other applications he's put out without hearing back about.  Right now we're contemplating a move back to Snowy State, where our parents live and J has a network for finding freelance work because we went to school there.

The other big issue has been a threatening-to-become-major medical issue for me, some joint pain which has started to impair my mobility and ability to do things like type, knit, and sew for long periods.  I thankfully have insurance coverage for it, despite J's work situation, because I'm still insured through my family due to my student status, so that at least has not contributed to the anxiety.  The good of it has been that my doctor hasn't found indications of rheumatoid arthritis or anything else which would cause long term damage, but not having a diagnosis means also not having a treatment plan.

So while nothing actively bad has happened to us, the lack of forward motion, the looming certainty of our January get-out-of-town deadline, the uncertainty of where we would go, and the possibility of losing my ability to do both my job and my favorite hobbies for an undiagnosable medical reason has made for a lot of anxiety and fear here at chez Construct.  That the joint pain may be itself a symptom of anxiety over the whole situation hasn't helped.

I'll be trying to get back into the swing of blogging again.  AB's posts over at Secret Confessions of a Trailing Spouse have always been encouraging, so I know this too shall pass.

Visibility and Women's Work

Since finding out our moving plans, I've had a bit of a blah.  Like emotionally just being relieved to have a direction, but not having the energy to do anything about it.  So we've made booze (basil vodka, steeped for two days--great with strawberry liqueur and a little ginger ale), and I've been thinking about my own position next year and the year after.

 I've never really thought explicitly about myself as someone who was defined by their job, but really, that's a big reason I'm in grad school.  My father is defined by his job and profoundly unhappy because of it; my mother defines herself (I think) much more as someone who paints, cooks, gardens, and mothers, and is happier for it.  Her job is important to her, but she's managed role shifts and job shifts within her career, and not been shaken by them, and that's always much more how I saw myself.

So I find myself a little adrift this summer trying to self-motivate towards research and writing, with the thought of picking up, moving, and self-motivating elsewhere for a year.  I'll teach in the fall, and I definitely don't see myself primarily as a teacher (although that is an important part of why I wanted to be an academic).  But this whole "you're done with coursework, go write a book!" thing with no road map leaves me feeling a little lost.

Grading and Moving

The picture is of VERY early iris at the arboretum in Overcast; my iris at the house are up but not even budded (it's still tulip and daffodil season at home).  The arboretum is one of the things which has made me feel grounded in Overcast . . . it has been a place to go to figure out what's native, what's invasive, and what varieties will grow well here, so thinking about moving sometime in the next year, it feels sad to visit it.

This weekend was spent antiquing and plant-buying with my mother, so expect a few catch-up posts on that.  The next few days will be spent in a blur of grading and waiting in anticipation of news.  The deadline on the grant which will tell us the date of our move is this week, but as with all things academic. I'm not holding my breath that this will be done on time.  J is casting a wider geographic net in his job search, which I think makes us both feel better about our prospects for next year.  This week with my mother here has made me want to be back in Snowy State, but also made me realize that a year in Snowy State would mean very little research or writing.  Keep your fingers crossed for us this week . . . a no on the grant will mean a semester of pure research and writing, but a yes on the grant will mean an extra semester of support from my university.  A funny place to be in.

Job Hunting

Another non-sewing post, another cat picture.  Groceries loves putting his face on J's mousepad for some reason; maybe it's warmer?  At any rate, it's not helpful when J is trying to look for jobs.  

We've found ourselves in a position strangely similar to that of AB and her husband J, and AB's blog is a good read if you're dealing with uncertainty (or want to see some awesome cactus hats).  We're waiting to hear about one last fellowship which would keep us in Overcast for fall semester, but otherwise it's mostly official that we'll be chased out of town for part of next year, so J is looking for jobs.  Not with too much anxiety, because we have at least three months and potentially as much as six months until we would have to move, but job hunting makes both of us a little anxious.

