polyopia

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Everybody and their uncle did this meme at the beginning of the summer, but I wasn’t really listening to much music then. I felt a little left out, but I was feeling that way a lot at the beginning of the summer. I’d forgotten about it, but Dr. Medusa just resurrected it and inspired me to go ahead and post my own…though I’m not sure I even have seven songs for this summer. Let’s see.

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring/summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Tag seven others to see what they’re listening to.

1. The Bach/Beethoven/Mozart tunes that play on Waylon’s mobiles. (He loved this mobile so much that we bought a second one for the other side of the room.) I don’t even know what the pieces actually are…but I am positive I’ll never hear them without thinking of this summer (and they run through my head constantly).

2. “Die Die Die,” The Avett Brothers. The first song on their Emotionalism album. I’ve been listening to this album in the car for months now. Can’t get enough of it.

3. “I Would Be Sad,” The Avett Brothers. Same deal. This one is my favorite to sing along with. “Now listen here, I told you I could live on without loving you…I was bluffing then, but it seems that just might have been the truth.” Awesome.

4. “California Stars,” Wilco. I sing this to Waylon a lot.

5. “My Darling,” Wilco. Because, yeah, I’m sappy like that.

6. “Way Down in the Hole,” Tom Waits. Because I love Tom Waits, and we’ve been watching The Wire all summer.

7. “Hotel Yorba,” The White Stripes.

“I been thinking
of a little place down by the lake
they got a dirty little road leading up to the house
I wonder how long it will take till we’re alone
sitting on the front porch of that home
stomping our feet on the wooden boards
never gonna worry about locking the door”

It’s working for me.

There you have it. I’m not tagging because I think everyone’s done it (though consider yourself tagged if you like).
And I have now successfully put off working on job stuff yet again.

I totally missed my blogiversary!

It was–ahem–July 10th. I’ve been blogging for over three years here (well, at the blogspot site and then here, but under the same name).

Neat.

So, for some reason the other day I remembered that Google Reader exists, and that I used to use it. So I went over there, and saw the names of some blogs I haven’t read in awhile…well over a year, maybe more like two. And I thought, what the hell, so I imported all those feeds into my Bloglines.

Well.

Apparently there are a lot of blogs I forgot I used to read. I’ve been trying to whittle them down, and right now I still have 103,567 posts coming up as “new.”

Uh, yeah. It might be awhile before I catch up.

(I want to tell y’all about the weekend at the in-laws,* and about how the Small Blond Cousins are adorably enamored with Waylon,** and about my fabulous afternoon at the aquarium with one of my favorite blogger friends and her fabulous family, and how my job search is coming (ugh), and how cool it is that our old old friend (my first friend when I moved to SF) the Wry Toaster is in town staying with us for the weekend, and what I think of Season 5 of the Wire (awesome so far)….but I still can’t seem to master the one-handed typing, so it’ll have to wait a bit again.)

*Snippet: GB’s dad, having not talked to me much at all since we’d arrived, decided to start his first conversation with me like this: “So, how’s your post-baby weight loss coming?” Ugh. I did NOT actually hit him over the head with a backgammon board, but I think he could tell I wanted to. Really. Can you imagine thinking that’s an appropriate conversation starter?

**The Small Blond Cousins Just. Loved. Waylon. It was adorable. The six-year-old would not leave his side (and asked me anxiously, as we were leaving, “You don’t leave him alone in the backseat for the long drive, do you?” I reassured him I was back there and he looked relieved.) and shadowed him all weekend. And even the one 10 year old quasi-cousin, who told me on the first night “I’m not much of a baby person,” begged to push Waylon’s stroller, and did it so seriously and with such an air of hefty responsibility that it kind of made me tear up. Here’s a picture of the two older boys walking with Waylon (the youngest cousin is up ahead, clearing the way):

I really do hope to have a somewhat content-like post soon….Or some random bullets, at least. I’m working on it.

In the meantime…How the hell do people get any work done with little babies? Because I’m really not figuring that out. Someone in my department told me that when her daughter was about 6 weeks old she was able to get back to work on her dissertation. Well…Waylon is 10 weeks old, and I can’t figure out how to get enough time with two hands free to work on job applications, let alone the diss. How exactly do I work this out? And, while I’m at it, how do I stop procrastinating and being totally freaked out by the job market and just get my shit together, already?

