Sacred Red Placenta Roses

Generally, when we do "sacred" or solemn acts, they come out awkwardly funny. For us, "sacred" means embracing the absurdity in what should be a solemn moment. Sacred generally involves dancing. Sacred means we call upon the Creator to come laugh with us. Laughter is holy. Silly or interpretive dance brings us close to the divine. Take, for example, how we say grace. Don't laugh. This is an important rite for us:
God is great, God is good.
God is dancing in our food.
Good is good, God is great.
God is dancing on our plate.
Amen. [louder]AMEN!

So this was our Sacred Placenta Planting Ceremony.

Ingrid's placenta has been living in our freezer for neary 2 1/2 years. Today we finally buried it. We sectioned off a new little garden space by the side fence and planted a rose bush over it. The rose bush was a Father's Day gift for Chris. I got it from BJ's for $10. For a $10 rose bush, it's quite nice.

Ingrid napped upstairs, Bea played across the street. Chris asked me to help him plant the rose bush. I said, "Let's bury the placenta while we're at it."

Chris said, "Okay. Do you think we should put it in the microwave to let it thaw?"

I said, "That's gross. I'm not cooking my placenta in a microwave. It'll be fine."

"Well, if you don't think it will the freeze the roots..."

"Dude!" I said, "It's warm outside. The ground is warm. It'll thaw before it does any damage."

So I fished around in the freezer and found the placenta, lovingly wrapped in two Ziplock freezer bags. No more mistaking it for frozen steak. I brought it outside and opened the bags. It was the first time I've looked at it in over 2 years. It was dark red and frosty, and I could see the umbilical cord, and the veins, and the fleshiness. "I made that!" I said.

"It looks like a kombucha baby." Chris said.

"You're right." I said. "Except it's bloodier."

"Maybe the midwives switched it on you and actually gave you a kombucha baby."

"I don't think so. I took a good look at it. It wasn't kombucha. Look how bloody it is. Kombucha isn't bloody."

"They could have poured blood on it to make it look like a placenta."

"That's silly." I said.

"But what if they did?"

I told him to shut up. Not in a mean way. Just in our "okay, it's not funny anymore" way.

And suddenly I got really sad. Ingrid's birth story is the poster birth story for the superior care you can get when you have your baby at home with competent, caring midwives. I couldn't make up a better birth story. I looked at the placenta and remembered it all, and then realized that this might be the last placenta I make. Ingrid could well be our last child. Yesterday at the farmers' market, I saw scads of pregnant women, and one mom with a newborn. I'm hit hard with baby-wants right now. Chris is not. Bea and Ingrid were both unexpected gifts. If we have a third, there would be no surprises. It would be a mutual agreement, an endeavor, a planned thing. We don't do many "planned things", which makes me think a third baby might never be. Things could change in a couple of years. We'll see.

But this rite was to honor Ingrid's birth, and to plant our rose bush. I snapped out of the baby wants for the moment. Chris dug a hole, noting he wanted it to be deep enough so that nothing tried to dig it up. I dropped the placenta in, and it fell with frozen thud. Chris covered it with a little more dirt and I watched some worms squiggle around. They must have felt exposed (and a little cold). I threw a banana peel over that (to feed the rose bush. It was a tip I learned from the man at BJ's who checks to make sure everything in your basket is accounted for on your receipt). We placed the rose bush over that, and set it.

"Should we say a few words?" I asked.

"I don't know. 'Here lies the placenta.'" Chris said.

That was good. To the point.

"I'll do a little placenta dance." I said. I twirled around a couple of times, and did a couple of stag leaps. "This is the placenta dance..." I sang to the tune of Nick Cave's "Weeping Song".

We took a few steps back and admired our rose bush, and made a plan to fill the whole flower bed with roses. (Yeah!) I thought about our third child who might never be, and wasn't sad.

Loving What I Do...

is one step closer to doing what I love.

I gave two weeks notice at my job from hell, and have been training at my new job. I love this job already. I could see making a career out of being a Sleep Tech. And given the hours, I would be able to pursue my vocation much easier than if I continued to work as an office whore.

So why am I making the distinction between my career and my vocation? Well, as much as I want to be a midwife, I don't see making a living from it, and that's a good thing. If I expect to make a financial living from catching babies at home, I know I'll be disappointed. I want to do it because I love doing it. I think I have found something I could make into a career, while pursuing my vocation.

