Welcome to the World

This is not the birth story I’d hoped for, but it was perfect in its own way.

On Tuesday, March 26, I had an appointment to see my OB. She checked me over and said that things still didn't look like they were advancing. She told me that we would see each other in a week if nothing happened sooner. It was then that I mentioned something that had been bothering me all morning: I had barely felt any movement that day. At almost noon, and especially after sitting still in the waiting room for a while, this was starting to become a concern. I also had woken with the vague sense that the baby hadn't moved all night either, though whether or not this is true, I have no idea. My doctor also seemed a bit concerned, so she told me to go have lunch and come back in an hour for fetal monitoring.

When I got back to the clinic, they strapped some monitors around me and gave me a button to press every time the baby moved. We could hear his heart beating on the monitor. The doctor told me she was going to lunch and she’d be back to check on the results in 45 minutes. For the first 15 or 20 minutes, we were relaxed, listening to the baby’s heart, chatting and laughing. After a while, my lower back started to hurt. I was really uncomfortable lying on the exam table. I didn't want to mess up the test, but eventually caved and asked Cris to help me find a more comfortable position. Nothing helped. Deep down, I knew that the only thing that would help was to get up and walk around.

The pain subsided after a minute, but came back even stronger. By the third time, I started to ask myself: are these contractions? I’d had a couple of mild contractions earlier on, but they didn't really feel anything like this. From everything I’d heard, I guess I was expecting labor to start slowly, but these were the first contractions I’d had all day. My doctor had just told me that she didn't think I’d be ready at least for another week.

The doctor came back and confirmed my suspicions. I was 2 cm dilated. She told me we should plan to get to the hospital around 8 pm. That was at about 2 or 2:30. As we were talking, she and I both noticed that the contractions were already getting closer together. Based on that and how intense they were, she said to keep an eye on things and go to the hospital sooner if we needed to.

At home, we packed for the hospital…. Well, Cris packed; I sort of stumbled around helping, telling him where to find things, moaning. I took a shower. That helped a bit. I timed my contractions for a while: 40 seconds long, every two and a half minutes. We were all packed and ready a little before 7 pm. I decided that it was time to go.

When we got to the hospital, I was 6 cm dilated. The room they brought us to was super cozy. It already had a little bassinet in the corner. There was something really uplifting about seeing my baby’s little bed when I walked in the door.

My doctor was attending another birth, so the nurses called her with updates on my progress. Since I was still a little sick with the flu, she told the nurses to give me IV fluids. Now, lying down is really not a great position to be in for labor. It’s much more comfortable to be up, moving around, changing positions than stuck on your back. However, lying on your back is a favorite position for putting in an IV. Unfortunately, I have the world’s most invisible veins. This results in a lot of misses when it comes to drawing blood or inserting IVs. Normally being stuck with a needle multiple times or having it wiggled around in my arm is enough to piss me off. On this occasion, I was perfectly willing to tolerate as many sticks and jabs as it took, if only they would just hurry the hell up. With each contraction, I felt more trapped and agitated. All I could do was breathe and try to tune it all out.

Cris, the doctor and the nurses alternated rubbing my back during contractions and cheering me on. Time became a meaningless concept, as it seemed to stretch on forever and fly by all at the same time. I tried to stay focused on what I had to do and breathe.

At 8 cm dilated, the doctor came back in and checked my progress. The baby should have been pretty far into my pelvis at this point. He hadn't moved since that afternoon when I was in her office. We decided to try breaking open the amniotic sac, figuring that maybe there was a lot of liquid and not enough weight on the baby to help him move down. When my water was broken, I tried to push the baby down. It was like trying to push a house off its foundation. The doctor asked me what I wanted to do, and I told her that as long as the baby was still okay, I’d like to wait a bit longer and try some different positions. At this point, I was pretty sure I knew where this was going, but I wasn't ready to give up yet.

She got out her little doppler wand to check on how he was doing. He was not okay. Every time we’d heard his heartbeat, it was like a little hummingbird heart. This sounded more like someone with hypothermia. I felt my breath catch in my chest and then several things happened simultaneously. “Vámonos,” I said in a surprisingly level voice. The doctor got out her phone and started calling people to come in for the surgery while reaching back in to try and change the baby’s position. Cristhian was frozen in place, ready to pounce the moment someone said “go”.

Fifteen minutes later, I was in the operating room down the hall. Everyone was prepping for surgery. They shaved my bikini line, put in a spinal block and painted me with disinfectant. As one of the nurses was swabbing my abdomen and legs, the spinal block started to kick in and it felt like little strokes of electricity up and down my skin.

They put up a curtain, so I couldn't see what was happening, but at some point they were pushing down on my abdomen to get the baby out of the incision. I was rather surprised by how much labor was involved. I felt like I could hardly breathe for a second, and then I heard little baby sounds. The anesthesiologist called the time of birth, 23:12. All I wanted was to see and hold him. Eventually the pediatrician brought him over to me, but only for a moment.

Nearly two hours passed between when he was born and when they had me stitched up and back in my room. At that point, the baby was pretty hungry. The pediatrician had suggested giving him a little bit of formula, but Cris asked him to wait and let me feed him as soon as I could. Had the c section been planned, I probably would have been able to feed him sooner, but as soon as they had me back in bed, my doctor came in and helped me get him latched on. Given that it was our first time and I could hardly move, we did alright, but the latch was pretty bad.

If I had it to do over again, I would have had more conversations with my doctor about what to do in case of an emergency cesarean. We’d talked about skin-to-skin and nursing right away, but in the chaos of everything that happened, Seamus ended up spending his first couple of hours under the heat lamps. He ended up getting pretty cold and almost certainly would have done better snuggled up with his dad’s body heat keeping him warm.

My birth experience wasn't perfect, but I’m really happy with how it turned out. My doctor and my husband both advocated for me throughout the process. There is a small chance that I could have had a vaginal birth if my water hadn't been broken, but it’s very likely that things would have gone the same way or gotten even more dangerous.

The hardest part of this process has undoubtedly been the recovery. There are times when a medically assisted birth is necessary and I think that my case is a good example of that, but I would recommend avoiding it whenever possible. What I've gone through in the couple of weeks since my baby was born has been far more painful than anything I experienced during labor. The only thing that makes it all worth it is my healthy, happy, beautiful baby boy.

The Final Descent

Just when I began to feel I would have to choose between eating and breathing, I woke up one morning to a pleasant surprise: my belly was a little lower than it had been. I looked down and it seemed a bit further away. I double checked in the mirror, but had to confirm with Cris before I was entirely convinced. My belly was definitely dropping. I took a deep breath and it felt easier than it had in weeks.

There are some definite advantages to my new body composition. In addition to no longer feeling like I’m going to suffocate, I can finish a normal sized meal, I've hardly had any heartburn and it’s much harder for Baby to get his/her foot wedged under my rib cage, though not impossible..

However, as with all the joys of parenthood, there are some drawbacks. The further baby gets from my rib cage, the further she/he gets into my pelvis. This is good. It means we’re getting closer to B-Day. But it hurts like a bitch. The weight of baby on my lower abdominal muscles and pelvic bone is like a constant workout. When I get up after sitting or lying down for awhile, I feel as if I’d been going hard on the thighmaster and bicycle crunches. Not that feeling you get right after you work out, but the one you get the next day after your body has had a chance to realize what you did to it.

Now that space is at a premium, Baby can’t move around as much. But head movements, however slight, are all up on my cervix. Years ago I had to have my cervix biopsied to double check some abnormal cells. This is a comparable feeling. When baby hits a nerve, it’s like a bolt of electricity running through my vag. It’s worst when I’m walking, which is something that I've been trying to do as much as possible because it helps prepare Baby and Momma for labor.

At this point, Baby’s arrival is just a matter of time. One way or another, he/she’s gotta come out within the next few weeks. So far, I’ve managed to keep my skin intact, but I’m starting to feel like my muscles are tearing apart. I’m really hoping for sooner rather than later, or at least before anything breaks. But if Baby still has important things to do before birth, I guess I’m willing to wait.v

The Countdown

Okay, this blog post has taken an absurd amount of time for me to write. My brain no longer functions in any sort of way that seems to make sense to other human beings, but the baby gets me. Do you think that’s part of the biological imperative?

Now that we’re far enough along that baby could easily survive outside of the womb, I’ve started to relax a little. Only a little, but it’s something. Parenthood is stressful as fuck. Just keeping another little human alive seems pretty daunting, but I also have to keep her/him healthy, safe, fed, clothed, happy (relatively), and all of that without losing him/her/my mind. Jesus.

I don’t think it helps much that our upstairs neighbor had to have a cesarean 3 weeks ahead of schedule because she’d been losing amniotic fluid for god knows how long and the baby was at risk when they finally realized. Seriously? How many minor tragedies can be avoided in the span of 9 months? Life is a damn miracle.

A couple of months ago I read a ton of shit on pregnancy forums about “nesting”. This is the process that expectant mothers are supposed to go through to prepare their space (read: life) for the new baby. I came across this because a bunch of women with similar due dates (April) were all starting to do it. MONTHS AGO. Am I the only person in this forum who has bought almost nothing, doesn’t have a space cleared out, hasn’t put together contraptions and furniture, or stockpiled diapers?

