The persecutions of Job(ette?)

This past week has been a difficult one for me and though nobody has died or even been (too terribly) injured, I can't help but compare my tribulations to that of a certain man from the Bible who was tested by God. Because I love the drama like that, don'tcha know.

First of all, we had James's fertility thing, which was a huge blow and stress and has pretty much shaken my confidence in my future.

Secondly, and this is going to sound REALLY weird, but I made pesto for dinner a few nights ago and when I woke up the next morning there was a VERY strong bitter taste in my mouth. I brushed my teeth several times and gargled throughout the day but it persisted. It was the strangest thing; I kind of thought I had been poisoned. Later I found out that it was the pine nuts I used. I know, it sounds stupid! But apparently pine nuts that are being imported from China are genetically engineered somehow and the result is that they cause an allergy in some people! Or that they have been treated with something really nasty, or an additive that the Chinese use in processing the nuts. Nobody knows for sure. But: !!! The taste is worse after eating, especially something sweet, and we are going on three days and counting with the problem persisting (J has it, too). There is no cure but to wait for it to go away, and that can take WEEKS, sometimes! I am buying EVERYTHING from the organic market from now on.

Thirdly, last Thursday I had a mishap with the straightening iron that I use to tame my curly hair. Because I am vain. The first two things might have been a persecution from the Man Above but this is my own damn fault. Vanity, thy name is Catherine. I accidentally turned the iron to its highest setting, and when I opened it, the entire left side of my hair fell to the floor from the nape of my neck down. The result has been somewhat dramatic. This is my new haircut:

I have to admit it's grown on me and that I am now finding it sort of flapperish and cute. But at first I couldn't help thinking that I looked like a prison warden. I am not skinny enough for the gamine look. And I miss my hair, though I cursed it when it was there. I guess, like Anne, I would have liked for this to be of my own choosing, and for a better reason. But I would be lying if I tell you that tears were not shed over this, most of all because I'm going to a wedding of my high school friends in two weeks and dammit, I haven't seen most of these people in 10 years! I want to look PRETTY, not like I cut my hair with a weedwhacker.

Fourthly (I know!) my shower developed a small leak that became a big leak when my asshole downstairs neighbor didn't report it to me, and now he wants us to pay for the damage, which we are not contractually obligated to do since he let it get worse before he told us. Legally, he is responsible for some of the damage. But of course (sigh) he swears it didn't start until the night he told us now that I've told him the law.

So yes. By Sunday night, I was worn out with anxiety and anger and frustration and fear and general upsetness.

But things are looking better today. The pine-nut taste is diminished somewhat. My homeowner's insurance will cover whatever we owe Downstairs Neighbor. And most importantly, I found a study on line put out by the World Health Organization that came out the day after James's fertility test. Apparently, they have changed the parameters of normal "little guy" count (as we're calling it because the other word is nasty) and now 8% normal is perfectly normal. It's only below 4% that is a problem, apparently. It seems like a lot, but hey, I'm not a doctor and I'm taking any good news I can get, here. He's still going to a doctor but we are a lot more optimistic about the baby thing happening--and happening sooner rather than later.

And hairwise, I'm feeling much better, too. Because I went out to Sally Beauty and I bought a WEAVE. Technically, I guess it's more of extensions because I can clip them in and out, but I like talking about my weave, so I call it that. Here is how I look wearing my fake (I guess it's real, because it's real hair, but fake to me...you get the picture) hair.

(It does creep me out, slightly, the idea of wearing someone else's hair, but when that happens I just raise it to my nose and inhale the plasticy scent, and then I make myself belief that it's just really good synthetic and that I got duped. That helps a lot.)

I am more than a little ashamed that I bought these, though, because 1) they were fairly expensive ($70 is super expensive for me) and 2) it was sheer vanity that made me do it. But then, I reckoned that I don't buy much for myself anymore and that it would be just as shameful to WANT them, even if I didn't have them. This might be sheer rationalization. Anyway, I'm so ashamed of them that I wouldn't dream of wearing them to Quaker meeting, which compounds my sin, I guess, because it is falseness...oh well. I'm not perfect.

But yes, I do have my long, lustrous, beautiful hair back! So I guess it's a wash.


Anyway, here's to hoping this week is better than the last. And for fortitude--!

When the thermometer goes way up...

It's been hot as Hades here in the mid-Atlantic states for the past week or so--ninety-seven, ninety-eight, a hundred degrees--real, sweltering, tomato-plant killing* weather. I've resorted to closing the door to the bedroom, where the AC unit in the back of the house resides, and sweltering during the day just so I can have a lot of trapped icy coldness to get me through the night.

