Spitting Distance

Really, I could finish up my papers today if I just put my mind to it. Nausea's not too bad; house is empty except for me and the reptiles. But you know how work stretches to fill the time allotted? The work is stretching.

I called my friend around the corner to see if she was free for coffee, thinking that would motivate me to get finished. She's not home. I've been trying to think of something fun I could do when I get through and I'm not coming up with anything really thrilling. Walk to the used bookstore and buy something fun to read during Petely's nap? Pick up some cute sock yarn and cast on a new pair? Go get a new spring haircut? Got any ideas for me?

One of the things that worried me about being pregnant and in grad school is that pregnancy has a terrible effect on my brain. When I was pregnant with Pete, one of the boys said exasperatedly, "Mom, you get forgetfuller the pregnanter you get." He hit it on the head. Yesterday I was trying to do one of the puzzles in the NYT magazine and COULD NOT think of what word could be spelled c_ewy. I was utterly baffled. Crewy? Clewy? What kind of crazy words are those? Then I plugged it into OneAcross.com and felt like an idiot. In another example, I have a prenatal appointment scheduled for next Monday and I REMEMBER writing it on the calendar. Except it's not on the calendar. What did I write it on? The mortgage coupon that I put in the mail? (Wait, I didn't pay the mortgage yet this month.) The September page of the calendar? I think I'm going to have to call and see what time I'm supposed to be there. I wrote it down carefully, knowing how flaky I can be when I'm pregnant, and then I forgot where I wrote it. Yikes.

Thankfully, I think I'm hanging in there with the work I'm doing for school. It's possible that I'm writing sentences about Whorfian claims and metarepresentational competence that will cause my professor to laugh mirthlessly (or cry) when she reads them, but I think it makes sense. I think. And now I'm going to go write some more, so I can do something fun afterward. Something. I just need to figure out what.

Comments

[Sarah]

Frankly, all of your ideas sound wonderful to me. A terrific way to celebrate the completion of your work.

And I can totally relate to the Placenta effect. I forget how to spell and construct grammatically correct sentences.

[Julie]

Lately I've been rewarding myself with Scrabulous...how fun to have six Scrabble games going simultaneously with friends around the country! :) Are you on Facebook? (e-mail me if you are!)

[Karen]

How about a bubble bath award?

I hated the nausea of the first 4 months so badly that I'm having trouble reading your blog, LOL! And I was in grad school during my first pg; I can totally relate to your worries. I didn't get so spacy, just completely unmotivated. Who cared about nanoindenters and a possible fiber push test for material characterization when I was gestating an actual human being? ;-)

[rachel]

I was terrified that my defense would consist of the committee spitting upon chapter 4, since that one was written between weeks 29-37 of the pregnancy. I had no idea what to say if they started taking it apart - "sorry, but I was too busy gestating to remember that a complete sentence needs a verb"? In the end, of course, that was the chapter they thought was the most focused...