Now that we’ve had a baby shower and got a bunch of baby swag, I have finally started eyeing a space in the closet that I think I’m gonna clear out. But that’s it. I’m just thinking about it. And what if the baby is born tomorrow? Well, then I think Cris is going to have to come back home at some point to do laundry ‘cause we ain’t even got shit washed yet. And I think I’m okay with that. Because what if I go on leave next month and the baby doesn’t come for another couple of weeks after that? What the holy hell am I going to do with all of that time if everything is done?

The one area of my life that I have been frantically preparing for B-Day is work. I pretty much started the year prepping materials and plans and diagrams in the event that a sub had to step in unexpectedly early. I mostly started early, though, because there is just a fuck ton to do. I would rather leave someone with all the tools they might need to succeed than just let them figure it out on their own, especially if I’m coming back within a few months and would only have to clean up after the experiment. The only problem now is that I still don’t have a sub… for the second time. Twice I’ve had someone accept the job only to later turn it down because they’d found something else. I get it. You get offered a job that doesn’t start for a couple months and something else that starts now comes along, of course you’re gonna take it. But have these tricks not heard of a telephone? Call somebody and let them know if you don’t want the job anymore. Because when you said you would take the job, I stopped looking for someone else!! The last person didn’t let us know that she wasn’t taking the job until the first day she was supposed to show up to train. Come on. I think the solution is to give my classes via skype from my bed. I’m giving jobs away here, but if no one wants them, fine!

Six weeks until baby comes, four until I go on leave. I’m counting the days. Each morning I feel a little heavier, or look a little bigger. I’m not so much “expecting” a baby in the modern sense of the word so much as I’m “esperando,” the equivalent in Spanish. Waiting. Waiting for baby to drop into position. Waiting for a sign. Waiting for this part of the journey to be over and the next to begin.

Ninja baby and ziplock bags

The first time I felt little Baby kick, it was pretty weird. Pretty soon I got used to his occasional movements and it was reassuring, an affirmation that he was still doing okay in there. Now he moves around so often that I’m sure I would start to worry if a whole day went by and I hadn’t felt him even once.

From what I’ve heard, some babies are more active than others. It may have just as much or more to do with the mother’s body than the baby’s actual movements, but I’ve had some women tell me that they didn’t feel their babies kick very often. In the same way that before Baby kicked, I wasn’t really worried about him kicking or not, if he’d never kicked much, I don’t suppose I would want him to kick more. Now that he does, it just seems normal that he should continue to do so.

And, man, does he kick. I’m actually looking forward to my next ultrasound, hoping to get some good movement while we’re watching, because my imagination is starting to run wild with the things I’ve felt. He’s big enough now that he can simultaneously hit both sides of my abdomen. Sometimes it’s a series of hard jabs. In which case, I’ve found that I can calm him down by moving around a bit. Other times I feel more of a pressure, like he’s trying to stretch out my uterus to make more space.

Some of my most common fantasies about his activities include mixed martial arts or acrobatics training, swimming and dancing. I have a feeling that this kid is going to cause some trouble in the next few years. I imagine turning my back on him for only a second and finding him scaling the dresser drawers just like his uncle used to do.

The strangest and probably least expected thing for me about Baby’s daily yoga practice is not how it feels, but rather how it looks. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that I would be able to see him moving from the outside. It just didn’t. When I was first able to feel the kicks, everyone I talked to sprang this news on me, but it wasn’t enough time to process before it actually started happening. That’s some really exorcist shit to see a little creature moving around inside your belly.

I get the feeling that Baby is not a big fan of flying, especially the landing. He’s been particularly rambunctious today, and it kinda felt like he was trying to make a break for it as the plane landed in Houston. He started to get a little buck when we landed in Omaha, but I did a little dance and he chilled out. I can’t say I blame him. I find travelling to be pretty uncomfortable myself. On the bus from Xela to Guate, I had to break out the trusty ziplock bag to vom. While the “morning” sickness subsided a couple months ago, the motion sickness is still on in full effect it seems. I remember when I was little EVERYTHING gave me motion sickness: cars, planes, trains, milk. I think I spent more time throwing up as a kid than anyone I know. As I got older, it never went away, but it got more tolerable. Now I feel like I’m starting from scratch again. I guess parenthood is the second childhood. Baby, all I’m gonna say is that you just better be cute.

The Belly Project

Ever since starting the secret baby blog, I've really started to miss my regular blog. I guess it's true: You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. Luckily, I'm inconsistent enough with my blogging that my absence went completely unnoticed, but now that the news is out, I'll be moving all of my blogging- baby and otherwise- back here. Let's be honest, though, pretty much everything worth writing about at this point is the ten extra pounds sitting on my bladder.

The growing belly is a magical place. I'm not totally sure how it works, but one minute I'm sporting the tiniest of bumps and the next I look like I'm smuggling a beach ball. I've definitively reached that point where, even at its smallest, I often get confused looks from Guatemalans on the street that say: Who knocked up the gringa? But, somehow, I had imagined the growth process to be more linear. This is more of a two steps forward one step back type deal, though.