Yeah. Anyway. Substantial post to come, sometime.

I just commented on a bunch of blogs for the first time in a LONG time–Waylon is napping in the swing, and I should be napping too, but instead I’m taking advantage of this time to do some two-handed typing and watch a movie with GB.

(Yeah, I should be writing my teaching philosophy or drafting cover letters or something…Ugh. I’ll get to it.)

Ooh, speaking of movies, we watched Shine A Light last night, and totally dug it. (But I love Scorsese rockumentaries (yes, I said it) in general.) Yeah. It made me about as happy as that goddamn other movie pissed me off.

Big stress of the day: Waylon gets his 2 month vaccinations tomorrow. I have been stressing out about this for weeks now, and I’m so stressed about them that my stomach’s all in knots. I’ve done a *ton* of research on vaccines, and the short-term and long-term effects (at least as much as we know…and damn, there’s a lot of propaganda on this topic out there). Anyway. I feel like I’m making an informed decision going into this, but I’m still not happy about it. I’m hoping Waylon doesn’t feel too crappy tomorrow. And I’m hoping I don’t cry too much.

the quintessential Waylon look

• GB and I watched I’m Not There the other night. Okay. Do y’all know what huge Dylan fans we are (especially me)? I got into Bob Dylan when I was 13, and my Dylan vinyl collection is gigantic. I have, like, 30 vinyl bootlegs, plus the regular catalog. GB and I actually got together in the first place because we met at a bar, and started talking about music, and I told him about my Dylan bootleg collection and he asked if he could come over and check it out, and the rest is rock & roll history. Anyway–so my point is, we’re bigtime Dylan fans, and we were obviously this movie’s target audience. And you know what? We hated it. Loathed it. Abhorred it. Threatened to turn it off halfway through (though we stuck it out to the bitter end). Oh. My. God. It was fucking awful. Boring, self-indulgent, confusing, simplistic, and did I mention boring? Holy fuck. It actually made me angry, it was so bad. Now we’re loving hating it. GB has been reviewing it on various websites. That’s how much we love hating this movie.
• This swing may be the most amazing invention ever. Yes, better than electricity, at least as far as my tired brain is concerned. Waylon naps in this thing like he’s back in the womb. There are times he’ll nap for almost THREE HOURS in it. I am a fan. The swing is the only reason I have two free hands with which to blog right now.
• Waylon is getting more awesome every day. I’m not sure how he’s managing that, but GB and I have both noticed it, so it must be true.
• We’re rethinking the move to SF. This makes me sad, but when I find myself fighting off a panic attack at 4am (when I’ve been up every hour anyway, because Waylon, while awesome, does not like to sleep for long stretches of time at night…like, two hours is his outer limit, which is sad for mama, who is tired a lot and wondering why all those people who said “oh, he’ll sleep through the night when he hits 10 pounds” felt like they had to lie to her)–ahem, anyway, yeah, there are a lot of things stressing me out right now. And trying to find GB a job in SF, and us an apartment, and then rent that apartment with our crappy credit, and then move us all up there for probably a year, before we go somewhere else…that’s not sounding like the best idea.
• We haven’t totally given up on it, but it’s looking like we might just stay here, month to month, when our lease ends next month…and try to figure out a Plan.
• I’m supposed to be on the job market this fall. This’ll be my first time doing that particular Hellish Endeavor. Every single thing about the job search freaks me out, starting with getting letters from my recommenders (who have already written letters for fellowships for me, so I’m just being a freak here). Every step seems like Impossible Hell. I’m hoping my outlook on this improves. Soon.
• The teaching portfolio? Stress City. Especially when I’m trying to start doing all this on very little sleep and with a baby in one arm most of the time. (The sling helps,  but I still find myself one-handed very often, and not so much inclined to start on all this, but I’m feeling the time crunch…)
• There are actually, surprisingly, about four or five job openings in my specific area this year. This is amazing. Of course, none of them are ideal–one is in Home State (which actually doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea, oddly), one is in State By Homestate, and two are in State I Really Don’t Want to Live In (Where I’ve Done Lots of Fieldwork). But yeah, there are jobs to apply for, so that’s good, I guess.
• Any hints on how to stop being completely terrified of the job search process?
• Because I know you might need proof of Waylon’s continually increasing awesomeness: