Geeky Mom

I feel bleh. Not even blah.

Because I’m outlining training sessions that are really technical (html, css, photoshop, video editing), I’ve been in techie mode lately. I like techie mode. I feel smart in techie mode. But after lunch today, I had to shift into half techie/half writing teacher mode and I felt less smart. I just felt out of my element. Would I feel more in my element if I had those three letters after my name? I don’t think so. I felt out of my element the whole time I was working on the diss. Like I didn’t know what I was doing. Today, I began expounding about all the cool technical things we could do and then was asked where the substance was. Is there substance to technology? Or is it just a medium? A tool?

The more I’m involved in technology, the more I realize that I think differently than a lot of people. And I think that some of those people see my way of thinking as not just different, but not as good. I really want to read that Steven Johnson book. I think it will make me feel better. There was an interview with him on NPR this morning and the interviewer asked him about multitasking and Johnson said basically, “You’re missing the point. I’m talking about complexity of networks, complexity of the connections between things, not the ability to IM and email and watch tv at the same time.” And that’s the way I think–connectedly. I drove people crazy in school because I would interject something seemingly random into discussion; I always showed how it connected though. During my master’s exams, I tried to find a way to connect everything we read to Gawain and the Green Knight. I like that exercise of figuring out how things, people, places connect.

I’m hating the book I’m reading because it’s not about these connections; it’s about business. It’s very business-like. I do not want to function like a business (at least not the one depicted in the book).

I just feel bleh.

I stayed up fairly late last night not working on many of the tasks listed below, but blogging. My schedule of events was interrupted by helping Geeky Boy clean out the hamster cages and by the time I could settle in in front of the computer, my brain just was not in good shape to be writing. I had also planned to read more of one of the books, but it’s a pretty dense book and not at all interesting, so I put that off too. I did read some articles in the New York Times and the Chronicle. But that was it.

Then I got up at 6:30, not to exercise or anything, but, you guessed it, to blog. Is there a problem here? Maybe, but I’d be watching tv and frankly the blogs I read are about 4 million times more interesting (and better written) than anything on tv.

I realized last week that a half hour of relaxing, drinking coffee and reading was not enough to prepare me for the mad rush of getting myself and two children (and a husband) ready for school. I absolutely must have some time to myself before facing the day or I am cranky. Mr. Geeky is like that at the end of the day. Having time to myself has always been extremely important to me and thankfully Mr. Geeky has always recognized that, so not only do I get the morning (which is really just me waking up), but I often get time after dinner and on the weekends. When I was writing my master’s thesis, Mr. Geeky took Geeky Boy (no Geeky Girl yet) away for a whole day every weekend. For some reason, when I began working on my dissertation, this arrangement did not resurface. Partly, it was the pressures of his own new job, but it was also my own ambivalence about the degree itself. I am thinking that this would be a good thing to reinstitute for working on the book(s). I wouldn’t need the whole day–maybe just the afternoon. Hmm, I like the direction this just took. Oh Mr. Geeky . . .

The multimedia program that I run in the summer begins next week. I’m finalizing arrangements, syllabi, software. I’ve been relatively organized but I put off some things that I shouldn’t have. I hate that. So I’ll be doing a bit of scrambling. The following week, I’m helping to run a workshop on Quantitative Writing with an emphasis on using technology to facilitate the writing and review process. I’m actually demoing a few things and I’m so not ready. Yikes!

I also have 2 books to read and I’m geared up to do some writing. And I want to squeeze some exercise in. The only way to fit all this in is to get up early and stay up late (ish). Did I mention my inlaws are coming the week of the workshop? Did I mention my house is a disaster–laundry everywhere, dishes not done, the kids living on poptarts and granola bars? Ack, ack, double-ack.

Oh, and did I mention I’m squeezing in coordinating a video conference and doing another writing/technology workshop? Yikes!

I have butterflies in my stomach from all of this–because it’s fun but sort of scary. In theory, I am supposed to have people helping me with the multimedia program, but no one has as much emotional investment in it as I do. It’s the *big thing* on my resume and I love doing it, but it is physically and emotionally draining. One of the hardest things about it is getting my colleagues to do something. I have one colleague who’s done a lot. He’s outlined the scheduled and the topics we’ll cover during the training week. He’s found some online resources. I’m just filling in the gaps there. The other two are running sections on their own and so far I have no idea what’s going on with them even though I’ve asked them about it. The hard part is that they don’t report to me, so I have no control over their work and realistically, this program is very peripheral to their main job responsibilities. I still obsess. I can’t help it.

I’m so afraid that some great big ball will drop and the whole juggling act will come crashing down. Sigh.

Perhaps these pictures will calm us all. They’re actually a little blurry I think which is perhaps representative of my state of mind right now.

Garden before:

Garden after:

As always, there’s more at Flickr (just click on one of the pics).

Well, she’s really sleeping in her hotel room 15 minutes away, but essentially, she’s gone. And it wasn’t that bad. She emptied and loaded the dishwasher once more and wait until you see what she did for my garden. I’m not on the camera computer right now, but I promise tomorrow, you’ll see before and after.

There were some interesting moments, though. We were driving by a graveyard that I was pointing out had been established in 1699 and my mom said, “That reminds me, I need to get my will together.”

During a discussion about gay marriage, she said, “I would have been really upset if you’d turned out gay.” To which Mr. Geeky responded, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one of our kids is gay.”

I also noticed while we were having drinks with my neighbors that my mom is almost always in teacher mode. She talks as if she’s in front of a class. I think she does this when she’s feeling uncomfortable. I don’t know. I found it very amusing when she launched into a lecture about the history of grocery store chains.

My mother is almost always right. If you correct her, she’ll say, “No, I don’t think so” and reiterate her point. And these are usually over matters of fact not of opinion. Thankfully, this doesn’t bother me anymore, but when I was 16 . . . and 20 . . . and . . .

So I survived the visit. Did I mention that I’m writing a whole book about her?

I didn’t think I was gonna do this, but here it is:

The number one search that brings people here is “mom sex.” On that search, you are led to this post about the Kinsey movie. I’m the number one result in some search engines for “best friend’s mom naked.” Another search is “sexy mom” and the results of that search are disturbing at best. Then there’s the “naked sex ladies over 60″ and “naked mom pictures.” Quite interesting. There are a lot of sad and lonely people out there.

But my favorite is “dog hair dye.” Are these people dying a poodle pink or something?

While looking at my search results, because I hadn’t in a while, I ran into a post that I really liked. It’s this one, about the shifting of identities I go through.

There are two things I like about my site meter statistics. One is that they often lead me to people I didn’t know were linking to me and so I find new and interesting people to read. The other is, these search results often lead me to older posts like the one above that I go back and read and think, “That’s kind of interesting.” The web is a great place.

Because I know you’re all waiting with bated breath. So far not too bad. I’ve managed to let the few fingernail scraping moments slide. My mother quit smoking a few months ago and it really does make her so much more pleasant to be around. But she still needs stuff to do. As I said in a comment below, she’s folded clothes and done the dishes since she’s been here. Sigh.

We went to Ikea and Lowe’s this morning where we got materials for the great garden makeover. Hopefully, it will stop raining tomorrow so we can implement the plan. I’ll have before and after shots tomorrow. We also got birdfeeders–very cute. It was actually fun shopping with her. And if it weren’t for the rain, I think it would have been even more fun. We just didn’t feel like running around and getting wet between stores.

We’re going out to dinner tonight and, if the weather is nice, we’ll have some friends over to cook out. Mr. Geeky is dying to cook out for some reason.

I hear the laughter of children. Mom duties call.

In honor of my mother’s visit, a random ten for her. So far, no arguments yet.