J has a degree in Theater, and he's trained as a carpenter and technical designer, so he builds sets and props and makes sure they're safe to union standards.  Hiring positions are surprisingly narrow, so much so that this theater search seems a lot like the academic job search I'll be doing in a few years.  Lots of decoding job ads, massaging the resume to fit, looking nationally for the few jobs in his narrow field.  And apparently, although there's a lot of theater in NYC, a lot of their sets are built out in Yonkers and beyond (probably because large spaces for building large sets is cheaper).  So there's the possibility we may end up in some suburb of NYC, which I know even less about than Brooklyn.

We--mostly I--are also wrestling with the possibility of moving home to Snowy State.  Not moving in with my parents, who live there, but with getting an apartment near where J and I went to college (which is also near my parents).  My parents and I get along great, and they love J, so that's not the problem--the problem is that my parents love hanging out too much.  I also used to volunteer with a group in Snowy State that demands a lot more time than I have to give--it was great in high school and college when I had no job and lots of free weekends, but now I have a dissertation to write.  

Snowy State is otherwise great for what we need--a large university, lots of theater jobs, easy access to flights to the archives I need to go to.  But I'm afraid my parents and my old volunteer group would demand so much time that I would get nothing read and even less written.  Not helping matters is that I'm the only person of my family or social circle who's gone to graduate school--no one seems to understand that, while the school will give me free money to write, that money won't last forever and writing takes as much time as a real job, because it is a real job.  Academia has its own problems with recognizing writing as real work--by demanding it for hiring and promotion, but progressively cutting back resources for faculty and graduate students to have time to write--but my extended family ranges from supportive but confused to outright hostile to the idea that I'm being paid to essentially write a book.  

That ranged a little far from job searches and moving, but the point is this: we're looking for jobs nationally except for the two places I really want to be, Overcast and Snowy State.  And it makes my heart hurt.  The good news is that this move will be for two years at most, so it's not a forever move, but I feel like these moves put life on hold for so long.  Not that that keeps me from reupholstering couches in the mean time.

On the Possibility of Being a Trailing Spouse

What you mean I got to move, two-legs?

All those fellowship rejection letters are rolling in (with a few yes-letters), and they've thrown my comfortable grad school routine of enroll-TA-complain out of order.  I didn't get the big fellowships I applied for, but I have gotten enough small ones to patch together a year of funding not dependant on being a TA.  Which would mean a year of research and writing as my full-time job (which is a thought terrifying by itself).

But Snooty U also requires that if you don't TA, you have to be at least 100 miles away from Overcast during your non-TAing semesters, and now requires a lease or some other proof of this (they didn't used to be so strict about it).  It's like an academic restraining order.  (Not to diminish the importance of real restraining orders).  But what it means is that the one place I cannot be is Overcast.

And since J has had a year of not working in his chosen field (theater) since there is no theater in Overcast, we've decided to look at moving some place that has both a large university and/or archives for me, and a large theater scene for J.  Those places have been narrowed down to Chicago and Brooklyn, but for a while we were looking at basically the entirety of the northern Midwest and the Northeast.  Terrifying.  My advisor Dr. Asiago has voted for Brooklyn, since my dissertation is New York centered and there are more archives there, but somehow the thought of moving out of Overcast not for a tenure-track job didn't occur to me.  Like I knew it was a possibility that I would go somewhere exciting for research like London or Paris (still in the list of possibilities) but the reality of moving somewhere kind of random half way through grad school didn't really sink in for me until all of these funding sources started to fall into place recently.  (I know, what a problem to have, right?)

The lovely Ethel Louise had a post up a while back about frogging graduate school--in a knitting metaphor, to rip out all the foolish things you did and redo it with knowledge of those foolish things.  It's not directly related to the possibility of temporarily being a trailing spouse, but it's been rolling around in my head thinking about where my life is going and whether I'd have made the choices I've made over again.  This moving thing has really given me pause, but I think it's more about the moving than about graduate school causing me to move.  I grew up living outside a town of less than 500, and went to school in a town of less than 5000, so the thought of living in Brooklyn or Chicago gave me a little panic attack when it went from "wouldn't it be cool if" to "the university says you have to be out of town by January 1."

