Losing my chomps

Jess on April 15, 2008

I had a pretty nice weekend in Independence, Kansas and then getting caught up on things before I got my wisdom teeth taken out yesterday.  I’m pretty well on track with everything, or at least caught up with a usual tuesday.  I just need to spend a chunk of time working on f&f stuff on thursday and the apeiron is friday.  when i got home from surgery yesterday i found out that Kyle’s grandmother passed away which makes me sad.  I never knew her but it’s just hard and I hate that I can’t be there for him.  I think distance at times like these is really when distance is the hardest because we could both really use each others physical presence, what with my recovering from surgery where one of the instructions is not to talk much and with him not really liking to talk about what’s going on.  I just really wish that we were closer, I guess.  And I can’t wait until that happens.  I applied for three museum internships today so hopefully one of those comes through.  And I’m applying for an actual job with the pitch but i haven’t been able to do that yet even though I now have a professional resume ready to go.  I should probably show around for more places to start putting in an application.  I’m very excited about kind of knowing what we’re doing and having some time before the move to put in applications and look for jobs.

Sleeping in for the wrong team

Jess on April 8, 2008

For some reason, I’m sort of exhausted.  Maybe because I played Smash Brothers most of yesterday and maybe because I spent like 9 hours this weekend finishing up my thesis, not bad for the last push on my thesis but still sort of exhausting.  And right now I’m at that place with a paper where I can’t look at what I did.  I just know I feel sorta like I wrecked my car.  I’m sure I’ll re-read it and it won’t be as bad as I think… and I’m sure I’ll get it mostly cleared up in the parts where it is bad, but still.  I’ve vowed not to think about it for the next day or so.

WordPress changed the layout of the internal part of the site.  Here is a message to the people responsible for this change: I don’t like it.  It is silly.  And the first thing I am going to do is change it back if that’s possible and it probably is.

Kyle and I did our engagement photos. Pictures are up in an album on Cari’s account and I’m probabaly gonna snipe them for flickr in a bit too.   i’m trying to hold off until they’ve been editted but at this point, meh, whatever, i’m just taking them.  i’ll edit them on photoshop express or something.  speaking of, i’ve been experimenting with seashore which is the gimp build for mac because it’s free and i like free things.  so far, i’m only fussy about how it does brushes (this is a big deal if you know anything about my design habits) but otherwise it’s good little software.  i also assume this is just part of the learning curve.  I also have been using Scribus which is an opensource desktop publisher.  it has a huge learning curve but now that i’m figuring out I probably like it about as much as InDesign.  Certainly when you consider the difference in price tag its way better… also because I don’t typeset.  I could see it maybe being a pain in the ass if you were working with lots and lots of content, but then, I think InDesign is that way on my laptop as it is…

It’s so like me to try to update the world on wedding prep and instead get distracted with a conversation about opensource design software.  ack.  I mean, I guess it all relates cos we’re doing our own programs, invites, blah blah blah all of that.  so i sort of need the software for something semi-practical for once in my life.

I also bought us a copy of “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” by John M. Gottman, Ph. D.  I’m only a chapter+ in right now so I don’t feel like I can make a royally long critique of the book but so far I like it.  I like it cos I don’t like Active Listening even though I’ve been trained in it (I call it passive aggressive listening… ahem).  So Gottman criticizes it because he says that it’s really meant to be an individual therapist-to-patient method of listening and not really that applicable when all the “I statements” are criticizing the listener.  A good point.  And he mostly talks about how good he is at his job which is sorta sweet.  And he comes really highly recommended.

Sorry I don’t have long treacherous reports about the ins and outs of my life these days.  I guess things are really good, or just kind of unknown.  I’m hoping to have some blanks filled in by the end of the month but there is no sense rushing a lack of information. On the right side, I have been updating you with far more poetry which is good for us both.  Another one is hopefully on the way soon.

