If you have a few minutes, read this article about initiatives to prevent unplanned pregnancies among community college students.  If you don’t, here’s a summary: community colleges don’t have health centers, and often CCs serve populations that wouldn’t otherwise have access to birth control, for financial, logistical, or other reasons.  So, says this article, we need to get those kinds of services onto CC campuses in order to help young women prevent unplanned pregnancies and thus finish their CC degrees.  Long story short: info and services related to pregnancy prevention shouldn’t be limited to high schools.

Ok, so.  I’m kind of surprised by my reaction to this.  Because, on the one hand, yes, unwanted unplanned pregnancies suck ass, and if you find yourself in that situation, it’s important to have access to birth control, emergency contraception, or abortion.

However.

Doesn’t this stink a little bit of classism to y’all? I’m not talking about the issue itself, I’m talking about the way the issue is treated in the article.  The assertion is that unplanned pregnancies occur in high rates among single women in their 20s, and that these pregnancies are probably unwanted, and if they are wanted, they shouldn’t be.

Right? Is that how it sounds? Or am I getting all weird and fundamentalist-y?

I guess I’m bothered by that core assumption that unplanned pregnancy = unwanted pregnancy. I’m also bothered by the notion that a pregnancy must be either wanted 100% or unwanted 100%.  Can I get a little nuance up in here?  Because I hate to break it to the patriarchy, but a good lot of us hover around the 50-90% mark most of the time.  When I found out I was pregnant, I freaked the hell out.  I didn’t actively consider abortion, but I did think, “Well, this isn’t the best time for this, and I’m not sure I can handle this.” Am I glad I’ve got a little dude sleeping on my belly right now?  Indeed.  But that doesn’t mean I was dreaming of onesies and playgroups from day one.*

So I guess what bugs me is this: my pregnancy was unplanned, but hey, that’s cool with my university because I’m 30 and married, and I’m in school but I’ve already got an M.A.  So finishing my degree isn’t that important to anyone but me and the fam.**  But if you’re, say, 21 and unmarried, all of the sudden folks have the right to judge the appropriateness of your pregnancy to their institution. NOT that people didn’t judge mine, and continue to judge it.  But those are individuals, not systems, doing the judging.  Big Difference.

Again, I’m not saying that these services SHOULDN’T be provided, because we all know that one thing this country definitely needs more of is cheap and convenient access to birth control. But by likening CCs to high schools, you’re saying that a 25 year old is as immature and incapable of making decisions as a 15 year old, and that’s just not true.  It’s troubling, too, that the people who want to help women gain access to birth control sound just as controlling and condescending as the people who want to take away our right to abortion.

Perhaps most of all I’m bothered by the emphasis on “retention rates,” which, again, would be cool if The Man were worried about the fact that these women want, and need, to get their degrees.  But what they’re really worried about is money, and the fact that pregnant student = drop out = less money in the bank for the CC.  Show me a woman-centered approach to this topic (free day care, anyone?), and maybe we can talk.

*Let me just remind everyone that we actually thought we were going into this marriage with fertility problems, so on one level we were SUPER super happy to know that we could conceive.  But we obviously didn’t time it, because we didn’t think we had anything to time.  So it was a bit of a mindfuck of, hey, praise be! my uterus works!  But, um, did it have to work right now?  BUT! Don’t take it away, god-like entity who might punish me for not being thankful 24/7!  Yeah, because in addition to the whole “your baby might not have a chin! and you might need an abortion at 22 weeks!” thing, we didn’t think we’d be able to get pregnant without the help of Science. So when I freaked out about being pregnant I automatically assumed that Ye Gods would have their way with me because I didn’t leave cookies on the hearth in their honor or something.  And to a degree, I still freak out about that, which is why I’m always qualifying statements about the unplanniness of The Baby.

** They’re also spending more on me than they make, but that’s a whole other issue.

Yesterday I was making Jello (the industrial kind–is there any other?) for Wizard  because he’s been in a Jello mood lately. I feel it necessary to add that I have to cook anything involving boiling water (e.g. pasta) because his coordination is so off that making him do it himself would result in a trip to the emergency room.  No, really.  This isn’t one of those “oh, honey, let me do it!” scenarios.  I think I’ve mentioned here before that he’s one of those genius-y people who can’t tie his own shoes.  Yeah.  So that problem extends to things like pouring hot water into a bowl, tying anything into a knot, and standing on one foot.  It’s weird.

