All hell continues to break loose

I probably didn't mention it, but about a month ago my parents decided that my maternal grandmother (81 years old) can no longer safely live alone (she's been in quasi-assisted living for a few years, but she's still living on her own in a two bedroom apartment where she does most of her own cooking and medication management, all of which is coming to an end). So two weeks ago my Mom flew down to Texas to pack up all of her mother's belongings and bring her back to WV to move into a real assisted living place near my parents. Mom is an only child, and her dad died ten years ago, so this is an emotional time for her. Mom and Grandma are scheduled to get back to WV late tonight.

Then, last night my paternal grandfather (the statistician) was hospitalized with pneumonia and a urinary infection. His doctors don't seem too worried, and expect he'll be discharged next week.

Meanwhile, I spent all day yesterday at the hospital with my friend, for what amounted to a 20 minute surgery. Everything went ok, but we won't hear back from pathology until later in the week. So now it's a game of distraction. Look! Shiny!

One small shiny spot - before heading out to the hospital yesterday I did manage to send off a draft document to my committee. So there's that.

Things That Don't Suck
(trying to dig myself out of this seemingly never-ending stream of shit by focusing on the little things)

• Comments from long-lost old friends (Reyn - an e-mail is headed your way).
• Going out for dinner and drinks with the amazing women from my adult gymnastics class, and having them give a toast to me!
• Having students in my kindergarten class ask to have their picture taken with me on the last day of the session.
• Remembering how to do a kip on bars*.
• MandyAndBryan.com, the blog of one of my students, who is planning to depart to travel around the world with her boyfriend. Seriously, I should come with this same disclaimer:

It should be noted that I have the filter of a three year old and no boundaries. There are few things I am uncomfortable discussing. Talk of dead bodies and bodily functions while eating doesn’t phase me. I’m not good at the beginning of relationships where you are supposed to be on your best behavior and pretend that you never belch or pass gas. Who am I kidding, I’m not usually delicate enough to call it “passing gas”, but I’m trying to be mindful of the more easily disturbed. Bryan always knows when I’ve cut the cheese because of the giggling. A good fart really brings out the eight year old boy in me.

(though I tend to err more on the TMI with regard to sex than bodily functions)

• Seeing Janet Reno tomorrow (though sadly, I imagine no dance party)
• The Tudors (mmm...Jonathan Rhys Meyers)
• printing out the so far 40+ pages of my dissertation and thinking, huh, this doesn't really suck.
• Cortisone shots.
  

Things That Do Suck

• Republican American (shocker) for publishing an interesting article on all the reasons why women are more likely to tear their ACL than men, then closing with this bullshit:

Girls tend to play more dolls and dress up and all that kind of stuff as kids while boys are out running, tackling and jumping up and down.

Unfortunately, Roger Cleaveland doesn't appear to have a readily available e-mail or phone number, but this is the link to how to contact all their various editors. Go tell them all about the 'running, tackling and jumping up and down' you did as a kid.

• Quarterlife. I wanted to like this show. It is, after all, by the same people as Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life. I think in a way it's like Dawson's Creek - it gets the emotions of a few tiny moments right, but the rest is melodramatic to the point of unwatchable. Maybe it is just one of those things - maybe if you're exactly at that place in your life it speaks to you, but if you're even just a year or two past it's unbearably embarrassing. I'm always afraid to pass these sorts of judgements, because I do have a lot of nostalgic love for things that I know are sort of ridiculous and melodramatic (My So-Called Life, Felicity).
  

*if you were an athlete at some previous time in your life, and have come back and attempted to duplicate some former glory, you know what it's like to be shocked that your body no longer responds the way you remember it once could. I've been dabbling in gymnastics from time to time for the past decade, so I'm sort of used to the new, slow, weak body that I now possess (and most days manage to love it anyway). So tonight it was a new kind of awesome to not only once again master an old trick, but to get that old mindset back, where for just a few seconds, my body actually did respond the way my brain remembers it used to. It was like finding the zone again. And it was lovely.

Megan's brain explodes

Over the past two weeks:

• one of my closest friends was diagnosed with cancer
• my landlady decided not to renew my lease
• I re-did a big chunk of analysis for my dissertation, with a slightly modified model, and got totally different results
• there may be potential professional upheaval around here that may or may not affect me (I'm not allowed to talk about it yet)

All while I'm supposed to get a summary document to my committee by the end of this week, meet with my committee next week, deliver a practice version of my conference presentation at seminar next week, fly to DC for said conference two weeks later, and propose in April.

I give up.

Bitch is the new black!
(I heart Tina Fey)



UPDATE: Links fixed!