At my checkup last week, I had gained ten pounds since getting pregnant. Baby also looks almost two weeks older than he really is. (We're not finding out the sex until the baby is born, but I'll be using male pronouns. Most of you know that I'm not one to use male pronouns as default, but I had a dream and you can't prove me wrong yet. I wish there were a pronoun specifically for babies that meant: Who cares what the sex or gender of a person who has yet to form an identity is.) I realized after leaving the doctor's office that when Cris and I met a few years ago, I weighed about what I do now. So why do I feel huge now if I felt normal then? My theory is this: When I weighed ten pounds more a few years ago, it was a well-distributed ten pounds. Everything was bigger head to toe. Now, the only parts that have grown are centrally located. My hips have spread a little and my boobs have gained half a cup size, but most of that weight is all in my abdomen.

The result of such concentrated weight gain? Well, for one thing, it's a constant battle to keep my posture. I often catch myself with my back seriously arched and the belly all out there. Also, unlike normal weight gain, my abdominal wall is seriously stretched out. The muscles still work, just not in all directions. Particularly my lower abdominal muscles are unable to move in a crunch type motion. Since I have no desire to do crunches, that shouldn't matter, right? Well, think about all the positions that the easiest way to get out of is with that very movement. Now imagine (or try if you’re adventurous) getting up from one of those positions without using your lower abdominals. For the most part, you can get up by just swinging around to the side, no problems. But once in a while, something impedes that motion. Some of my more amusing solutions to this problem have been Cris having to pull or push me and, my personal favorite, the time that I had to roll sideways onto the floor to get off the couch. In my defense, I had my legs elevated and the position was deceptively easy to get into. So far, this has only provided a few moments of hilarity for Cris and I, but as the belly grows, I can only image this situation becoming more comical, and with any luck, my evil genius of a spouse will manage to get you all some evidence of it.

Tres Metros Sobre Twilight

My husband and I watched Tres Metros Sobre Cielo (Three Steps Above Heaven) over the weekend. After hearing about it from all the teeny boppers, I decided to find out what it was all about. One of my students is doing her compare and contrast essay on this and Twilight, and after seeing it, I feel like the comparison is apt.

It's a Spanish flick about a school girl named Babi (pronounced BAH-bee, María Valverde) who falls for the bad boy, Hugo, or H as he prefers (pronounced AH-chay, Mario Casas). Though we never see H shoot himself up, it is pretty evident to anyone over the age of 15 that he is on roids for, like, the entire movie. He's a complete asshole, but somehow Babi, who at first seems like a sane human being, falls for him. Basically, if you found Twilight unfathomably hilarious, you must see this film.

I'm gonna go ahead and put a huge SPOILER ALERT here. If you want to be surprised by the LOLs, stop reading and go watch a pirated copy of 3MSC, as the kids call it, and come back later. And believe me, as the plot does not follow any logic known to the rational human mind. The only thing predictable about this movie are the eye rolls you will certainly be experiencing.

Okay, so at first you think that H is out of his mind and Babi will see right threw him, but after calling her ugly, crashing a party she's at, throwing her in the pool in a white dress, chasing her through the streets on his motorcycle, beating up her ride and scaring him off so he could give her a ride home, stalking her, breaking into her house, and coercing her to take off her clothes in exchange for a ride home; he finally wins her heart.

From this point, you may think that H is going to mellow out under the calming influence of Babi. You would be wrong. One day, he gets a bug up his butt to go to the beach. He meets her at school in the morning and convinces her to ditch. Hey, at least he didn't kidnap her. Unfortunately, Babi is spotted leaving by a strict teacher and threatened with expulsion the next day. Her rich-as-fuck parents make a generous contribution to the school, though, so it's all good.

H to the rescue. When Babi tells him what happened, he takes it upon himself to play the hero. H and his friend, Pollo (Álvaro Cervantes) kidnap the teacher's dog and threaten her not to give Babi any trouble. H exhibits many of the typical abusive boyfriend signs: Each time he roid rages out, he does something nice for Babi to make it up to her. In one such instance, he freaks out and takes his bike down a winding highway at breakneck speeds with Babi on the back screaming her head off. To make it up to her, he breaks into a house at the beach and the two of them start playing house there.

There are several moments in the film where the viewer may be completely convinced that the plot is about to take a moralistic turn. Is this really an admonishment against destructive relationships? No! No it is not. She forgives him. Every time. When she does finally break it off, it seems almost unrelated to the fact that he's been manipulating and abusing her.

The only moral I could manage to draw out of this story is that if you are a controlling, crazy parent (Babi's mom), your kid might rebel by almost getting herself killed by her psycho boyfriend on a regular basis. Another weird twist of events, though, is when her father goes to tell H that he can't see Babi anymore. H manages to charm the father to the point that I was left wondering whether the father wanted to make out with H.