And in a lot of ways, I'm fortunate in ways some trailing spouses aren't: our decision to move is going to be largely shaped by where I can work in archives, and the impetus to move is coming from my job and not J's.  So I guess this is all a long way of saying that the change in my situation has made me appreciate the uncertainty traveling spouses like AB deal with.

I've been kind of sitting on this post for a while because it's been hard to write.  And some of my funding is still uncertain, but as of now, it looks like we'll be in Overcast for the summer and fall, and moving (somewhere) in January.  I can't really bear the thought of deciding what of our stuff to sell and what to move right now, which is silly, but like I said in my post about gardening, this apartment feels like the closest to home right now because of the marks J and I have put on it together, and of course another apartment would have that eventually, but it's hard to think about right now.  Hopefully there will be a post soon about some happily finished knitting and sewing projects to make up for this downer.

The utter sugary chaos

J's birthday was this weekend, and between that, his sister coming to visit for said birthday, and keeping up with the class I'm teaching, the above is what my Saturday looked like.  And yes, that's four kinds of jello and two bowls of cake batter.  J got marble cupcakes and this somewhat daunting confection:

J was deprived of jello as a child, so for the birthdays we've been in the same state for (not many, since we were long distance for my first two years of grad school), I've made him jello cakes.  (His sister hates jello, hence both the childhood deprivation and the marble cupcakes).  The first one I did had jiggler letters suspended in clear gelatin (which was a little disturbing even though it was sweetened and flavored), and I've been waiting to make this one ever since I saw this.  I couldn't find a bundt pan, which I think makes the original look even more epic, but the really thin-walled ice ring mold I had I think made it easier to slip it out when it was finished.  (When everything is set, the whole mold gets dipped in hot water, without the water going over into the jello, to loosen it from the sides and let it slip out).  

I used plain, unsweetened yogurt to cloud the pastel layers, and it didn't affect the taste or mouthfeel much except to cut the sweetness a little (a good thing, in my opinion).  I shook the jello and yogurt together in a small tupperware to mix them, since the yogurt stayed lumpy when mixed in with a spoon or fork, so that's why the yellow pastel layer has bubbles in it.  Each layer set for 45-60 minutes, and then I let the whole thing set for another two hours.  It came out pretty wobbly, and would have been less wobbly if it had set longer, but we were working on a deadline.  Overall, I thought it was pretty successful, and J was happy with it.  Definitely not something I would have made for myself, though.  Anyone else done any epic cooking or craft projects for someone you love/care for that you wouldn't have done for yourself?

Snow Day

Snowmaggedon '11 continues, and for this, I present the Punch Buggy (actually J's creation): brandy, black raspberry brandy, orange liquer, blueberry liquer and lemon.

I drove J to work today in order to have the car for errands, and ended up stranded at the coffeeshop next door to his liquor store for several hours.  Fortunately one of my errand stops was in the same complex as his store, so I was able to buy many, many buttons before camping out in the coffeeshop and writing a few paragraphs for a paper I'm presenting in a few weeks.

J's work actually ended up closing early due to the bad weather, so I made him drive home, but it really drove home how fortunate (privileged?) I am in academia that I was able to cancel section last week due to bad weather with nothing more than an email to the prof and the students.  That's part of the benefit of being salaried rather than hourly, in that the hours I am in-building don't directly translate to the pay I receive, as J's hours in retail do.  My wages, benefits, and hours aren't the direct effect of union efforts, but it really worries me that the system I benefit from is under attack.  And not just because I benefit from it--because it seems to me the best way to maintain a happy, stable country.

I'm following the Wisconsin/Ohio/Indiana/anti-labor and anti-women news lately rather closely, but I'm having trouble making sense of it and I don't really know why.  I'm teaching anti-labor history in the course I TA right now, but the motivations as explained to me and as I read them in the materials for the course are so cartoonishly evil that they're easy to dismiss.  (Maybe this is part of the reason why my students find it so easy to dismiss connections between what they read and what they see?)