I’d think this was just some huge ruse to get me to do shit around the house, except that I’ve heard a neurologist tell him that his scores on a series of hours-long tests were so abnormal that something should be wrong, except that it wasn’t, and it was probably just the same wiring that helps him compute things reallyreallyreally fast, so go along your merry way, and by the way I hope you don’t want a pilot’s license because there’s no way in hell anyone would sign off on one of those.

He was sad about the pilot’s license thing, surprisingly, not so much because he wants one as that he doesn’t like feeling “differently abled.”  And I’m, like, dude, I hate to break it to you, but you are the most differently-abled person I know, in all the senses of different one might imagine.

But anyway. Jello.

It’s pretty simple, that jello.  Powder in bowl, plus a cup of boiling water, followed by two minutes of stirring, followed by a cup of cold water and refrigeration.  If you came here looking for jello directions, there you go.  But it struck me last night that my mother always screwed up jello.  Either it got thick on top, or all the powder was clumped at the bottom, or something.  And as a kid, it annoyed the crap out me.  Who screws up jello?  Why does this taste so bad?  Why is it either watered down or gritty or both?

And then last night, I figured it out  While raising two kids, working full-time, keeping a house, and doing all the other crap you have to do to function as a human in the U.S., my mother didn’t have two spare minutes to stand there stirring the water into the powder. She just dumped it all together, shoved it in the fridge, and ran off to supervise sentence diagramming, or iron clothes, or grade math tests, or whatever.

It’s facebook, actually, that’s making me think more about time and how we use it, as people and as parents.  My facebook is divided rather unevenly into college/grad school friends (lots) and women I knew in high school who had two or three kids and are now trying to finish their college degrees (a few). At this time of year, you see a lot of status messages by grad students complaining about staying up all night, and not having a minute to do anything but write, and the rest of the hell that is a full schedule of course papers and teaching and grading at the end of the semester. I used to complain about those things too.  But now that I’m trying to write a dissertation and co-run a tutoring lab and take care of The Baby and sometimes even be a partner to a person who has yet to submit his dissertation revisions because he’s busy working full-time so the rest of us don’t starve AND because he takes the baby from me the minute he gets home so I have some time to work…(RUN ON!!!)…sometimes it’s all I can do not to post something snarky, like, hey y’all, why don’t you bring a thermos of coffee on over to my house and spend your overnight reading hours watching my baby, who tends to like chilling in his exersaucer at 3 in the AM?

That is, until I read the statuses of my old high school crew, whose lives involve getting three kids to three different places and doing  part-time work to supplement their husbands’ two or three jobs, all while busting ass to meet the demands of college coursework that will hopefully  score them a decent job in five years or so.

What am I trying to say here?  That it’s all relative, I guess?  That I thought it was tough being a student until I was a student-mother?  That any and all sets of circumstances are often difficult?  That I whine too much? That my friends whine too much? That my friends think I whine too much?  That my friends don’t want to whine to me because they feel guilty, even though I remain a good listener and am not nearly as judgmental in real life as I appear in this blog?

Maybe I’ll just say big ups to those of us trying to live in the mind and in the world at the same time, whatever that may mean. And good luck with finals.  And try to resist the urge to fail the kids whose full schedule of sleeping off their heavy drinking is the only thing preventing them from turning in their portfolios on time.

Note: if you don’t want to hear me talking about breasts and vaginas, you might want to opt out now.

Note the Second: I wrote this a long time ago and am posting it now because: a) I haven’t posted anything in a long time, and b) I feel like it.

It never occurred to me to write this post until after reading this, a husband’s account of his wife’s failed attempts at breastfeeding.  (Even if you don’t much care for things kids-related, it’s a worthwhile read just for the powerful writing.)  I read a lot of parenting stuff, but this was the first time I saw a story about breastfeeding gone wrong, no doubt because for many of us, the guilt and shame that accompanies this failure is a bit too much to blog.  Right now my son is sound asleep, his near-empty MAM bottle of Similac Advance in front of me.  So how did I get here?

I assumed from the start that I would breastfeed.  I took the class, I practiced the “sandwich hold,” I read the book.  Of everything, it was the one thing I could bring myself to do. Crib? No. BF class? Yes.  I’m not sure why this was.  I didn’t even buy bottles ahead of time, partly because I assumed exclusive breastfeeding and partly because it would have been another thing to throw away if he didn’t make it. So perhaps I was able to take on BF prep because it didn’t carry physical signs of impending parenthood the way purchasing feeding supplies would have. (See last year’s posts, November through March, for an explanation of the underlying causes of my neuroses.)