with clarity comes a new purpose

Jess on March 28, 2008

I officially got my final letter of rejection from graduate schools for the 2009-2010 school year.  while i haven’t been blogging excitedly about this crusade against jess in the academic community, i am surprisingly at peace with their decisions.  Minnesota admitted 20 of 225+, Boston admitted probably around 15 of 215-or-so and as far as I can tell most of their admitteds in my position were deferred to Master’s only programs which they don’t get any money for, Iowa admitted less than 10 out of 100+.  So out of 500+ applicants applying for less-than-45 positions, I managed not to make the cut.  That kind of sucks.  I think a jess of years past would greet this kind of failure with some sort of sorrow or sadness.  So far, I’ve cried twice.  Only once if drunken crying doesn’t count and for me these days, I’m not positive that it should.  My first tears were shed upon finding out that I wasn’t in at Minnesota.  My second tears were shed over spring break when I was reminded by that cruel voice in the back of my head about the time that Joe said I was too fickle to follow.  I guess Joe was right, in his own way.  I think I said something like “I’m not too fickle to follow, I’m just a failure.”  That’s melodramatic and not even true.  The truth is, that universities are too fickle to pin your hopes on.  And here’s the thing, I expressed to Dudley that I wished I would have applied to less-good programs so that I could get an acceptance letter like my friends are, but the deal is… the graduate market is indicative of the job market and I’d much rather go through this now when it’s going to turn into a probably good story for my children in the future about the time i applied to three  schools and didn’t get into any so I changed my career path.  The moral of the story will be one of humility, resilience and why it’s okay to fail.  And it is.

A little-known story from the night that Kyle proposed is that sometime after we got to the concert I was standing there with arms around me feeling heavy-hearted.  I said a quiet, tiny prayer that God show me what His will it was not for me to go to grad school.  Soon after, Kyle was on one knee asking me to be his wife.  Since that moment, so many things have been just falling into place that it’s hard to look at this new year off that I’ll be taking as anything but a good chance to take a step back and look at how I want to spend the rest of my life.  Maybe this is a sign that I should be going down a different path.  And so far, this new fork in my road looks pretty good.  For example, I have been offered and accepted a site administer position for a new website we’re doing at work.  It’s pretty baller.  I get to be the site administrator which is an awesome resume line, but further I get to sort of just add things to the site that I think fit.  Which is pretty neat responsibility.  Better? I’m getting a raise now.  The really awesome thing?  This job will translate into a freelance position that will pay some spending money and a good portion of the rent each month whenever Kyle and I move where we do.  More wonderful things are happening in my life, I’m just so excited to have a year to spend with my new husband, getting used to what it means to be married, before we dive into law and graduate school.

Everything is progressing smoothly

Jess on March 17, 2008

So I’m the best wedding planner ever and had everything booked within three weeks of getting engaged. The only thing I have yet to do is officially order flowers to make our bouquets, go shopping with my bridesmaids, and get a ceremony musician. Also, Kyle has a short list of things that need to get done (like blocking hotel rooms, picking out tuxes, et cetera et cetera) and he can now focus on that (or in a few weeks he can) as his debate season is almost complete.

If you’ve been playing the home version of Jess and Kyle’s wedding planning, you’ll notice that I’ve changed the layout of the website. Now that we’ve picked out colors, and they aren’t latte, I thought I’d go for a different theme and move stuff around to make it more wedding-website like and make the blog a little more secretive. I know our friends will read it, and I would love it if our families would read it when they stop by, but I also think guests probably want to read about us and our relationship rather than a criticism of the wedding industrial complex levied one entry at a time. 🙂

If any of our friends are reading this, I’d like to thank them for all of their help. So many people have volunteered to relieve the financial burden of having a wedding in their own way and Kyle and I are ever grateful for their efforts.

Life is a list

Jess on March 17, 2008

Kyle is a national champion in debate!

I have new shoes.

My car got an oil change.

I leave for Illinois tomorrow.

I’m officially a candidate to graduate, and I’m summa cum laude… a distinction I cannot even fuck up.

Everything is happy!

In Antarctica

Jess on March 13, 2008

I’m probably due for an update but unfortunately there isn’t too much to update or too much on my mind.  I’m a little stressed out because NPTE is this weekend and Kyle is in Seattle now, rerouting to Tacoma tomorrow and he’s pretty stressed because they’re basically being stuck in a room forced to research for the last two days and debate doesn’t even start until Saturday.  I’m also embarking on spring break and a new project at work that is mostly just stressing me out at this point.  I think it’s really feasible that we’ll get it done quickly, but it’s hard to say.  And I only have until sometime Tuesday.  It will be good to have the extra money in my paycheck at least.  Also, i’m working on this student repository to set up by the time i leave campus.  It’s proving to be a bit more daunting task than I expected and I’m kind of overwhelmed by how quickly the semester is flying by.  Also, I have yet to hear from Iowa.  I have a good feeling about that… but I just wish they would get around to sending me the email or updating their website or something.  I’m starting to have a hopefully irrational and sneaking suspicion that they have lost my application.  Hopefully that is not the case.