There are so many more bizarre moments in this movie, that I couldn't even begin to cover them all here, but I've made a little synopsis of the plot in cartoon form with the basics. You have to see it for yourself. You will laugh so hard you may pee yourself. The shit that Babi does in this movie make Bella Swan look like the poster child for healthy life choices. H is Edward without the guilt complex or practiced self-control. In conclusion, fear for our youth.

Well, here we are again... wasting my time. I just read (skimmed) a history of the internet. Like I give a damn. That was my limit. Time to retreat back to my blog.

So, I can't figure out if this is a moment of culture clash, my inner type A taking over my life, or what; but today has been an exercise in shaking my head in disappointment. I just can't seem to wrap my brain around the idea that a group of adults, supposedly responsible for the education of young people, can actually allow themselves to lose control of a situation on a massive scale.

Let me back up: We've been taking yearbook photos recently. They're really rather cute, but a huge waste of time. If you tell the teachers what you want, when it needs to happen, etc; then we should be able to organize everything and it takes less time, right? Not according to the computer teacher who is, at least in name, in charge of these photos. No, it's better to just call everyone out of class and have them mill about for 40 minutes while they could be learning things until they decide to take the picture. Because THAT makes the most sense. According to our natural teacher instinct, we even attempted to facilitate the process, but since we were all going on differing perceptions of what needed to be done: chaos ensued. Really, the icing on the cake is when the students groan and say, "This is just going to be a waste of time, though." Yeah, I know.

I think what really gets under my skin is this:

"La no planificación es la planificación al fracaso." Which for my monolingual readers (what readers, haha) is "Not planning is planning for failure," and this is something that has been used to admonish teachers at my school time and time again. So why doesn't it apply to the administration/coordination when it comes time for them to plan things in advance? I think that the following cartoon illustrates fairly well the answer.

And the history/overview of the internet for those of you who are new here:

Open publication - Free publishing - More diplomado

Technology Training

If there's anyone out there who still gets notified when I post to this abandoned blog, you know by now that I cannot in good conscience make any commitments to posting more than once a year, but here I am for my annual checkup.

So, a year after I began teaching, I have one concrete piece of wisdom to share: Full time teaching will consume your life. On the one hand it's your life, and you need it for things like blogging, reading, napping or staying in touch with loved ones: those who live on the other side of the globe as well as those lying next to you in bed.

On the other hand teaching is a sacred profession, and it feels almost sacrilegious to give it anything short of the best effort you have. You worry, fret and stress over plans and grades and students who don't seem to get it, even over those who don't seem to care. You make phone calls to parents and send notes; you try to find the balance between praise and consequence; you check and double check yourself on every fact and detail because you want to give your students the best chance they have to succeed, not only in your class but in life; and if you don't, you may be doing it wrong.

Then, every once in a long, long while, something comes along that you just don't give a crap about. For me, that something is technology training. And that, my two followers, is where I'm sitting right now, as they say in Chapín: pelándomela. In theory, I'm very pro-technology training. I think that using technology in the classroom can enrich and transform education when it is used in a manner that is appropriate, purposeful and creative. I myself am constantly looking for new ways to incorporate technology into my lessons that will grab my students' attention, while teaching them core skills and without alienating or overwhelming the less technologically inclined among them.

So, when they told us we would be doing a seven week workshop on Technology in the Classroom, I was pretty excited. However, as it turns out, this is Technology 101 for the internet-impaired. And that's  AFTER they split us into a higher and lower level. What I have "learned" so far in this course includes: how to use email, facebook, twitter and now- blogger. Mind you, if the title of today's course were "How to Not Suck at Updating Your Blog," I would be hanging on the profe's every word (the trick there probably being to make a class blog, see Teaching consumes your life). The emphasis, though, in each of the 3 class meetings we've had so far (today is number 4) has been on the technical aspects of, literally, how to create an account, groups, posts; how to modify settings; how to mention someone in a tweet; etc.

Yes. In case that was not clear: I am in the "advanced" level of this workshop. I'm gonna give you a minute to let that sink in. In a city where there's an internet cafe on every other corner, in a school where every teacher has a personal laptop, in a building with wifi, in a teaching staff with an average age of 30...

Up next week: creating YouTube videos. Mine may look something like this.

The Wedding Cake Diet and other tales

So, in an attempt to stop being completely negligent in my blogging duties, I’m going to briefly re-cap my life since getting married and hopefully that will lead to other posts in the not-so-distant future. We’ll see.

After returning from our combo wedding-honeymoon week, Cris and I quickly realized that a better use of our time and money might have been getting our apartment in some sort of functional condition, but I for one refused to have any regrets about the decision we made. It was a mostly lovely week of sun and water and overpriced food.