I think part of the problem is that, whether because of my liberal-midwest-elite-SLAC education or my liberal-poor-working class upbringing, I've come to see unionization, progressive tax codes, education, reproductive choice, and social safety nets as so self-evidently intrinsic to this functioning of this country that I can't see the logic of Republican attacks on them.  And there must be some appeal to that logic, or so many people wouldn't have voted Republicans in last election cycle.

But if the other side's logic is really so hard to find, is it much of a logic at all?  I can concisely state the pro-choice, feminazi socialist agenda is three sentences or less; I can't do the same for the pro (unborn) life, fiscally retrogressive capitalist agenda, and not for lack of trying.  I think it's emblematic of the problem that the right uses partisan rhetoric while the "left" tries to hang on to discourse or dialogue without another participant to dialogue with.  (And I am skeptical and disappointed in the state of the left in this country, which anywhere else in the world would be the centrist or even right wing).

So I suppose the point is this: booze good, politics disappointing and disheartening.

This is how we do

Very well read houseplants

V Day at chez Construction was very chill--work for J, class, microfilm and a workshop on archives note taking for me.  J's presents--two houseplants I've been waaaaanting for a long time--are up on the book shelf that gets the most light.  

Then lots and lots of delivery Thai food (fried tofu and fried bananas in the same meal?  Yes please!) and a good day was had by all.  There may be some Super Mario in the near future as well. 

The archival notes workshop was a lot of repetition of things I've found out myself the hard way, but two professors showed how they file things on their computers to keep track of them, and that's got me thinking about the mess that is my own system.  Which was a system before I started doing a lot of archival work, but is now a smoking pile of ruin and too many photos.  Dr. Asiago wants a detailed primary bibliography of everything I've worked on so far and everything I know about but haven't seen, and it's been a huge pain to put together because I haven't kept a running central list of everything I've looked at.  So I suppose there will soon be posts about shuffling research files around on my computer or something equally boring.

I've also got a meeting with him tomorrow that I'm sort of dreading about the prospectust that won't die--rather than reading the newest draft and OKing it, he "wants to talk about it."  Which means that there's probably another draft in the near future as well.

To the archives!

After last night's car drama, J and I bussed to the archive today, and we're back on track for the stress of doing research travel with a spouse.  This involved a brisk walk across a lot of partially plowed imperial plazas and side walks in State Capitol, which was probably the most pleasant part of the day.  

Most of my stress surrounding this trip (pre car drama) was in the planning: I have a lot of flexibility in leaving Overcast City for research travel, because I'm only locked in to teach one day a week.  I'm TAing, so I can miss lecture the rest of the week and it's not too big of a deal.  J, on the other hand, works retail, and has neither regular nor back-to-back days off.  I originally had a four-day research extravaganza planned, because like all good research trips, my last trip to State Archives ended with me stumbling onto an amazing collection of records which no one has worked with before, and which the archivist told me I wouldn't be interested in or find helpful.  They are, in fact, actually what I need for the last chapter of my dissertation, and I found them literally a half hour before leaving the archive last time.

This post is dedicated to

Just a regular evening, "hiding" in the couch.

J, and Kyle, the tow truck driver who rescued us from freezing to death in rural Cloudy State and gave us a scenic tour of State Capitol while driving us to a repair shop.

This post was going to be about the stress of planning for a research trip with partner in tow (no pun intended), but now it's about the stress of having a minor single car accident during a research trip. I am ok, J is ok, we didn't really nearly freeze to death. What we did do is decide to try to leave Cloudy City for State Capitol before Snowmageddon '11 was supposed to start, and spun out into a guard rail on the interstate without hitting any other cars. We broke a headlight, a turn signal, most of the front passenger corner, and probably the radiator. At any rate, when started back up, the engine runs but belches a lot of anti-freeze smelling steam/smoke, makes horrible noises, and spills antifreeze everywhere.

