Fear And Trembling–And Maybe A Little Sleep Deprivation, Too.
I have much to do. And yet I have managed to draw up a daily schedule for the next month that has me completing all of my neccessary tasks:
5:40: Wake up. Take temperature. Stumble to bathroom, have brief Metformin-related skirmish with digestive tract. Ready self for work by pulling hair into tiny rumpled ponytail and smearing gel blush on cheeks. Choose least wrinkled shirt and pants from basket of clean–yet unfolded–laundry. Utilize ovulation microscope, like bleary-eyed scientist in wee bathroom laboratory. Drive to work.
6:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.: In office, return work-related email, edit things, drink tea. Resolve to master mountains of paper covering desk sometime before end of week. Work at tremendous speed, as Pocket Part season, the busiest, most mandatory-overtime-filled season of all, is just sending up its first poisonous tendrils. By the end of June said tendrils will be curled intractably around throat.
3:30-4:00: Drive home. {Note to self: Must find way to multi-task during commute.}
4:00: Exercise while watching 1/2 episode of Gilmore Girls.
4:30: Make phone calls, pay bills. Some suggested items to complete during this time: Call movers; file change of address form; file property tax refund paperwork; arrange for pickup of donated furniture; respond to 349 personal email messages; cancel old phone, internet, and cable; secure new (and cheaper) phone, internet, and cable; update fertility chart and stare at it, willing it to form a pattern; make financial arrangements with bursar’s office regarding tuition; urinate on ovulation predictor sticks; open and ultimately ignore mail.
6:30: Prepare and eat healthful and tasty dinner.
7:30: Pack—Sort through clothes, makeup, papers, tchotchkes. Put items to be discarded in trash bag. Put items to be moved in boxes. Put items will need until the move into large suitcase, which will serve as closet/desk/medicine cabinet until June 1st. Pack 2000 books into boxes, making vain attempt to part from a few volumes. Sit cross-legged in middle of detritus agonizing over whether to keep six-year-old birthday cards.
9:30: Schoolwork—Until May 18th, am part of “Virtual Residency,” which requires 1-3 nightly hours of participation. In addition, general semester requirements include producing 50 pages of writing and reading 20 books. Some things to do this month: develop independent study plan with academic advisor, view faculty presentations, participate in discussions, complete six reams paperwork. Read. Make notes on reading. Write response to reading. Begin first draft of creative piece that will form bulk of semester grade.
1:00 a.m.: Write witty yet soulful blog entry, read blogs of others (current count of blogs I follow=60), make insightful comments on same.
3:00: Take bath/shower. Dose self with 6 nightly pills (Metformin, etc.) and glass of milk. Do homework for Mind/Body Infertility class.
4:00-5:40: Sleep.
Items that must be scheduled but that are not currently listed above:
• 1-2 RE appointments
• Infertility class every Wednesday from 6-8:30 p.m.
• Impromptu showings of old apartment, and frenzied cleaning before said showings
• 4 Social obligations
• Occasional romantic interlude
• Laundry, grocery shopping, dishes, therapy appointments, sundry errands
• Thorough move-out cleaning of apartment, including interior of stove and freezer
• Throrough move-in cleaning of new apartment, including the changing of light fixtures and the re-covering of kitchen countertops
• Actual move
• Subsequent stay in psychiatric facility
12 Comments
ah, now, you make it looks sooo-oo-o easy! Wanna move me, too?
Aiiiieeee! *explodes from immense productiveness*
Several assvicey suggestions:
1. Get a Treo 650 with unlimited mobile internet. You can call, research stuff online AND write on the thing (3/4 of my blog posts begin life on that nifty lil’ thang). You can do all of these WHILE YOU ARE (commuting/exercising/in the bathroom, cursing the makers of Metformin/etc). Other than my baby, my husband, Paxil and diet soda, the Treo is the GREATEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME.
2. Clif Bars in lieu of food. They are tasty and full of oats and… y’know… bio-nutra…noids… healthy stuff! I more or less exist on these (and their less-filling, frou-frou-ier cousin, Luna Bars).
3. Get a baby… you will subsequently find yourself exclaiming at least ten times daily, “I used to have SO MUCH FREE TIME!” Given the circumstances, I realize this might not be so easy. Might I suggest rooting around in a cabbage patch, or perhaps taking J.Q. off my hands? After he’d thrown his seventh graham cracker on the kitchen floor in rage last night, I actually said to him, “DO YOU WANT ME TO GIVE YOU AWAY TO AN INFERTILE COUPLE? I know PLENTY!”
Please don’t kill youself, sdopted sister… I’d miss your posts too much!
Dude, i hear Pine Rest is nice these days. Sure sounds damn good to me.
OK, I’m still hung up on the fact that you start work at 6:30 EVERY MORNING. I’m an hour ahead of you and you STILL are at your desk three hours before I am. That alone is worthy of a medal in my book.
and damn, you take all your Metformin pills at once? You stud. I have to spread them out or I suffer, oh do I suffer.
My first instinct is to make a lame joke about how you don’t really need a CLASS in infertility… har har!
My second is to want to give you a big hug. Hang in there, at least some of those things are going to get better over the next few months.
My third is to hit the panic button because, oh yeah, I’m moving too and I haven’t even started thinking about packing except to begin getting rid of the things I don’t want to pack. Yikes.
Oh, poor Alexa! You know somewhere in there, something is going to slip through the cracks and then lodge there, rotting, taunting you with its maloderous reminder that you can’t do a year’s worth of stuff in a month. Hang in there, sis, and I’ll understand if you don’t have time to post (but I’ll still be miserable about it).
Sensible Sar’s Moving Tips (besides the old *CRASH* “Oops I dropped another glass, looks like I’ve got one less to pack, and-” *CRASH* “-what a coincidence, there goes another!”):
- Pack your boxes half books / half blankets. David Sedaris said that when he worked for a moving company, he began to despise what he had once considered the noble hobby of reading.
-Fuck newspaper, wrap your dishes and glasses in clothes and towels to consolidate boxes
-All the stuff you think you’ll get when you come back later WILL NOT ALL FIT IN THE FUCKING TRUCK so just TAKE IT NOW
Oh yeah, and “Occasional romantic interlude?” Brilliant!
Maybe you should outfit yourself like one of those carriage-pulling horses, with a hands-free feed back strapped to the front and another bag for…
nevermind.
feed BAG, not back. Whoopsie. What goes on the BACK is another sort of BAG entirely.
Just reading your post made me want to take a nap!
I attempted to use that ovulation microscope when I tried ovulating on my own (OPKs didn’t work for me because I always had an elevated LH), and I am placing the blame for my newly acquired crow’s feet on all that damn squinting I did while searching for ferning (in vain, I might add).
Gee, Alexa. And I thought I was having it rough right now.
I wish I could help you with the packing. I’m a good packer. Not that I am any good at the other 54,573 things you have on your list.
It will pass. I don’t know HOW, but it will pass.
Yes, yes… rest assured that your comment on my blog was INDEED insightful and meaningful… so you can at least cross THAT task off your list…
And… romantic interlude??? I’m impressed that this enters the equation at ALL given the current state of affairs…
Smooches.
I think the rest home will be v important. Suggest you don’t worry too much about sorting stuff, just move it all and sort when you get there. I know that’s not efficient but you have so much else to do….
Sounds like infertility is a fulltime job. But no benefits, overtime pay or well, compensation of any kind. That suck. YOu guys should unionize.