We got back to Xela to find it just as cold and rainy as we’d left it. Our apartment still had no fridge, closet, bookshelf, couch, television, organization or zen; not to mention our bank account was now lacking funds as well. However, we were full up on boxes, stuff, time and wedding cake.

Not having a fridge to put the wedding cake in, we stuffed ourselves on it for the few days before its edibility became questionable, but in the end were unsuccessful in finishing it. Cooking in general in those early days was a bit difficult, and as a result, we probably ate out more than two people who’ve just spent a week on vacation should.

So, we decided to dip into our savings a bit more than we’d planned in order to start putting together a livable space. I found some odd work, Cris built us a closet, and we eventually found a nice, affordable fridge. Little by little, we found space for things, at least in the short term.

Then I became a grown up...

In early July, I got a job. Like, a real job. With a salary and benefits. Okay, so technically until my residency paperwork and all that goes through, on paper Cris is employed at my job (I know, Guatemala, smdh.) The important thing is that I wake up at 4:30 in the morning in order to get to work every day by 7. I teach 6-8 classes a day: 6th grade (Spelling, Grammar, Reading, Conversation and Science), 8th grade and 10th grade (Writing, Literature, Grammar and Conversation). I write lesson plans and tests and get evaluated on my work. I am officially a freaking adult!!

Since I started working in the middle of the year, and if fact in the middle of a quarter, I’ve had basically no free time. I’ve had to make up tons of work because the previous teacher left me high and dry with next to no grades and little idea of what her plan was for the rest of the year. On top of that, Cris and I still had a ton of stuff left to do to fix up the apartment. Luckily, I married one of the most amazing people on the planet. He’s stepped in and gotten the house looking amazing while I’ve been busy catching up at my new job: buying curtains and bookcases, installing shelves, putting up a mirror and all the while taking care of most of the cooking and cleaning.

If I’ve had very little time to take care of household chores, I’ve had even less of a chance to keep in touch with people, do research, relax or go out. Hopefully, once things settle down a bit at work I can get my life back... but that remains to be seen.

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How not to fail at your blog 101

Okay, so I promised myself that I would keep up with this blog. Despite the fact that my last day off was Monday and my next one will be on Sunday, yes that's twelve straight days of work for a total of 18 shifts (it's okay I'm only complaining a little bit), I am forcing myself to write something just to break the silence. So, I made you some lists, blogland.

List one: things I've been doing
-working (I think I may have already mentioned that somewhere)
-counting down (52 days to Guatemala, 69 days to the wedding, and 47 days to graduation which somehow seems anti-climactic right now)
-making sociological observations of the crowds at my various jobs (more on my findings later)
-letting a LOT of oppressive statements slide, feeling guilty about it, eventually forcing myself to say something, feeling frustrated and conflicted
-sleeping little and caffeinating a lot

List two: things I miss
-my boo
-my womens
-a community that supports me (perhaps more that I realized when I had it)
-people who have more to talk about than how much alcohol/weed/other drugs they consumed last night (to be clear, my life is not devoid of those people, they have just become somewhat scarce)
-cuba
-xela (not necessarily in that order, tranquilo xela)
-tortillas negras (you see, guatemala, I miss you AND your food, cuba, well... sorry)
-sleep

List three: things I am going to miss
-netflix instant view
-FAST internet/Wifi everywhere, FREE
-my family, even though they annoy me now :)
-cheap phone calls/bus rides between me and my womynz (though I never get to see/talk to you, the idea of it is comforting)
-being able to default to a language I generally make sense in, can tell when I don't and know how to fix that
-the creature comforts of first world capitalism
-this one is a little hard to explain, but systems of oppression that I know and understand; I'm not happy with them, but I can wrap my head around them

List four: things I will NOT miss
-waking up alone
-coming home from a long day with no one to rub my back
-not having anyone to go dancing with/getting approached by random dudes when I dance alone
-snow
-working all the time
-skype sex
-strict notions of time and timeliness

I have to go back to work soon. I should sleep before then. More stuff soon, maybe lists, maybe more interesting stuff. No promises right now. :D

House rules, an ode to presumptuous white men:

I’ve worked a lot of service and entertainment jobs. For me, the most interesting similarity between the two is the insight into power relationships that they offer. With service encounters, the ways that social hierarchies influence people’s behavior can get pretty complicated in my experience. Within entertainment, particularly for a bar DJ, you get a pure, unadulterated visible privilege meter.

The bar being public space, the DJ serves as something of a gatekeeper, with no bureaucracy and nearly instant gratification. The way a person approaches and interacts with the DJ says a lot about their attitudes toward and relationship with public space. Hence: the most visibly privileged have the highest expectations of ownership. Though this doesn’t work as well with employees, it’s an almost perfect correlation for your average patron.