We have AAA, who called a tow truck for us, but because we decided to drive in Snowmageddon '11, there were a lot of other people who needed tow trucks also, and we had to wait for two hours for ours. But at least that gave us time to call J's sister and have her look up the best-reviewed mechanics in State Capitol on the interwebs, for us to call them, and find one that had space to look at the car tomorrow. Right now the plan is to see if they can make it safe to drive so we can be back in Cloudy City by Friday (both J and I are scheduled to work), rent a car to get to the state archive in the mean time, and if it's not, arrange to drive the rental car back to Cloudy City and come back for the broken car later. It may get sold or scrapped once it's repaired-ish. We're not sure about that, it depends on how much the repairs get quoted as.

So far the cost of repairs, towing, etc, is not going to break our budget. I got a very generous research grant to look at collections at this archive, and we've been very frugal with the hotel and other expenses, so my research grant will probably cover the accident and our hotel and rental car, maybe with a little bit out of pocket. Of course, I can't report that the research grant money was spent on the car repair, but it makes me feel better to think about it as replacement of the money spent on the very foolish car accident.

So that's why there's a picture of our cat sitting with his head in our couch. It's a cat blogging kind of day.  At least today will make a good anecdote on the dedications page when my dissertation gets published

Huswifery

I'm using a few of my days (sort of) off before classes start to do some organizing, laundry, and general huswifery. We had a lot of people over right before the holidays, and between that, letting things slide for finals, and then going to my parents' for a few weeks and leaving my partner J home by himself, things need to get straightened back up. J does the majority of our housework, like dishes, cooking, and sweeping/mopping, but he's not very good at landing things where they need to go (or at least, where I think they need to go). And my sewing machine is in the shop with something wrong in the bobbin case, so I might as well make the office/sewing room usable again before I make more messes in there. My poor house plants in the office aren't too happy with J's overwatering and underwatering over the holiday, but that's also partly because our little town of Overcast has been so cloudy all winter.

I feel bad sometimes about all the housework J does, because sometimes it feels like we're replicating the old academic roles of disengaged academic and housebound non-academic spouse with the genders reversed, but then I get over it. Our third anniversary (of dating, not marriage) is this weekend, and we moved in together permanently about six months ago. We started dating in college right after I'd decided to move halfway across the country from Snow City to Overcast to go to Snooty U for grad school, and we planned on dating only for the rest of that academic year. Well, that didn't work out, and we decided to go long distance even though he had another two years of college left (I know, robbing the cradle). He graduated this spring and moved out here, which kind of put his career on hold because there's only work in his field here during the summer. He's working at a wine store for the winter, which is at least something he enjoys and which gets us free wine, but I worry that for all my feminism I'm just replicating old gender roles. At least he's not supporting me through grad school and we don't have that sitting between us. Living together certainly lets us afford a better apartment than either of us could afford separately, but that doesn't bother me so much. I think we're doing ok with it by talking the issue to death every time something happens, but I hate to make someone a trailing spouse since (I hate to admit it) I'm not sure that I would be able to be the trailing spouse myself.

Back to the organizing. My desk has been taken over by stacks of paper, electronics, and piles of art that need frames or hangers or just wall space. And a puzzle we started before Christmas and haven't finished yet. I have a little collection of vintage souvenir plates, and I got six more for Christmas that have to get put up somewhere, plus prints and photos that have been sitting around for months. I'm much less productive trying to write on the couch or at the kitchen table (couch + computer = Internet for me), so getting the desk cleared up and organized again will get me back to work. And I'm telling myself I need a few days to recover from being with my family for the holiday (I just flew back to Overcast the day before the first post here). Plus there's the problem that my sewing pile and fabric stash overflowed from its dresser in the spare bedroom and all over my desk chair, so that has to get taken care of and put away somewhere first. And then some felllowship applications will get written, and there will be a research trip later this month, and then I will do some sewing as a reward.