I believe the Laws of Blogging necessitate that after finally succumbing and writing a self-pitying entry, the next day will be awesome and make you feel like a chump for ever complaining. Perhaps it is the very act of negative blogging that diffuses the emotions that have caused the suck-itude in the first place or maybe life just enjoys making you look like a sucker. Whatever, just let it be known that I had a stellar day yesterday.

I caught a ride with AH to campus yesterday and we drove a way that proved to me I can indeed walk/bike to campus with about 45 minutes of effort. I walked daily to my old university an hour each way so this is a totally do-able distance. He dropped me off in the middle of Duke East Campus, chock full of gothic buildings and empty of students. I got to have coffee and do the crossword and sit outside in the sun. I made a leisurely tour of the bookstore and the student union. And then of course, I found the library. Where I proceeded to spend the next 8 hours, with breaks for sunning on the lawn and lunch. "I am so damn simple", I enthused to AH when I met him after work. "Put me near a pile of books and some decent food and I am happy". (More specifically though, a well-stocked obviously richly funded library. And a farmer's market and local food, but I digress). I literally TWITCHED when I discovered the New and Notable section in one of the 4 libraries that lay before me. Now I come from a state funded university background and well-stocked if insanely popular public libraries where waiting on long hold lists for the popular books is expected and fine with me, as long as they eventually show up. You don't just browse the shelves of these libraries and find treasures, not normally. So browsing these shelves was seriously - and I know I'm a nerd - beyond exciting. It was like having access to a bookstore that had been stocked with me in mind and yet I got to take it all away for free. Books I'd been dying to read for months, books I'd had on my hold list in PDX that had never come in, books I had just jotted down that very morning reading one of the free NYT Book Review copies that were lying around the coffee shop...all there, all for me. It was an excellent day and I inhaled several books right on site in some comfy armchairs and took 9 more home with me. I really had to restrain myself. And I didn't even make it to the botanical gardens or the East Campus where all the really exciting stuff is, like the Center for Documentary Studies. I plan to go in 3 days a week with AH and just keep exploring.
The beauty of this move so far has been AH's swift integration into the Duke Machine. After years of struggling on the fringes of these places like AdObe that made you slave like a dog as a contractor - you get a blue badge, not a green badge, not yet, not for you - or virtual contractor at his last job where the benefits sucked balls and the workload was insane - he has suddenly hit a form of cushy Cruise Control. They issued him the badge and hello - a world of stuff has opened up to him and to us. First and most importantly, he had benefits orientation on Wednesday. For about the same as he payed for his non-existent benefits in Portland, we are both now completely covered in every conceivable medical, dental or visual sense. Which means - the birth and all prenatal care is now completely covered, and our kid will be too. PHEW is not a big enough word for the relief we feel. He quizzed them extensively about issues of my issue with a "pre-existing condition" and the fact that I haven't had any benefits during the pregnancy so far and they just kept repeating "She's covered. Honest to god, it's all covered". I won't really breathe freely until I walk out of that hospital with a baby in one arm and a bill stamped PAID in another but I am now free to finally make my first prenatal appointment with the Midwife Hospital department I have been coveting. This is huge. I can go to the dentist too! But all the other benefits like free tuition for AH and access to the libraries and art centers and theatres and our Credit Union account that has basically pre-approved us for a very decent mortgage is equally as exciting to me. This is what they always promised you in a real job, but that barely exists today. He likes his job too, very importantly. I've heard the students of Duke are spoiled frat kids but damned if I care. As long as their parents continue to shell out the big bucks that provides an excellent standard of living for me and my family as a side benefit, fine with me. I will take it, every little bit of it. We will use this to the hilt. I am already collecting the business cards of librarians here who work in interesting departments, a rapidly expanding collection.
And yet, I still get to walk the moral high road and attend the hippie-ish inexpensive state university down the road and get to eventually and half-assedly achieve my own long held goals. Huh, it's not so bad.

Also, I have triumphantly confirmed that I am excellent in hot weather. I suspected it. I am one of those people who can never get warm and even in the dead of summer in the PNW, I always had to pack layers and knee socks and truly couldn't fathom wearing sleeveless tops or sandals. I am seriously loving the hot weather here. It's moist and sultry but nothing like the deadening coma of heat of Dallas and no mosquitoes! It was in the 90's yesterday and people fanned themselves and complained but I was awfully happy. Skirts without goosebumps! Night walks in t-shirts! Blame my malfuncitoning body thermostat, but I like it. And the dramatic thunderstorms that threaten to roll in tonight.
Then I came home, warm and already knee-deep in "My Life in France" by Julia Child and the VH-1 Pop Culture Superbowl came on and all was truly and utterly right with the world again. Thank you for your comiseration. And I'm sorry that I used Blogging as a verb twice.