2007-11-14 - 6:55 p.m.

...pregnant brain currently better than the reality of this job...

I just came back from Yoga and I have a serious case of pregnant brain. Staring blankly into space. I think I scared K a little bit.

Today in class I went to the bathroom and while I was in there, I completely forgot I was in a yoga class. Don't know where I actually THOUGHT I was...but I was really surprised when I opened the door and there was a bunch of really pregnant women standing on one foot with their hands over their heads...

I got to see my buddy Micha this week - we'd managed to miss each other for about two weeks. We had a great time. We kind of bring the spiritual and intellectual rigor in the class down a few notches when we sit next to each other - tonight was no exception. I don't think people really mind all that much, though - Wednesday night is "Nice Yoga" Day. Saturday is "Mean Yoga" Day - when our little skinny pixie of a non-pregnant teacher tortures us...I should stop being so mean. I don't really mean it THAT much, because she is very nice and always tells us to stop when we need to. And actually I really do like her. But man, I do come away sore after Saturday, even when I try to modify. And on Wednesday I just come away with spacy pregnant brain. I'm talking a lot about yoga here.

I'm still sleeping pretty well, but I have trouble lying on my back now. I've started describing it as "cockroach position." Because really, my underbelly could just dry up and I would die there before I could get myself up again. Blighty thought "tortoise position" sounds a bit kinder than relating myself to a cockroach. She's probably right.... Eh. Nope. I feel like a cockroach (which means - as she points out - I may not be able to get up, but there is still a chance that I could survive a nuclear holocaust).

Man, did I have a horrible dream last night. I started out dreaming that I had a suitcase - a BIG HONKIN' ASS SUITCASE - stuffed full of cloth pocket diapers. Plus a carry-on bag, and I was draggin' these suckers all over a huge airport. I had to change planes, and I was trying to get to my second flight. I had to go through about five security checks, and everybody kept searching through the diapers - they were very colorful diapers, in brilliant shades called 'lavender' 'butternut' and 'blossom.' (don't get me started on diapers).

And then, when I finally got to my plane, I realized that I'd left my THIRD bag back on the first plane.

I explained what was going on to the pilot (THE PILOT) and he started to drive the second plane around the airport to get me back to the first plane, dropped me off somewhere, and then told me to meet the plane at the end of the runway once I had retrieved my suitcase. But his driving me around the outside of the airport got me COMPLETELY disoriented, and I spent the next large portion of the dream trying to figure out where I was and how to get back to the first plane.

By the time I found the gate where the first plane was, they'd moved the plane. So I asked how to find it, and tried to get there before it took off with my first suitcase and the other plane took off with everything else. I finally found the suitcase, and escaped the plane just before it took off.

So I raced off the plane...and found myself in a construction pit with tons of hammers and diggers and other assorted large construction-like boy toys. But the trouble was, no one knew I was on the construction site, and so they kept dropping large balls and beams in my general direction. I had to keep dodging all of these large pounding instruments. In the meantime I kept writing little yellow sticky notes that said HELP! and drew little pictures of myself trapped in a digging machine, and dropping the sticky notes all over the ground at the construction site so that they would notice the little yellow stickies and stop digging long enough to find me down there.

It was weird, somehow they knew I was there, and yet they couldn't find me. And were determined to keep pounding. And I had a pretty strong sense that I was going to get pounded to death. But then I woke up and had to pee. again.

Wonder if this would be a good time to mention, in real life, that after hounding our facilities people for more than two months and not getting answers, I've had to cancel my equipment installation because our new "wonderful" technology building cannot draw enough power to support 208V. This is a NEW TECHNOLOGY BUILDING. They have to order a transformer that will be delivered in 12 weeks. 12 WEEKS. Doesn't anything ever get delivered in this country??? Babe, *I* WILL HAVE DELIVERED IN 12 WEEKS. NOT AMUSED.

And today, as I reflected on this incident, and realized that I STILL DON'T HAVE MY FUCKING STARTUP MONEY, and that I have accomplished nothing apart from becoming an expert at filling out stupid forms and dealing with assbackwards university software and administrators. Not something that has the makings of a good research seminar presentation that will get me tenure, I'm afraid. I'm just so underwhelmed by what this country (whose program is still holding up the funds) and this institute (who clearly has underbid so amazingly that they cannot even support power supply for extremely basic instrumentation) considers research support on an internationally competitive level.

Now that was a little rant, wasn't it?? Hmmm. Wonder where THAT dream came from.