I can't remember the last time I had a job where I absolutely loved what I was doing. This is a new thing for me. I enjoy the balance between caring for clients, and working with crazy high-tech medical equipment. This job makes me have to think. I like having to think. I have to consider what health issues and medications will affect what I see on the computer screen, and how the patient will sleep or adjust to using a CPAP device. I like making people feel at ease. I like the hours. I like wearing scrubs and a lab coat. The work is fascinating. It feels good. Wicked good.

I'll gladly take loving what I do for now.

Kombucha Turned Me Into Wonder Woman

I love Kombucha, and apparently so does a large contingency of health minded folks around the world. It's always interesting to see how many cures and health claims people can come up with to encourage others to consume something freaky and weird. Now I'm not dismissing anyone's personal alternative health product, and I think there's always some validity to anecdotal evidence of the efficacy of a substance. I do get annoyed and bothered when people try to push snake oil on and take money from desperate and seriously ill people. Quacks put the odd and traditional remedies that actually work in a bad light, and make those who are convinced that all allopathic treatments are safe and effective.
Consider that if you have had a normal pregnancy and labor (and many more are normal than the Obstetic community will let on) giving birth at home has been proven to be just as safe, if not safer than giving birth in a hospital, where you are open to extra interventions and impatient medical personnel. But ask a woman who has given birth at home how many times she's been called "brave", like it's something dangerous and irresponsible. The brave ones are the ones that given birth in a place were up to 30% of all births are done by C-Section and the percentage of episiotomies hovers in the 90's. That's damn scary to me.
Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox.

So check out the claims of health benefits made for Kombucha. I just drink it because it tastes good. Ancedotally, it does help my nervous stomach, as does yogurt and kefir. But I can't do dairy very well, so kombucha it is.
I've always been fascinated with Colloidal Silver. Why on earth would anyone want to consume silver?.... But it's been around for almost 100 years.
Bad medicine is not limited to the alternative health realm. Remember the Swine Flu vaccines? I could go on and on, but maybe other people remember better ones.

Girlfriend Theology

So God and I have been playing phone tag. A while back She called and said, "Parthenia, I think it's time you addressed that joy/bliss finding thing, and I have just the place for you." Okay, not really. She didn't call me Parthenia. She used my real name. Anyhow, I called back. There's that song in Hair called "Where do I go?", That's pretty much the message I kept leaving on God's answering machine. Well, finally She left a proverbial burning bush in my yard and called me back. She was all, "What? Do I have to hold your hand, too? Jeez! You've gotta find your bliss, not wait for me to hand it to you. And stop seeking the approval of others!"

She told me to get back to work on the game and stop with the anxiety about it. "Easier said than done, God. I've never done this before." I said. She told me to get over it and stop whining. Then we started talking about tattoos. I told her how I was totally hooked on Inked Nation, which is like MySpace for people who like tattoos. She said She wasn't really into the internet thing, but She liked the new work on my tattoo and that if I really wanted a tattoo of a woman having sex with an octopus, I wouldn't go to hell or anything, but I should think about getting it where it's easy to cover. She found the idea amusing. "I think Jeremy would do a great job, and it will be a lifetime exercise in not seeking approval from others when you know what you want to or should do. Not that I, God, think you should get a tattoo of a woman having sex with an octopus. It's your body after all." She said. She gave me a cool suggestion for the other sleeve. A Hokusai courtesan (see picture above) on the upper arm with a Hannya mask underneath, and then the cherry blossoms and waves to match the left forearm. And She liked the idea of the sleeves ending in a bracelet of skulls, oni masks, and cherry blossoms on each forearm. "Remember not to take yourself too seriously." She said. "Otherwise, I'll give you boils or leprosy." I was going to ask Her if She wanted to go to the mall, but thought better of it. I don't have money to go to the mall. Then God said, "We should get together and hang out. Go walking in the woods or something. Bring the kids and the dog." So I think we'll do that on Sunday.