The joys of cat ownership

Jess on March 8, 2008

Logan is the best thing to come home to in the morning when you’ve been out all night. He left a print on my bed where he slept all night, in my spot. What a coy fellow.

You know what sucks more than Colbie Callait? Nothing.

Jess on March 4, 2008

So I heard for Boston and it looks like Kyle and my options are down to basically just Iowa, so hopefully that works out.  I’m not too worried about it though.  If I get in, then I get in and we’ll explore that option further and if I don’t get in it could be good to have some time to think about things and maybe consider taking the LSAT and trying to go the lawschool route or looking at what some of my other options might be.  I don’t NEED to spend the next infinity years getting a PhD and getting tenured.  It could be good to have a reason to take some time off and get to know me better.

Wedding planning is going really well aside from the part where my computer decided to fuck up randomly because Apple rushed Leopard it would seem.  Kyle and I spent the weekend together and got to talk to his parents about all of our plans which was a big positive step.  Things went really well.  I was sort of nervous at first on Friday night because it seemed like his mom had much bigger plans for what the wedding should be than I did and she wasn’t too forthcoming about willingness to pay for things she wanted that we didn’t necessarily care about.  But then on Saturday we had a mroe formal meeting where we went over a list of things that grooms families usually do and added to it based on what will be best for my parents and the wedding in general for us to pay for things.  It turned out very well… and overall I think the cost of the wedding should be split nearly perfectly down the middle with a little bit of money kicked in from me.  The nice thing about my not having to spend all my money on the wedding is that Kyle and I will have a tiny bit of a nest egg when we get going next year, wherever that will be.

I have been doing much better with finances and saving this semester than ever before.  I think living with Tim really kicked up my responsibility level and those things.  It was good to be basically wholly reliant on myself with the help of a roommate for rent and bills purposes. 

 That is all. My life is more exciting than this, I like to think.  But really, it’s not.

The Dress

Jess on February 25, 2008

Mom and I went dress shopping at David’s Bridal yesterday and found the dress that I’ll be married in in six months.  It’s basically exactly what I wanted.  Actually, it is exactly what I wanted.  I walked through the door and they asked if I had brought in any pictures of dresses that I wanted (I guess because most brides scour bridal magazines, which I have done, and star thousands of dresses they want to wear, which I failed to do).  I announced that I had not engaged in such buffoonery but that I like dresses with this feature, that feature, and a different feature, fully expecting to try on lots of dresses with each feature.  Turns out, one of the dresses that mom and I didn’t pull had all three features and it looked beautiful (and because the three features were things on dresses that flatter my body type, the dress looks like it’s made to make me look pretty).

Trying on dresses was a fun experience for me.  Luckily, mom and i got along swimmingly during it.  I probably tried on eight dresses.  I really liked two that my mom hated.  I really hated two that my mom liked.  By the end of it all we both agreed it was the dress in the middle of my escapade that was “the dress” and now we’re settled.  I wiggled back into the full slip and into that dress and we tried it on with all the veils and the tiara and everything.  It was fantastic.  I think mom and I both teared up a little when we opened our eyes and I had the full veil and dress on and she put the flowers in my hands and everything.  It’s overwhelming.

I can’t wait for Kyle to see me appear at the end of the aisle in all of my wedding attire and know that I’m the prettiest thing in the room.  And I’m so glad that this was just a good moment for my mom.  She seems to be excited about the wedding process and things these days and that’s for the best. If you want to know which dress it is that I chose, you’ll have to comment or email me and I’ll send you an email with a link to the picture.  We’re keeping it a secret from Kyle.

yah, you made me merry.

Jess on February 24, 2008

i’ve been busy, busy, busy, busy.  take, for example this weekend.  friday, i needed to spend all day at the kansas state historical society because i’m a little bit behind on non-interweb research for my history thesis.  i also feel behind on this in general because it’s i am not doing the thesis which i began in 395 which is what most students do… so i would gather that a lot of students are way ahead of where we’re supposed to be while i’m way behind.  a lot of the reason for this is that i’ve simply been impossibly busy and i’m not really in the swing of school because of some snow days and the fact that i only have classes on wednesdays.

so, friday i slept in cos i needed to after two nights of only four or so hours of sleep and then i went to lunch and the library.  i spent three-ish hours on microfilm and then headed to campus to help set up for history day, stopping en route at Livingston’s Bridal which is going out of business and has lots of expensive dresses on super sale.  setting up took about an hour and then we all headed to the bearman’s where we had dinner and i finally asked formally for the children to fill the traditional child roles in my wedding.  after dinner, i headed to work for four hours.  then i came home and tried to get to sleep early (which idnd’t really work out.)

