Diary, I drunk dialled F@ceb00k. Accidently. It is not my favourite place on the internet, by any stretch. It's pretty much required at school, as all events and student groups etc. are run through FB. And I love hearing how my friends and would-be-friends are doing, though I have a huge mental block with creating pithy little status updates for myself. But that might be because it's the scope of FB that makes me a little squirrely - is there ever a Status Update that is appropriate for my family members, in-laws, fellow students, ex-bosses and friends, all at once? I think not, so I stay mostly quiet on the FB scene. But here's what happened: it's been a busy week at work and school and home and we're all also low-grade ill for the 80billionth time lately, (thank you Daycare, the rumors were true) so I'm punch drunk and tired and scratchy-throated of late. And I logged into FB to check on the status of an Ob@ma Brunch I was attending - and wasn't paying any attention while doing a hundred other things and did the thing I dreaded and obviously clicked on the thing that asks to check your e-mail address book and (yes this deserves caps for the horror) ASK EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK TO BE YOUR GODDAMNED FB FRIEND aka the Web 2.0 application I am least likely to employ, but here I was employing it. How did I know I did this? Because yesterday morning I found a little flurry of "so and so accepts your friend request" and the list was so random and odd that I as I scrolled through I kind of had a mini-panic meltdown. Ex-professors from two years ago: now we are Friends. Ex-friends from many years ago: now we are Friends! Group project members from my undergrad: Friends! My Mother - yup, apparently she has a FB account. There has been an upside - a few people I didn't know had an account and would actually befriend were on there and Hurrah! But for the most part it has been like waking up with a hangover and a bunch of cringe-inducing voicemails you left on people's phone. I am just studiously avoiding my email for the moment, trying to put it behind me. Lord have mercy.

Oh, here's another awkward interpersonal moment, courtesy of the Internet: my SIL began a blog. That is fine, we get along fine. But she has a "Political Corner" on her site. And while before I merely speculated that our politics differed as we certainly did not discuss them in-depth, now I know for sure. And I am petty and hold grudges. I know some of you out there have family who have really different religious and political beliefs and my question to you is - my lord, how do you handle compartmentalizing it all - liking the person perhaps, but hating oh I don't know - everything they stand for? Our values our obviously completely different and this disappoints me, as I would like my in-laws to be like family. And AH was in fact getting a little testy with me a few weeks ago, as I moaned and groaned about his parents visiting us 3 days after the election, and how I am perfectly polite to his family but don't really go beyond that, like talk to them on the phone myself. Which was hurtful because it is true. But I just think I'm not Americanized enough and able to handle emotionally that people I'm to think of as Family I can violently disagree with on the fundamentals of what makes a good citizen, a good country, a good person, which is immature of me, I agree. It's hard to move beyond politeness, I reasoned to him, when your values aren't in line. But I told him I would try harder, or at least do my upmost not transmit to Simone any kind of clash or weirdness. And then he came home and told me to forget it, because my SIL wrote how she had - and I really can't believe it because she IS nice and somewhat sensible - went with my nephews, and my MIL and FIL and protested outside a Planned P@renthood. Seriously. With her kids! The kind of person I flip off and feel sorry for - in my own damn family. AH wrote her an e-mail about we regularly give them money and did she know when I was pregnant and we had no health insurance, they were the ones we were to to confirm Simone's impending arrival? That they do many other wonderful things like help PREVENT pregnancy for low-income people etc. And I wonder how I can look them in the eye again. So I ask some somewhat serious advice about how you all manage being Americans with the serious splits in How We Think and being Good Family Members. Because I'm failing. Polite is the best I can muster often, like the other day when knocking doors, I ran into a 84 year old AA lady who had lived in her house for 50 years and likely seen a lot of racial and class injustice but still when asked why she wouldn't vote Dem said "because the TV is full of men kissing men and women getting married and that's the worst thing I've ever seen - ever" and I kinda wanted to say, really? Really? Look at the houses around you, our neighborhood, boarded up and used for crack dens and women out working the streets because they need some money for drugs and the broken down schools and the vacant lots and racism and for gods sake, the economy - and same sex people marrying each other and loving each other - THAT's the outrage??" but instead said, okay, thanks, see you later. But I'm running out of polite.
Speaking of the economy, do you feel weird just continuing with your life and plans and work, not knowing what the real ramifications will be? I was sitting in a (useless) meeting with my (ineffective and impersonal) adviser yesterday and she asked what type of job I would like to do when done school and it was all I could do not to reply "Well if I can get a student loan next semester and can come back at all, plus if there is any money or need for frivolous things like librarians by some miracle when I'm done, I'll pretty much take any job I can get". But I was polite, of course, if not Gracious.
I'm at that point in the semester, only one month in, where I feel the rising waters of assignment panic lapping at my chin and I'm always one step behind and my readings are never ever read and at the same time my work is suffering because I'm surreptitiously doing my homework at work and my baby is suffering (I imagine) because I don't get to spend enough time with her and it all feels a little Patchy and Unbalanced and mostly, Ungracious because I can't handle it all without flapping and squawking a little about How Busy! and How Stressed! and getting sore throats. And letting friends and family down by being late for important occasions, such as birthdays. I would like to embody the quality Unflappable but instead, I am very much Flapping. All over the damn place. As evidenced by this posting.