I prepped myself solidly for a natural labor but didn’t think it would actually happen; I breezed through the breastfeeding prep and scoffed when I heard that most women give up after the first month.  I planned to go for at least six months and then figure out what would be best for my child from there.  I don’t know why I thought it would be so easy.  Partly I just trusted my body’s ability to do its job.  But under that–if I’m going to be completely honest here–there lurks a mild though significant dose of classism.  Those puny plastic 2 oz. bottles of formula with the screw-on nipples?  Those are for 16-year-olds and bottle-proppers.  They aren’t meant for me.  I’ve got a doula, a birth plan, an organic diet.  Breastfeeding is my birthright.

Except that it wasn’t.

I know I’ve said it in various comments, but I feel lucky that I was able to give birth the way I wanted to.  I had a fever during labor whose source couldn’t be pinpointed, and IV fluids and tylenol didn’t bring it down.  (We didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until much later, when we realized that, hey, that whole team from pediatrics? They aren’t in the room for everyone’s delivery.  Our OB, smartly or not, did not tell us what the worst case scenario was that made her call them in; we still don’t know.) Due to my own panic about the possibility of infection, labor stalled around the 6-centimeter mark after progressing really well in a matter of hours.  Because of the fever my doctor insisted on augmentation with pitocin to get labor going again, which, if you’re familiar with these things, you know is the first step on a short road away from vaginal delivery.   In a usual-case-scenario, pitocin brings on contractions quickly but intensely painfully, thus increasing the need for an epidural, which can then either slow labor again or impede pushing.  And it only gets worse from there. Because I knew about that possibility (because I read the book, dammit!  because I was prepared!), I refused the epidural and went drug-free, giving birth vaginally after about 12 hours of labor.

(Note: Pitocin isn’t as bad as everyone says it is.  It’s worse.  For me it was particularly bad because I needed to push before I was fully dilated, which resulted in 3rd degree tears.  For those of you who don’t know, that’s one degree before the kind of tear that opens the wall between vagina and rectum.  When it rains, the stitches hurt. I’m like an old guy with a bum knee. Only, you know, in my vaginal wall.)

My ability to give birth vaginally without an epidural gave me incredible confidence. Of course I would breastfeed.  Of course this body, capable of delivering a healthy child, capable of withstanding the pain and effort of labor, would be capable of feeding my child now, for the next month, the next six months, the next two years, if that’s what I wanted.

Except that it wasn’t.

My son weighed 8 pounds, 10.5 ounces at birth.  As soon as he was returned to me, my doula helped him to latch for the first time.  He was never great at latching, and it was never easy–I couldn’t just “pop him on the boob,” as I’ve heard it described–but once we were set up he would do pretty well.  He knew what he was doing, and I was doing my best not to get in his way.  I saw the hospital lactation consultant, but that was just a formality.  We were good.  We were Earth Mama and Earth Baby.  Before we were discharged two days later, the pediatrician asked that we return the next day for a weight check and a jaundice check.  His jaundice levels were hovering at a not-good-not-bad level, but his weight had already passed the 7% loss mark.  I wasn’t terribly concerned about either thing.

I should have been. By the next day he hit 10% and was going lower.  And in the meantime, our breastfeeding bond started to break.  He was weak, and tired, and weak some more.  He’d latch and stop, or latch and pop off, screaming.  He fell asleep feeding a few times, and I just left him there for two hours at a time, but he wasn’t getting what he needed.  In the meantime, my milk wasn’t coming in.  In a month of breastfeeding attempts, minor successes, and glowing failures, my breasts felt full exactly one time.  I never leaked.  I never felt the exploding pain of a breast that needs to be nursed. For whatever reason, my body failed.

We were seeing the doctor daily for weight checks at that time, and we weren’t given any option but to supplement with formula.  The jaundice was still there (remind me to tell you about the time Wizard and a 3-day-old had to wait THREE HOURS in a scummy hospital waiting room for a heel stick), and the weight was still dropping. Those 2 oz. bottles with the screw-on nipples? Here, Perpetua, these are for you.

And then I hit Day Five.  Do y’all know about Day Five?  Statistically speaking, it is the absolute worst postpartum day in terms of roller-coaster emotions, mounting physical pain, and, for me, dead black despair. (I didn’t know this until long after Day Five, or else I would have thought I imagined it).  That day I called my doula and asked for advice about the breastfeeding, which at this point was happening overnight, with bottle feedings during the day.  And she? She recommended cup feeding.