Mom–Beth Waters
Mothership–Drop Trio
There Come Our Mothers–Ladysmith Black Mambazo
That Was Your Mother–Paul Simon
Mother And Child Reunion–Paul Simon
Mothers Of The Disappeared–U2
Mama, You Got A Daughter–John Lee Hooker
Hey Mama–Los Mocosos
Mama–Sugarcubes

All I could get was nine.

fridayshuffle, random10

My mother arrives any minute. I am trying not to be tense about it, but I’m tense. Even if we avoid topics likely to incite disagreement, our personalities are so different that there’s always a little tension. My mother cannot sit down and have a conversation. She must always be doing something. This drives me nuts. When people come to visit me, especially people I haven’t seen in a while, I want to sit and talk to them. Though we may talk on the phone frequently, a face to face conversation is different. So if we are sitting, I’m always aware that my mother is getting antsy, that she wants to do something.

And she also gets bored when we are doing something. We can go shopping or to a museum and after a while, she’s getting antsy and wants to go. She can never do one thing for too long. I try to be patient and understanding about this, but it’s so counter to my own personality that it’s hard. And of course, it’s disruptive. We are used to moving kind of slowly, especially on the weekends, while my mom is a whirlwind of activity, flitting from this project to that project.

Was it Phantom Scribbler who was talking about the fingernails down a chalkboard effect of being around your parents? That is exactly it.

Today’s installment of the NY Times series on class concerns marrying into a different class and the problems that causes. To some extent, Mr. Geeky and I came from different classes, though not as different as the couple portrayed in the article. Mr. Geeky’s family was working class. His father worked for GM and retired at 51 when his division was bought out. His mother never finished college and eventually became a teacher’s aide making less than $20,000/year. They have lived in the same small two-bedroom house in a borderline neighborhood (going quickly downhill) for 40 years. An aunt and uncle and their children live next door to his parents and next to them are his grandparents (grandfather deceased now).

These kind of living arrangements were unheard of to me. Among my friends anyone who aspired to remain near their family was a loser and probably didn’t have any options. Admitedly, this was only a class issue in our small rural town where there were no opportunities for those of us going to college. In an urban area, like the one I live in now, it’s common to return to the fold so to speak.

Mr. Geeky also did not go immediately to college. His parents had not offered him this opportunity, so he went part time and worked full time. When his brother, two years younger than he, was ready to go, Mr. Geeky asked for help in going to college full time. His brother had always expressed interest in being a doctor, so they had planned for him to go to college, but since Mr. Geeky had not expressed a definitive career goal that involved college, they just hadn’t mentioned it to him. In my family, it didn’t matter what you thought you wanted to be, you were going to college. Mr. Geeky and his brother also went to the big state school down the road. I was expected to go a nice, and expensive, liberal arts college.

These minor differences were not terribly important. They colored some of our decisions and some of our interactions. The biggest difference that still shows after 15 years of being together is the do it yourself vs. hiring someone attitude. When I was growing up, we hired people to do everything–yard work, housecleaning, painting, car repair, even minor remodeling. Mr. Geeky grew up with his father doing everything himself–even minor car repairs. Mr. Geeky is always afraid paying someone will cost to much and he, like his father and grandfther, feel that if you can do it yourself, you should. I am constantly pointing out that jobs are more complicated than he thinks and he just doesn’t have the time and therefore, it’s worth the money.

In many ways, we’ve taken what’s best from each other’s class culture and adopted it. Mr. Geeky now aspires for his children to go to ivy league colleges (or at least of that ilk) and expects to pay for it. He appreciates good food and good drink. I appreciate having family close by and the importance of keeping our own nuclear family close. I also appreciate a good bargain and think more before spending extravagantly. Mr. Geeky realizes that sometimes “you get what you pay for” and is willing to sometimes pay more for something if it will last longer. I don’t care how something looks all the time and Mr. Geeky pays attention to outward appearances more (when it’s appropriate).

I’d love to hear from people with even bigger differences in their marriage. I thought it was interesting that they focused only on one couple. Does that mean there aren’t that many people out there like that?