Finally She said She would give me a little divine inspiration if I really needed it, or felt like I needed another little nudge in the right direction of my desired vocation. So on Wednesday I went to the co-op to buy some Silk soy milk, which was on sale (Thank God!) I ran into my friend Carla. I haven't seen her in a year. We got to catching up and talking, and I told her about the midwifery thing and she said something like, "That sounds perfect! You should do it! It's a great program." Then she told me that her neighbor is a midwife and she apprenticed with the midwife who runs the program I want to do, and I should give her a call, because she went through the same program I'm looking at. Cool! Thanks!

On the way back to work, a woman who used to be a midwife who I've met a few times at the Farmer's Market, and whom I've talked about homebirth and midwifery on the occasions I've run into her, got out of her car to say hello and give me a hug. So I asked her to lunch to talk about becoming a midwife. Absolutely! She'd love to talk to me about becoming a midwife. Cool! Yay!

And then on the way out of the Y, I ran into yet another midwife. I only had time to say hello and ask about her family, but I was glad to see she was still in the area. My day was filled with midwife encounters. I took that as a sign. Later that evening I was hit with a brain splitting migraine that a cup of strong tea, 1000 mg of acetaminaphen, and 600 mg of ibuprophen barely touched. I crashed hard at 7:00, hoping to sleep it off before game night. But then Meg called and said there would be no game night due to illness in the Baker house. I wasn't in any condition to play anyway. I put on my pajamas and went back to sleep.

Next time I won't press God so hard for a sign.

Hello Ingrid, Goodbye Kaya

Ingrid will be 2 years old on Febrary 5th. Holy cow! Every year, around my kids' birthdays, I get nostalgic about their entrance into the world.
I wrote this when Ingrid was 4 months old. I barely remember any of this except the part about euthanizing my dog. If the birth sounds easy, well, it was. Empowering, too. No interventions, in the comfort of my own home, with my family there.
Remember: Chris=Primo="the husband".
This is a happy birth story, but if you are not comfortable with discussions about pregnancy, childbirth, and the normal bodily functions that occur during childbirth, you shouldn't read this. On second thought, maybe you should. There's a little bit of sexual innuendo, too, as Ingrid was born in the same bed we made her, so prudes be warned. One of the nice things about homebirths is that in the midst of all the discomfort of labor, you may be reminded of the pleasure of conception. Unless you conceived on a beach, and hence you may be reminded of the discomfort of the sand in your butt at conception.

We took no photographs of the birth, and even if we had, they wouldn't be posted on the internet.

Ingrid Solveig was born at 5:51 pm, Feb 5, 2005. She was 8 lbs 10oz. On Feb 4, 2005, at about 6:30, we had our sweet rottie Kaya (aka Snuffer) euthanized. She was about 10 1/2 yo. That whole week I could tell that Kaya was going down hill. She had lost a lot of weight, was not eating, was shitting on the kitchen floor, and she was very weak and in pain. She was no longer responding to steroids (for an enlarged spleen). Because she was so old we decided not to put her through invasive tests of treatments, but to let her pass peacefully. I had not expected her condition to change so quickly. On Friday I took the day off and made an appointment with the vet. I told the vet that I was about to have a baby and needed to take care of my dog before I could have the baby. The soonest they could take us was that night. So Kaya and I hung out in the house together all day. She laid by the door in the hallway, I tried to feed her pain meds and treats, and talked to her. I thanked her for putting up with us all this time.

We dropped Bea off at her friend Sam’s house. My sister in law Randi came with us. She is the greatest dog lover I know, and I was happy to have her with us. The vet took us last, so Randi and I waited in the car with the Snuffer. When it was time her, Chris carried her into the exam room, she snapped at the vet (one last time). Randi, Chris and I petted her and talked to her as the vet gave her the injection. She went very quickly. After she stopped breathing the only thing you could hear in the room was me bawling. Chris asked Randi to escort me out of the room. On the way home we talked about Kaya’s antics, how she helped Chris and me get together, how gentle she was with Bea. She was a wonderful dog, and I’m glad we had a chance to be her human companions. I wish I’d had her euthanized sooner so that she didn’t suffer, and that we could have done it at home—like our new baby's birth….

On the way home, I started getting serious gassy heartburn. We ordered some Chinese food, and I had some dragon maki, and sesame shrimp. I admit I'd been eating sushi and rare red meat all throughout my pregnancy, contrary to the advice of my midwives. But for some reason I had cravings for freshly killed and hardly cooked meat the whole time I was pregnant. My fondest pregnancy memories revolve around all the good food I ate, and my last pregnant meal was a no different, even though I was terribly uncomfortable, crampy, and gassy.