My observations of (and frustrations with) many white men under these conditions gave rise to the following list of rules of how not to behave like an overprivileged, presumptuous ass.

1. You do not speak for everyone, nor are you more important than they are. "Can you play anything but [insert genre/artist/song currently playing]?" is not a very helpful or constructive question. In all likelihood, the previous song was of a different genre/artist than the current song and most certainly not the SAME song. It’s probably safe to assume then that the next song, following this pattern, will differ from the current one in genre and/or artist as well. Since I, as a rule, do not repeat songs during any given night, the only logical conclusion I can draw from this request is that you would like me to stop playing this song immediately and/or refrain from playing any more songs of the same genre/artist.

Now, I know this may seem like a novel concept to you, but other people (and by other I mean not men, not white and/or not presumptuous people) generally just request what it is that THEY would like to hear. They may try to sway me by providing specific information (It’s my birthday) or insisting that everyone will love their song/artist/genre, but more often qualify their own desires as not superseding the desires of the group. Your request, on the other hand, either prioritizes your own desires as more important or takes them as representative of the whole. Incorrect on both counts, sorry and thanks for playing.

2. Racist observations do not further prove your importance or suitability as a representative of the group. They are annoying, offensive and irrelevant. When a white man asks me to play anything but Rap, for instance, he may be tempted to follow up this request with an observation of his surroundings. Now, the question alone is an exercise of privilege, but one I’m willing to work with and even indulge. Not because it’s okay, just because it’s my job. The followup observation is almost without question going to take me from cooperative to popping Excedrin for racial tension headaches.

It usually goes something like, “How many young black people do you see in this bar right now?” Meaning, what? That only black people listen to Black music? Wrong. The largest consumer group of Hip-Hop/Rap music for decades has been 16 to 25-year-old white males. Well, at least the way that the music industry is defining consumption and measuring demand.

Now, I know this fact may be troubling to you. You prefer to look back fondly on some forgotten time when popular music was altogether Whiter, right? Wrong again. The history of popular music in the US is full of black artists, white artists who appropriate Black music while neglecting to give credit to black artists and the artists who have been influenced by the aforementioned groups. Rock and Country owe their origins to young (and old) black people as much as Hip-Hop/Rap.

And you know what? I’m not even playing Rap. It’s called R&B, google it.

3. Despite what your over-inflated sense of self worth might be telling you, I do not require your approval. Though many patrons feel compelled to complement my work, thank me for playing their song or even tip me, you are the only one who lords your approval over my head. You insult my performance when I don’t do what you want, when you want. You insult other women as a means of complimenting me. I don’t have the vaguest notion of where you got the idea that flexing your power and authority as almighty white man would impress me, or that denigrating my fellow women would flatter me.

I watched you try to dance with every unattached woman on or near the dance floor, and one-by-one they laughed at your clumsy approach and drunken “moves” or got frustrated by your pushy tactics. You are a shining example of rape culture at work and when you admitted to telling another woman that she displeased you because she danced “like a typical white girl” in an attempt to -what, woo me?- all you did was announce, unmistakably clear: “I’m a misogynist and a racist. I believe that I have ownership over black and female bodies/identities. I appropriate an imagined parody of Blackness to bolster my masculinity and leverage it to judge your expression of femininity.”

Eww.

Ella quiere su rumba (¿Como?)

I’ve had high cholesterol for years. Just one of those things that I lost the genetic lottery on. I eat a high fiber, low fat, almost devoid of any type of cholesterol or trans fat whatsoever diet and at my latest check up I found out that my cholesterol has actually gone up slightly since the last time I had gotten it checked. So, I started doing some digging and found out that diet may not be as effective in controlling high cholesterol as exercise, particularly regular, medium to high-intensity cardiovascular exercise. That probably would have been a helpful tidbit for my doctor to have given me, but maybe they’re not up-to-date on all the latest research from 1998. That’s okay.

The point is that I’ve gotta start working out more. I hate running. I’m not really sure I want to shell out the cash for a gym membership just yet. Probably a good idea eventually. My immediate solution: Zumba. Everyone raves about it and at $10 a pop, not a bad option for a commitment-phobe in need of a quick cardio fix. From what little I knew about Zumba before showing up to my first class the other day, admittedly almost zilch, I was pretty excited. Dancing has always been a preferred activity of mine over anything that I would call exercising.

What I hadn’t really counted on was the uncomfortability level. It slowly became apparent: three young, suburban, white (read: anglo) women teaching a room full of mostly middle-aged; black, brown and other white women bachata, hip-hop and other latino/afro-american (in the continent sense of the term) inspired moves. I can’t say that I definitively walked away with a sense of how I felt about it. On the one hand, anything that promotes non-white and/or non-US artists, potentially increasing their exposure and albums sales is great. This room full of women leading healthier lives, also great. What I’m assuming are primarily white women profiting off of the art and culture of non-white artists, eh, less than great.