So I find it really funny that tapes I'm currently transcribing and editing were recorded during the great blizzard of 2010. I can hear, over the sound of people talking, sometimes, the wind howling and moaning through the windows of the room the interview is taking place in. Which does absolutely nothing to cool me off, but makes me smile, nonetheless. Back in February, I thought I'd never be warm again. Now I can't imagine that kind of cold exists anywhere on the planet.

_____

*more on that, and this past week's Job-like persecutions and pestilence, in a post to come.

Probably TMI, but I am sort of beyond caring.

I was going to wait and post on this topic when I had good news, but now it looks like we might never have it, so what the hell, why not?

James and I started trying for a baby last month, and because he has a varicocele, basically a varicose vein in an important part of his baby-making anatomy, we had his sperm tested to rule out defects, because the vein can overheat things, which prevents pregnancy. The results came back and they are really negative. His count is high, but only 8 percent of his swimmers were normally formed. The rest were abnormal, meaning that 92% of them would not be able to swim properly enough to fertilize an egg. The highest rate of abnormality that you need to conceive normally is 15 percent. So his is a little more than half that.

I have been a wreck all day, probably exacerbated by my monthly visitor. But this is just so depressing to me. He can have a minor operation to repair the vein, but there's no really strongly proven correlation with that operation and increased fertility. The next step would be IUI or IVF, but that is so expensive and it seems (from the internet) to work not really well, and even if it does, I never thought that I'd have to go through this and it's just shock and again, really, really depressing to me. I'm praying that his second analysis, requested by my doctor, is better, but I know in my heart that it won't be, because bad readings usually come from things that aren't clinically proven to exist, like his varicocele has been.

I can't help feeling like my hopes for a baby are over before they even started, and I know this makes me a bad person but I can't help but be kind of upset with James. I feel like if he had gotten this problem taken care of when it started, instead of waiting, because he is afraid of doctors, maybe things wouldn't have gotten this bad? And there is the fact that he continues to do things like drink and ride a bike, that can make his problem worse, even though we've both know that they do. I am trying hard not to let this slight resentment show because I really don't want J to feel badly. I really don't blame him for this, and I know it is not his fault. But basically I feel terrible, so terrible, and scared.

My aunt was never able to have children and I have always been petrified that, like her, I will never have a chance to be a mother. And here I am, faced with the very real chance of that thing I have feared happening.

Reversal of Fortune

So I had a wonderful sight to greet me when I woke up this morning. (/ sarcasm). A rejection letter from the second literary agency that wanted the sample of my book.

Dear Catherine,

Thank you so much for the opportunity to give your work a preliminary review. Though intrigued by some aspects of your sample book, we were not sufficiently enthusiastic to consider representation.

I really liked the voice in the sample; Kate's chatty and familiar yet fluid tone was perfect for this type of book. However, I didn't find myself connecting with the characters as much as I'd hoped.

All our decisions are based on a frank assessment of the literary and film marketplace. The fact that your story doesn’t fit our criteria for representation does not mean it couldn’t find a home elsewhere. I urge you to submit your project to other agencies and management companies; perhaps another representative will have a different opinion.

I do thank you for sending your work our way, and I wish you the best of luck with this and all your writing.

Kind Regards,

I am unsure of what to do after a letter like that. Should I go back and revise, making my characters more approachable and relateable? Is this because Irenie is Norwegian? You don't meet many Norwegians on a day-to-day basis. Should I have made her Puerto Rican or something? Is it because Kate and Irenie's friend Colby is gay, and that's controversial? (He's the most Disneyfied gay dude ever, though. How offensive can he be?)

It's probably because Kate herself is an off-the-wall character. She's weird. I admit it. She's a lot like me, in that she has a rich inner life. Some people think it's strange that when I'm bored in the car I imagine John Adams sitting in the backseat, aghast at things like airplanes and traffic lights. I picture myself explaining to him what they are. Weird. Kate's like that, too.

So I should probably change her. But I love her. I don't want to change her--I CAN'T. If I changed her, she wouldn't be her.

To top it all off, I have the shittiest, strangest cold. I never get sick, and now it's like all the colds I should have gotten in the past three years have descended on me at once, in one giant amalgamation of a cold. My throat hurts. My nose is stopped up. I'm exhausted all the time. My food tastes bad to me, except for the few things I want, which I always want when I can't get them (IE, it's hard to get sushi at 1 AM, even in the city). I hate being sick; I am the world's worst patient.

I'm trying really hard to focus on the nice things in the letter, but I'm having a difficult time doing it. Y'all know it's a form letter. "I urge you to submit it someplace else" basically means "We don't want this, but we'll feel bad if you blow your brains out because we said it sucks."

Basically, this is me today:

Woe is me.