Chris had to go back to work for a bit. Bea went to sleep early, Randi went home to take care of her dog. I laid on the couch and watched a documentary on the British Royal Family until I fell asleep. Around 9 or so my father in law called to see if we had put Kaya to sleep. Yup. I was so tired and crampy, I couldn’t really talk to him.

I took a bath to help the crampiness. I figured something was happening, the cramps weren’t feeling like Braxton-Hicks anymore, but they were nothing to call a midwife about. They went away after the bath, and stayed up late surfing the web and thinking about Kaya.

At 5 in the morning, I woke up to more crampy mild contractions. I went back to sleep to see if they’d go away. Chris asked if I was going to have the baby soon, I said, “probably this weekend.” At 7 I got up again, and there was my mucous plug and a little blood in my morning pee. I couldn’t go back to sleep, as much as I would have liked to have slept in one last time, I was too excited. I called the midwife who lived closest to us. She told me to count the contractions and call her back in 1/2 an hour, which I did. I reported that they were about 5 minutes apart, but not strong. She said to call back in a couple of hours. So I ate breakfast and started to clean the house a bit. I called her at the appropriate time, the contractions were still nothing I couldn’t clean through, but were 5 minutes apart. She had the apprentice midwife Patti come over and check me. At about 11 am I was 3 cm but not too effaced. So she went home to get her gear, and she called Jharna, the midwife, to report. I went back to cleaning (talk about a nesting instinct). I tried to watch my favorite tv show Buffy the Vampire Slayer at noon, but it was too distracting and I didn’t like the vibe. So I turned off the tv, listened to music, vacuumed the floor. Sometime around 12:30 or so I took a bath. Jharna came over, gave me a quick check, listened to the baby's heartbeat. The bath was very relaxing. I had programmed a “birthing music” playlist on iTunes a few days earlier, and I just listened to music and soaked. I was spot on knowing what I would want to hear while in labor: blue grass, English and Irish folk music (I was really into the song "Pretty Polly" for some reason), Neil Young, the Cocteau Twins, Blind Faith, Thin Lizzy, John Renbourne, Pentangle…

Sometime while I bathed, Bea hopped in the tub with me, and was very mellow for once! I told her I was taking a quiet bath, and would not be able to talk while I was having a contraction. She stayed for maybe 45 minutes, before I had to ask Chris to redirect her. My mother in law took her outside to make a snowman.

I got out of the tub and put on my Ziggy Stardust t-shirt. All I wanted to do was walk walk walk walk. I walked up the stairs, down the stairs, up into the nice cold attic. Chris and I just walked around and listened to folk music and bluegrass. At some point I tried to lay down and quickly puked. No more laying down. I stopped walking and just rocked my hips, dancing through the contractions. Jharna said Ingrid’s head was not quite in my pelvis, and she had me walk up and down the stairs some more.. So I danced and walked, danced and walked.

When I tried to get on all fours, Ingrid heart rate decelerated, so that was out. When I got too tired to walk or stand, I leaned up against Chris, propped up against our Liberator ramp. I thought it was funny that this pillow we used for "making babies" was best used to give birth on. And then I realized that the sounds I was making and the sensations I had were much like, well, making the babies. I was so happy to be home in my bed, having my baby at that moment, although I would have liked not to have given birth sitting and laying on my back.

I got up again to dance, and I had to pee, but I didn’t want to walk to the bathroom. Thankfully we had put some plastic down on the bedroom floor, and I, um, peed on the floor. (I just wanted to dance—rock my hips) I was starting to get the urge to push! Oh the pressure! Apparently the bag of waters was just in front of Ingrid’s head. Jharna suggested putting a pin hole in it, but she wanted to wait for Kristen, the other midwife to arrive. Fine with me. So when Kristen arrived probably 20 minutes later (I wasn't paying attention to time), Jharna poked a tiny hole in my bag of waters, and…. I thought I peed on myself. My bag didn’t break, and there was just a trickle. But the pressure was lifted, and I really wanted to push.