That was her answer.  I’m telling a person who has seen me at my most-intimate-of-intimates that my baby keeps losing weight and my milk isn’t coming in and I want to jump out the window or board a jet to New Zealand or both, and she tells me to go massage my breasts into a paper cup and tip the milk down baby’s throat.  Cup feeding is recommended because if you use a bottle, you’re impeding the baby’s natural ability to latch and giving him an “easy out.”

I want to make this clear: we wanted to breastfeed.  We didn’t even use a fucking pacifier.  I got upset when they gave him one during his hearing test, even though they had to because he was screaming like the little instigator that he is and they couldn’t perform the test. (He also pulled the plugs out of his ears because, as I’ve said before, He. Is. Hilarious.)  But for some reason, the cup feeding thing?  Pushed me over the edge.  That was the moment I refused the cult.

So we rented a hospital-grade breast pump. Screw the mama-baby bond, at this point I just wanted to get as much breast milk into The Baby as possible.  So I sat and milked myself for hours at a time.

And it was a good day if I got four ounces out of both breasts.

You are welcome to tell me that amounts don’t matter and that breastfeeding doesn’t concern itself with amounts and who knows how much comes out of a breast, anyway.

You are also welcome to go fuck yourself.

I don’t even remember where he was when his weight bottomed out.  Somewhere in the seven pound range, I think. It’s written down somewhere, along with a painstaking diary of every drop of food that has ever entered my child’s body (because did I mention that I am totally OCD about his eating and to this day write down everything he eats? I know, I need to clear that up. I know it has the potential to damage him. But I just can’t right now.)  I know my baby better now and know that he is just a beanpole, as my best friend says. He’s really long, and he’s not chubby, and that’s who he is.  But tell that to Perpetua, mother of a 2-week old, and see what she says.  She’ll probably tell you to go fuck yourself.  She’s fond of saying that.

Oh! And! I forgot to tell you! He had a cold (or SOMETHING, we never figured out what it was) during his first two weeks that interfered with his ability to latch because his nose was completely blocked, and who wants a boob in their mouth when they can’t breathe through their nose? (Well, some fetishist, probably, but my baby wasn’t interested.)

So, in sum: baby loses weight, baby gets jaundice, baby gets cold-thing, baby loses more weight, parents forced to supplement, parents told to cup feed, mama cries and cries and cries, mama gets breast pump, pump doesn’t produce much more milk than baby, mama cries and cries and cries.  Repeat last two steps for a month.

A month to the day of my son’s birth, I returned the pump.  I did it.  Me. I took it to the security room at the hospital. (I’m going to go ahead and tell you that I’m crying now, because that? Was one of the more fucked up failures of my life. And I’m no stranger to failure.)

So, here’s where we are now:

Every time he seems like he’s getting a cold, I obsess over whether breastfeeding would have made a difference. I can’t buy formula at the store because I’m too embarrassed, like I’m a pregnant smoker. I’m the Queen of H1N1 Obsession because, hey, you know what will mess you up?  A pandemic that starts three days after your baby who won’t feed is born.

The good part is that these thoughts only encompass about 10% of my day.  They used to take up 50%, and in the first two months or so, it was all I thought about.

I mourn my lost milk.  And I wish I didn’t. But I can’t separate truth from hype. I know “breast is best” even if I don’t believe in it as a cure-all wonder-food.  Failing your child is completely different from failing yourself.  I mean, I’ve screwed up all manner of things over the past 30 years, but that’s my business.  But in this case, I made a person, and then I didn’t give him what he needed. It’s like I invited my friends over for dinner and then asked them to cook. Only it’s not at all like that, because in that scenario I’m just a minor asshole.  In my reality, I’m a person who has not done best by her child.  That’s 4th degree asshole, the kind where your intestines are hanging out your vag and dragging on the floor.

I was supposed to be writing a chapter today, but somehow this seemed more important. Thanks for being a trooper and making it through to the end (even if you skimmed).

Tell me this: when did I turn into one of those people who considers college students to be consumers and sees her job as providing exceptional customer service?

