2008-11-20 - 8:39 p.m.

...a collage of thoughts....

Another week has gone by, and I have so many little life tidbits happening.

About three weeks ago, Susi became a sleep tyrant. When she was sick, she woke up everything three hours screaming. I immediately pulled her into our bed, where she slept happily - on top of me, with her legs draped over me, or smeared entirely up against my back pushing me out of bed. Susi is part cat. And she is very very VERY happy to sleep in the bed with us (and then to wake Mama up every three hours demanding food...) It's amazing how quickly babies get used to this kind of routine...

K and I decided that this brief age of sleep tyranny is over. It's taken us about 4-5 days of work to get her back to sleeping through the night, in her OWN bed. She still wakes, but now she is remembering that HEY! I CAN put myself back to sleep. Thank God.

The warm rains have come in Funcouver. The days when you put on your clothing and your raincoat and the wind blows the rain sideways into your face and you begin to sweat all over because the temperatures are downright tropical. Sigh. I love the pineapple express.

I just spent another afternoon dealing with students who have plagiarized papers. I HATE this. I HATE having to fail students. It just doesn't feel like it should be my job as an educator. At the same time, I think of those students who worked their rears off trying to do a good job, especially the huge proportion of my students for whom English is a second language - they've had to write and re-write. I belittle their efforts if I do nothing.

I also just spent the last hour watching a B@by E1nste1n video with Susi...and I think that I have to revise my previous estimation of those videos. Susi LOVED it. She sat on my lap pointing and chattering little Susi words and bouncing up and down. I watched with her and hummed along to Beethoven, and pointed to all of the animals and shapes and told her what she was watching. And then she got bored and decided that she would rather chew on paper. So we turned it off and ate paper. (not really. we got into PJs and went to bed).

Nanny called in sick again. Yes, the same one. We're still looking for a replacement. I will write more when I have something constructive to say on this topic.

We had a faculty meeting this week. It lasted three hours. Things at the university are not good. As the market plunges, so do university budgets. And as resources become increasingly scarce, tempers get hotter and hotter. It's going to be a tense time ahead.

I had some very strange dreams about some of my department colleagues. I don't think I wrote about the dream where I offered one of my colleagues a ride home - and he interpreted it as meaning that I was inviting him to bed with me. I finagled my way out of that situation and then I found myself out with another one of my colleagues (a darned sexy one in fact). He and a very tall, butch-looking woman in leather pants took me out a warehouse full of art studios. He kept trying to buy me jewelry (the colleague, not the butch woman). And that's when I looked over and realized that my colleague was dressed in a long red wig, a tight leopard skin leotard and black jeans, and was sporting LOTS of lip gloss. I came to realize that my internationally renowned superstar economist of a colleague is also a crossdresser. In my dreams, of course.

Last night I had another dream about the first colleague. The one who misinterpreted a carpooling gesture..In this dream, I realized that he and I had actually been MARRIED for some 20 years or so. And we had children - teenagers - together. I remember thinking - OH MY GOD! But But but but what about K????? Colleague 1 seemed kind of embarrassed by the marriage (or rather kind of embarrassed to see my reaction when I realized we were married). He kept making all of these conciliatory gestures, trying to be nice to me in front of the children. He kept saying nice things and putting his arm around me as we sat on the side of a mountain in the dark watching fireworks in front of our children. I sat there thinking, I guess it's for the children. I HAVE SOME FREAKIN' WEIRD DREAMS. WHERE IN THE WORLD DOES THAT ONE COME FROM??

And you know, you might think from these dreams that I have some deep-seated dislike of the guy - I keep dreaming that I'm in these awkward relationship-type situations with him, where I'm trying to get OUT. The dreams imply some kind of repulsion. But he's pleasant. Heck, I really like him and think he's funny. The only real-life connection that I can possibly make is that sometimes - just SOMETIMES - I think the guy talks a little bit too much, and I find myself wanting to leave his office well before he's done repeating himself. How those moments transform themselves into sexually awkward situations in the dream state is a field day for Freud I guess.

Dreams about co-workers are the best. You can never really tell anyone who really UNDERSTANDS all of the people involved without somehow jeopardizing your professionalism. (and, like, ahem, have I got alot of that...) I always like going in to work the next day and trying to look those co-workers in the face as we all pull our interdepartmental envelopes out of our respective pigeonholes in the mail room. I flush with embarrassment from the inside out, and wonder - just wonder - if they have any CLUE how completely f*ed up my subconscious is.

Sometimes I think that there might be someone out there who has had these kinds of dreams about me. And then I shudder and feel the urge to shower.