I don’t know how long I pushed, let alone how long I was in the tub, or how long I walked around. At some point when I was walking around I looked at the clock and it was 5:00. I estimate I pushed maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes tops. I had much more of a burning sensation while pushing than I did with Bea. But when Jharna told me to stop while she helped Ingrid’s head on my perineum, I listened (last time I pushed when the midwife said to stop and I ended up with a tiny tear). Jharna was very adamant about my stopping. But Lord did it burn. It felt like someone scratching me from the inside on her way down the birth canal.

When she crowned, I felt her mushy little head. I wish I’d had a mirror. My mother in law, Chris, the midwives, and Bea were all there. Bea got a little freaked out and left until Ingrid was completely out. Ingrid came out with a couple of good pushes (once I had the green light). Her apgars were 9 (hands and feet a little blue) then 10. And she was born with a nuchal hand (which is why Jharna told me to stop pushing for a sec I think). I had a few skid marks, and Ingrid scratched me with her little fingernails (so she clawed her way out?). I cheered! No tears. I could live with skid marks. She was born with a head full of brown hair (which turned blonde within 5 months), blue eyes (which have stayed blue, unlike her sister's, whose eyes turned gray then green and are now hazel), and a little hemorrhage on her eye. She weighed in at 8 lbs 10 oz., nearly a full pound bigger than her sister. And of course she was absolutely beautiful. My mother in law cut the cord. Ingrid was a little slow to nurse, but she latched on like a pro within a couple of hours, and hasn't let up since.

After all the picture taking, telephoning, and oohing and ahhing subsided, I ate a little dinner and put my Ziggy Stardust shirt back on. I don't remember taking it off, but I guess it came off. After everyone left, Bea, Ingrid, Chris and I all snuggled in bed to “sleep”. Chris and I just stared at her. I kept up the vigil when he went to sleep.

We had picked out her name long before we actually met her. As with Bea, it was a name Chris and I both liked. We compromised on Solveig ("SOOL-vay") for a middle name. I wanted it as the first name. But I got the first name for Bea (Amelia. Chris liked Beatrice. If you know her, you know she is most certainly a Bea or Beatrice.) One of us had vetoed names like Judith, Alice, Miriam, Aurelia (also vetoed for Bea), and Ingemar. We knew we were having a girl (I didn't care about the surprise of finding out at birth), so Jesse, Jedediah, Joshua, James, Sean, Jacob, and Primo were all out. We now have a dog named Jed and a cat named James.

I could have written my birth story before she was born, it seemed to go exactly as I had wanted, although I would have liked for Kaya to have met Ingrid. Kaya was her

North American Registry of Midwives
More Homebirth stories
Midwives Alliance of North America
The Midwife and Homebirth
Massachusetts Midwives Alliance

Parthenia is Pregnant...

with Ideas...

I see a theme rising. Even my frogs in their tank behind me are croaking their mating calls again.

Last summer, my friends Crystal, Tonya, and I operated a booth at the Greenfield Farmer's Market most appropriately called "Three Dreaded Ladies". Sadly Tonya dropped out midway, but Crystal, her business partner Julie, and I continued for the rest of the season. Tonya made jewelery, I do herbal products for hair and skin, Crystal, at the time, made cloth diapers and an occasional mei tai traditional Asian baby carrier. Julie and Crystal have parted ways and Crystal will be selling handmade clothes. I'm not sure if Julie will continue on as our one not-literally-dreaded lady, but they diapers would round out our booth nicely.

On top of all the other making stuff and idea generating (i.e. game writing), I'm revisioning my part ("Parthenia's Herbals") of Three Dreaded Ladies. I plan to focus bar soaps first, then bath salts, healing salves, balms, and herb infused oils (hair oil, massage oil, bug repellent). I will prepare fewer brewed herbals like aftershaves, skin toners, and hair rinses. Those are my favorites, but they don't sell very well. I will certainly have edible love potions, as those generate the most praise and positive feedback, and they make most everyone happy.