Probably since I moved from the classroom to administration. I used to grandstand about the life of the mind and goods and services and commodity culture and all the rest.  I used to think college was more than just an exchange of cash for degree.  But now? Now I’m working my ass off to make sure that there is a tutor for every tutee, and I’m not doing it because I’m concerned about their education.  No, I’m thinking about how if a student is turned away, that student will complain that s/he didn’t get what s/he wanted, which will in turn piss off the dean-ly people, which will in turn jeopardize our funding.  Our cash.  Our Gs.

I’ll tell you more about it later. Right now I’ve got a customer.

You’re all doing it, so why shouldn’t I?  Herewith, answers to your favorite search questions:

things to look for when a child falls: Hell. So you’re here because I’m a crap parent, are you?  Well, I’ll redeem myself by offering the following information, all of which has absolutely no medical value, cannot be vouched for, and should not be used in place of consultation with your doctor.  Okay, so, when The Baby fell off my lap, I freaked out and called the doctor’s office.  Their advice was pretty much in keeping with what I read in both the Dr. Spock book and What To Expect When Your Baby is Under One and Therefore Brand New to You and Thus Scary as All Hell: if baby quiets quickly (within 15 minutes, but the quicker the better), he’s probably fine.  Watch for swelling, bruising, vomiting, poor appetite, and unusual fussiness or sleepiness.  If you’re not sure how he landed (I wasn’t), watch for abdominal swelling or unusual marks/rashes. Seek immediate medical attention if there is any loss of consciousness or excessive vomiting, or if Something Just Doesn’t Feel Right.

Bottom Line: it really does happen to everyone (just ask the internet, they’ll tell you), and it will almost certainly be fine.  Also, it’s okay to freak out for 48 hours, but after that, let yourself off the hook, especially from the guilt you will undoubtedly feel.
my baby won’t nap unless he’s in a sling: Sheesh, that sucks.  Here’s my non-medical, unreliable opinion: see if you can just go with it for now.  Try to find a sling that allows you to do two things: work when you want to, and relax when you need to.  Our dude will nap in the baby bjorn, so that means I can work on the computer, wash dishes, and even SIT DOWN when I want.

Now, the baby bjorn instructions, if I remember them correctly, say: DO NOT SIT DOWN.  Okay, well, follow the directions.  Don’t listen to me. I don’t want to be the one responsible if your baby loses circulation in his piggy toe because you sat down.  However, I sit down with that thing all the time.  If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have made it through about two out of the last six months of parenting. (Incidentally, does anyone know why you aren’t supposed to sit while wearing a front carrier?)

what do old people say: A bunch of shit that will drive you crazy, along with occasional praise, tidbits of reassurance, and, if you’re lucky, “Why don’t you go away for a few days? We’ll watch the baby.”

sneeze pee: Me too! I don’t know how you fix it, but I assume it would involve a specialist in pelvic floor disorders. This is another one where my vote is for “just go with it.”

what does a star look like up close: I have no idea!  Gassy? Nebulous? Like when you try to see through your glasses after your baby has been handling them?

can’t afford a baby: Mmm…there are two kinds of “can’t afford.” There’s “this baby is going to seriously hamper my/our lifestyle” and “where do we go for WIC”? If you’re in the WIC category, then the good news is that there are a lot of government assistance programs out there for the taking, so you’re going to survive.  If you’re in the “Readjust Your Lifestyle” category, welcome to what it’s like to be anyone who makes less than $100000 a year (so, you know, most people).  My guess is that you only feel like you can afford a child if you have a buttload of extra income.  The rest of us feel greater and lesser sums of anxiety for roughly twenty years.

dissertation defense after having baby: You’re on your defense? Well why don’t you tell me how you got there?

It’s crunch-time around here, and I wish I could say that the crunchiness was limited to the leaves on the ground.  The weird thing about having a kid (and I don’t know why it’s weird, exactly–it should be obvious) is that downtime is just…gone.  We don’t have it anymore. There’s either work, or dissertation, or baby-related-tasks (as opposed to baby-related-funtimes), and as I said yesterday, I haven’t been particularly ambitious since around 2005.  Really.

Anyway, pictured below are two things I’d rather be doing:

1) chillaxing with the below-pictured Baby, while

2) making more little toys for him. Like the starfish he’s examining, or maybe a seahorse. Or a clam.  My drawing and sewing skills are limited to sea creatures. My dissertation skills, however, are limited to frustration (hardly a skill) and procrastination (I’m so good at that!), so I could certainly be doing worse.