And the ultimate truth that remained obfuscated by the racial, ethnic and national heterogeneity of my particular location-- and again, I’m assuming here-- that these classes are primarily being taught TO white women, white women who are imagining some exotic latin lover type, Henry Churches with a rose in his mouth. That one just about made me shiver out of distaste. I always hate when people see Cris that way. When they assume he’s romantic, passionate or a good dancer because of where he’s from rather than who he is. I suppose that there are a million stereotypes of Latino men that people don’t readily apply to him because of his association to me, or at least not out loud anyway. I think I’ll keep going to Zumba class. I’ll just have a lot to think about while I shimmy my LDLs off.

Love in the Time of Skype

Perhaps it has something to do with the frequently near freezing temperatures outside, or more likely the newfound flexibility in both of our schedules, but in recent months Cris and I have been spending an almost unjustifiable amount of time chatting via Skype. With the exception of the four months I spent in Cuba and completely unable to connect to Skype, it’s played a fairly central role in our relationship throughout. When we first met, my camera died in an accidental drowning, so the first pic I took of him was a Skype screen shot.

While the long distance relationships of yesteryear, or maybe a little bit longer ago than that, relied primarily upon long letters with even longer arrival times or low quality phone calls; LDRs now seem like the hottest new trend, at least if my immediate social circle is to be taken as somewhat representative. From unlimited sexting plans to Skype dates on free wifi connections, not only has communication gotten faster, it’s also a lot cheaper to keep in touch long distance these days. That’s not to say that there aren’t still some major hurdles for international romances- the higher cost of international calls and texting, quality and price of internet access outside of the first world, and then there are all of those international travel problems, but that’s another story for another day.

In spite of the difficulties we’ve faced, the long distance nature of our relationship has also been beneficial in a number of ways. I think that it has taught us both to listen better and be more patient with one another. Generally, in relationships, I feel that I take my partner’s presence for granted as time goes on, and that the same physical presence of them fills far more space of the relationship than meaningful conversation. With Cris, because we’ve spent so much time apart, we’ve had to invent ways of being present in one another’s lives. Rather than just doing the things that occupy our day to day lives, and doing them together as many couples would, each mundane task becomes an opportunity to communicate and share our lives. Tonight, for example, Cris called me up on his way to the store to ask me what I thought he should make for dinner. Somehow, I felt closer to him then than all the times we’ve made dinner together.

I knew I was in love when...

I had a dream last night. Really, a nightmare. For some reason unknown to my waking self I was in a situation where I had to marry someone not my husband-to-be. I chose a good friend of mine, someone for whom I've felt romantic feelings in the past, though not in a long time, and tried to make the best of it. The dream, in short, was a sequence in which, one by one, all of the things that I have planned and imagined for my future are taken from me while I attempt to remain strong and optimistic, keeping everything from falling apart. The real turning point of the dream happened when my dream spouse cut their lip, and something about their face in that moment brought me back to images of my former life, the life that I should have had. All at once, I was filled completely with a deep, aching desire for that life, and the knowledge that I could never have it made me wish for death. A bit dramatic, I admit, but that's dream logic, and it was the most profoundly upsetting dream I’ve ever had. When I woke up the first thing I did was call my fiancé and cry; I haven’t been able to shake the feeling of it all day.

My fiancé and I have been doing the long distance thing pretty much since the beginning, spending four months apart and one to three months together. It hasn’t been easy, but for the most part we’ve made it work. We’ve found some pretty creative solutions to the problems created by the distance, and at times even used it to our advantage. But we’ve never gone this long without seeing one another in person. Four months, it seems is really our limit and right now we're going on six.

I’ve never been the type to believe in soul mates or fairy tale relationships. I find that type of mentality to be a recipe for disappointment. It’s easy to set unrealistic expectations at the beginning of a relationship, but difficult to live up to them over the long run. Stable, healthy, fulfilling relationships are built on a base of compatibility for sure, but require honest communication and a willingness to love, accept and support one another. The soon-to-be Mr. Naranja and I certainly have all of those ingredients mixed up in our little love stew (otherwise I don’t think either of us would be ready to commit our lives to each other). However, I am willing to admit that I may have underestimated the element of magic in a relationship, because we also have something deeper. Something that doesn’t require any conscious effort or decision.

I’m sure there are those out there who could explain this phenomenon by following the oxytocin and vasopressin through some circuitous tour of my brain, but all I know is that my partner and I understand each other without words. We complement one another in a way that gives meaning to the phrase “too good to be true.” It’s a little creepy and a lot sappy, but I feel like we were made for each other. When I asked him to marry me I never expected that I'd every be any more certain of my decision, and yet, sometimes it feels like every day I wake up exponentially more resolute and assured.