I've been thinking about offering other edibles like kefir and kombucha, but that would require a Board of Health permit. I could join the Western Mass Food Processing Center and move all of my brewing, mixing, cooking, and curing activities there. The advantages are I would have more room, better equipment, and a safer place to make soap and heat up oils. If I do soap at home in the kitchen, I need someone to keep an eye on the kids because I'm working with hazardous materials and can't stop in the middle of mixing or pouring to take care of boo-boos and arguments. The disadvantages are purely financial. Basically the farmers market last year paid for my herb preparing hobby and my Thai food habit, and that was fine with me. I'd like to expand this year. Kombucha and kefir are incredibly easy and cheap to make, bottling and labelling would really be my biggest expense. If they caught on and sold well they could cover the added expense of being a member of the Food Processing Center. Since there's already one local Kombucha producer, I would most likely do more kefir and herb drinks, and try to find a source for local milk. That's not hard at all. You can also put kefir grains into grape juice and make an interesting sparkling beverage. That could be fun, too.

The week after Ingrid's birthday I'll make the first batch of soap. If any of you local reader wish to learn how to make soap, I will show you how. The cost to you is your labor. In the next few weeks I'll also have spare kombucha babies and kefir grains. And I'm always looking for human guinea pigs to try my herbals. Email me and let me know what you're interested in. And the revised rules for Get/Steal Away Jordan should be done by the end of this week. I was so productive last night that I fell asleep at 3 am, sitting up with the laptop on my lap. Before I dozed off, I managed to type up everything I had handwritten earlier in the week, and simplify the rules and mechanics. Another self-awarded gold star for Parthenia (who is most certainly not physically pregnant)!

The Place God Calls You To...

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Frederick Buechner

I found that quote at a forum for aspiring midwives. What proceeds is a paraphrased conversation I had in my head while walking around Greenfield doing errands at lunch time.

God does not call me to my present job.
God calls me home to my children, husband, and pets. To the endless dishes and cleaning that I never catch up on.
God does not call me to church, and I'm finally okay with that. But sometimes She does call me to church. I thought She was calling me to other churches, but really, She just said, "take a break. I'm not there anyway."
I have to ask myself sincerely, is She calling me to midwifery? I believe I'd find deep gladness in the work. But if you want a homebirth, Western Massachusetts is the place to be. There are plenty of midwives around here. Does the world hunger for Julia [Parthenia] the midwife? Maybe. I don't know. I think the problem is that if God is calling me to this vocation, I wish She'd make that call apparent to the Doubting Thomases in my life, who seem to talk louder than She does when it comes to money and comfort. I guess I'm asking too much of God, and I guess there's a reason She didn't call me to become a doctor... Can't say I ever wanted to be a doctor...

Did you see that? I think I just tried to talk myself out of studying midwifery with the excuse that God didn't call me loud enough. Not all who wander are lost, but some of us are and we're too stubborn to admit it, so we pretend were taking the scenic route.

Next time we'll see what the Devil calls me to.

I wrote several pages on creating characters fresh from the slave ship for my game. I'm giving myself a gold star. I think I need a gold star today. I'm feeling a little like flotsam.

It Feels Like the Tip of Your Nose

This happens at every turning of the year: I start to freak out that I'm not living to my fullest potential, that I'm making a mess of my life and thus of my children's lives, that I'm not following my bliss enough, that I'm getting deeper into a rut that will become harder to get out as I get older. It's stupid and fruitless to worry that maybe I should have studied harder in school, or that I should have majored in Economics or Chemistry, or that I should have gone to Carnegie Mellon instead of Smith, or that I should have applied to nursing school after graduation like I wanted to, or that I should have been more disciplined about fiction writing in college. I should have slayed the dragon when he showed up on my porch, and it's no excuse that my knife wasn't sharp enough. I should keep my knives sharper. It never ends.

So here I am focusing on the fact that I don't love what I do for a paycheck, and there's not any real future in it. But the reality is our finances are structured in such a way that I need to bring home a pay check or we could lose our house and I couldn't put food on the table. Ideally my work for pay would be something I love. But the things I love don't pay very much, or they require that I quit my job to get a piece of paper to prove I'm worthy of doing what I love, or I shy away from them because people whose opinions I respect have discouraged me from pursuing the knowledge. It's really a combination of all of the above, except I probably wouldn't have to quit my job if I were to pursue what I really ,truly, honestly love.

Let's revisit nursing school for a sec, because it was so close to what I really want to do. I get a little defensive when I think about the fact that I never finished, and why I don't regret not finishing. I started nursing school with the idea that I would eventually become a nurse-midwife. Then I fell in love with psych nursing at the same time I fell out of love with being a CNM or L and D nurse. Did I really want to be a nurse? Yes and no. Going to nursing school seemed like a great idea at the time, and I think I would have made a damn good psych nurse, but it's not totally what I want to do.