Anyway, look at these animals I made:

The one dressed in green managed a front-poop through the diaper and onto his leg at 3 AM, 3 being his new wake-up time courtesy of daylight savings.  If you never thought DST was a terrible idea, ask somebody with a baby.   He then followed the magic that is front-poop with a pee stream that arched over his face and right into his hair.  Again, at 3 in the morning.  He wasn’t at all disturbed or, god forbid, tired out by any of this.  It only made his will to exersaucer-ize greater.

Oh, please. I didn’t pull it off last year, when all I had to do was obsess over the conditional condition and coast along in a dream of success after passing my proposal.

Yesterday I was talking about having another kid.  Another one.  And I’m not even ovulating, so I have no idea what’s up with that. I’ve met a number of people who have a newborn and a fifteen (or so) month old, so maybe that’s what happens around the six month mark. Whatever, the point is, I my lack of ambition trumps me lack of time for just about everything these days.

If you decide to do Nablopomo, there are some good ways to get through the week.  This is a great Monday option.  You can cover Tuesdays this way.

Is anybody going to the Narrative conference this year?  It’s in Cleveland, which is close to where I live.  Well, a state away, but closer than Texas, or the UK, which is where it was the last two years.

Anyway, I wanted to put together a panel this year but I got the big “you don’t have time for that, mama!” blow-off from several of my colleagues. I know!  Can you IMAGINE?  It’s outrageous.  Such is my existence.

Anyway anyway, I just had this last-minute notion to put together a panel of either blogger-mama-dissertators, or just dissertating-bloggers, which would, I don’t know, maybe discuss what it’s like to build a virtual community? Or something?

Yeah, I know.  Not really enough for a panel, is there…. Damn.  PLUS given how I am OMGsuperanonymous it would be weird to put a name and a big ass to a blog. But I just thought I’d ask because it occurred to me on the way out the door to grab the kiddo from daycare.

In the meantime I’ll drum up an individual proposal.  That is, if I can unearth myself from the pile of guilt my mother just threw on me for leaving The Baby in daycare until the evening even though I was “done with work” at 2 o’clock.

Sigh, moan, etc.

1. Your mind’s capacity to remember and replay THUMP has not diminished, despite an overall loss of memory since the pregnancy.
2. Calling the doctor’s office to report that your 6-month-old has jumped off your lap and fallen roughly 30 inches to the ground is much more humiliating than using a breast pump in front of your parents AND talking about how pee leaks out when you sneeze, combined.
3. While it is the nurse’s job to run through the list of what to watch out for, it is NOT the nurse’s job to assure you that this happens to everyone.
4. Nor is it your mother’s job to reassure you that this happens to everyone.  It is actually your MIL’s job, who isn’t worried at all, or so she says.  It is also her job to peer at the kid’s head when she thinks you aren’t looking for the next day and a half.
5. Using the word “Spears-ed” to refer to the incident is mildly humorous.
6. Using the word “Spears-ed” to refer to the incident also reminds you that we’re too hard on Britney.  Because, really, who HASN’T wanted to drive with the baby on their lap when he’s so unhappy to be in the car seat that he is holding his breath and growling? We stop ourselves before actually doing it, but still.
7. Now that the baby has fallen from a height, it is much less scary when he merely tips over from a sitting position or over-enthusiastically greets the sun through the window.
8. #7 is great and all, but it would still be better if the baby didn’t, you know, vault off your lap and onto the ground.
9. Whoever invents a nontoxic, removable spray-foam that would cover all the hard surfaces (e.g. floor) and corners of my house in under a minute is going to win a Nobel.

MIL’s jet lifts off in a little under 48 hours.

Thanks, all, for bearing with my incessant whining.  Since this was supposed to be a dissertation blog, I never spent much time thinking about things like how much overshare is too much overshare or how likely one is to isolate one’s readers via post after post of “I’m a-gonna tear my hair out, Internet!”

Of course if you’re like me, you think that reading about the mini-dramas of a stranger’s personal life is the stuff that makes the world go around.  Better-Dissertation-Topic-Than-Mine #6042: Identity Formation in the Internet Age.

Sigh, blah, etc.

P.S. You mean all that stereotypical MIL-hate circulating in our culture has some basis in factual experience?  Huh.  ‘Cause I thought nightmare experiences like the ones I’ve experienced over the past 6 weeks (SIX MOTHERFUCKING WEEKS OMG NO WONDER I’M C-C-CRAZY!!!) were merely manufactured by 80s era sitcom writers.  Guess not.