I woke up at 6 to start getting ready to be at campus by 7 or just after for history day.  i spent all of saturday running around and helping out with minor administrative duties of history day.  at that point i wasn’t running anything, i was just like second-level damage control.  but i kept the volunteers coordinated and i think that overall this was a really good history day competition.  in between the morning judging and the afternoon awards ceremony, i headed to barnes and noble to read more DIY wedding books to get good ideas for what i can do more cheaply to subvert the wedding industrial complex.  i then headed back to campus for awards and then ventured home, hoping to get a nap.  the nap didn’t really work out because my mom needed to argue about the wedding again.

i promise you, i am so impossibly stressed out because she won’t just support kyle and my decision to get married now.  she wants us to instead postpone the wedding until sometime in the indefinite future.  this is not going to happen unless for some reason it’s recommended by the clergy.  but the thing is… it’s just driving me crazy this back and forth.  i hate that i don’t even want to be in the kitchen because half the time she’s sane and settled about the wedding and the other half of the time she’s in some crazy rage.  i can’t take it.  and usually i go through life pretending that my relationship with my mom is pretty normal.  i often downplay the things going on at home or wherever to my friends because it’s just easier than trying to explain everything she says or does.  but in the past week she’s just been in a fit screaming at me and treating me like i am a child.  she puts me in ridiculous double-binds, she virtually hates the catholic church, she says terrible things about kyle, and last sunday she basically explained to me that i had already failed at life??a fear that is very real to me right now so it hurt a bit more than when she says things of the sort normally.   i learned at a very young age that it’s best not to take her outbursts personally.  she doesn’t mean them.  she just.  well, she’s bad at expressing what is actually bothering her.  but in the occasional times that she decides to apologize for upsetting me, she’s possibly revealed some of what the issue is.  and i think i get it.  so instead of saying things i don’t mean that are still true, which is my weakness in situations like this, i’ve been trying to just stress while she yells at me how much it is hurting me that she’s not being supportive while i plan my wedding.  and that i really just want her involved in all of the fun things about planning a wedding.

and shes not even doing that, for the record.  i made all the calls about reception sites, i visited the row house, iv’e decided all of the little things about the wedding itself.  it’s not like i’m even asking for help or overburdening her.

so that aside is over.  back to the retelling of my too-busy weekend.

after my failed attempt at a nap, i met reanne at panera for a quick dinner before we went to see a memory, a monologue, a rant, and a prayer… the latest eve ensler monologue series which was performed at washburn this weekend.  it was good, but probably not as good as last week’s showing of the vagina monologues.  and i think it portrayed women as helpless victims in too many situations and never really reached a point where i identified with the woman in the story.  some of the monologues were just effing bizarre. but overall i think it was worth going.

then, i met joey for drinks at buffalo wild wings cos i hadn’t seen him in about a month and a half.  it was nice to see him and i was sorry that our chat couldn’t last longer… but two hours is probably long enough for drinks and shrimp.

today, i need to finish up that outline that’s due tomorrow and i should really write a paper about this journal article called “Men of Columbine” that i sort of disagree with, the documentary “Tough Guise” which I really agree with, and MMPR which i’m not sure fits in with the first two.  Also, i should write a paper about this article called “Talking about Down There” and the Vagina Monologues which I’m already started on, I guess.  Both papers are only 2-3 pages and not due until Wednesday so I feel fine putting them off a bit.  Also, at 4:30 we’re going bridal gown shopping.  Oi.  Wish me luck.

Things on my mind: losing my bi identity as i permanently embrace the world of mono-socio-sexuality, an everburdgeoning fear of the wedding industrial complex which is the scariest place anyone could ever live, and what last name i should have seven months from now??probably an unpunctuated hyphenation, and the imminent arrival of what i presume to be my second rejection letter from a grad school.

sometimes, it’s a wonder i can drag myself out of bed at the morning.  luckily, kyle is wonderful and supportive and engaged in the process of making our wedding happen and preparing for our marriage and i am so happy that he will be in town in like four days.