I've been entertaining going to graduate school in psychology or to teach biology. Do I really want to be a psychologist or a teacher? Yes and no. And I'd probably be pretty good at either, too. But again, it's not the whole vocational enchilada.

I have a BA in Religion and Biblical Literature. I've entertained the notion of going to divinity school to be a pastoral counselor or a minister. Do I really want to be a minister? Abso-freakin-lutely not. Pastoral counselor, perhaps, but...

When I think about it without worrying about what other people would think, and without worrying about whether I'd make money, or any of the other insecurities I can conjure, I really want to be, and have wanted to be for many years, a midwife. Not a nurse-midwife, but a traditional midwife who comes to your house, and helps you give birth to your baby, who counsels you, consoles you, teaches you about your body and your baby and your family. A teacher, a nurse (in the traditional sense), a counselor, and a little bit of a minister. It's a totally illogical endeavor with regard to money and certification, but when I see myself doing what I love, I see myself catching babies and teaching women how to find their cervices, among other things, too many to list here. Maybe another post.

In reality, I will finish my game, and I'll teach the dog how to walk on a leash, and I may even start running. Those are easy goals. But the resolution I should have made was to stop worrying about what other people think of how I should follow my bliss (to quote a bumper sticker commonly found on Subarus around here), and to go ahead and follow it. Why is that so hard? One thing that scares me that I won't get the approval from people whose approval I've sought in the past, namely my mainstream, academically decorated mom and practical in all matters future and money father. Primo may say, "why don't you become a teacher?" but he'll get why, and if he won't he'll still be supportive in his own way. He's a little like my dad. Others may say, "why don't you go back to nursing school?" Because it's not what I wholly want to be. My approval-seeking has lead to point-proving in the past, which does nothing beneficial for me.

I should do it before I'm talked out of it again (by myself or other people).

What feels like the tip of your nose?

Being Productive?

A few days ago, I sat down in front of the laptop and worked on my game a bit. My plan was to put in a few more hours last night, but I felt so crappy yesterday, due to the meds I'm taking (I made mention of a kidney infection earlier here, and low and behold...), that I never made it back to the computer. I actually managed to get to the Y, did a little work out--on the treadmill, no less, sat in the sauna for 10 minutes, and felt even worse. I went home, laid on the couch, and could barely move for the next 6 hours. I had a brain splitting headache, I had the chills, and I thought I would throw up. Primo insisted I was getting a cold, but I know it's the side affects from the medication. I hate side affects. So much for being productive.

Friday night, Primo and I went to dinner with all but one of my coworkers (there are 4 people in the whole company). Our boss took us out to one of the snazziest restaurants in the area. The food was delicious. I was so not looking forward to is (see previous post), but good food and wine can brighten any mood. It was actually really fun and I realized that I do like my boss. Come to think of it, I knew that already, but my work morale is so low right now, it's hard to keep that in mind. I'm both motivated to show my boss I'm not the bad employee she painted me to be in my performance review, and to look for another job. Yes, the whole crappy performance review is a lemon which will make for good job-searching lemonade.

I also finished my first homework assignment for a correspondence course I signed up for back in September. I signed up in part because it's something I've always had a big (but quiet) interest in, and partly because African American folk magic (rootwork, conjure, hoodoo) figure prominently in my game.

While my parents were here, I had some heated words with my father about how he doesn't manage his diabetes. He took those words to heart and now checks his blood sugar 2-3 times a day like he's supposed to. His blood sugar is still in the 200's, but while I was checking it last week, it was fluctuating between 300 and 500. Way to go, daddy! So it appears that he heard me, and is making an attempt to change and get healthier. I know that's easier said than done, and I'm happy he's making baby steps towards that goal. I am still very worried about him, though.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is, other than I haven't been feeling very productive lately, and needed to take stock of what I'm doing. Game writing, hating job and doing something about it, being sick and still going to the gym, doing homework, feeling like my dad heard me. If I believed in astrology, I'd say something was in retrograde that affected some house that put me in a funk. Simply put, I'm trying to de-funk.