Category: Emily is neurotic

Blissdom is trying to kill me.

Well, maybe it’s not Blissdom itself – I left there unscathed in ’09 (although it did try to kill Jenny. Heh.) Maybe it’s the Opryland that’s trying to kill me. I don’t know. But for the last two years, I’ve returned from that conference on death’s doorstep.

Last year, it was strep throat. This year, it was… well, I don’t know exactly. But something awful.

It started Saturday afternoon with body aches and chills I couldn’t shake. Then I added in some chest tightening and general malaise. By Monday, it was all I could do to get out of bed. I stayed home from work, of course, but since Sam’s daycare is in the town where I work (and said town is 40 minutes from home), Sam stayed home too. Which really could have been disastrous, but he was actually great and didn’t require too much parenting (I’m probably not supposed to say that, am I?). Fortunately he’s recently developed an obsession with Star Wars, so pretty much all I did for him all day was change one dvd for another. And I fed him. Occasionally.

Anyway, things only went downhill from there, and I have been out of commission ever since. I really can’t remember being this sick. Ever. Even counting last year’s post-Blissdom strep throat. My assumption is that I had the flu, since my illness seems to have passed my fully-inoculated family members by (knock on wood)… but whatever it is, it sucks.

The Blissful Virus of Death also took its toll on Jenny and our friends Katie and Tela, and who knows who else. Maybe it’s from being in the Biodome Opryland and not getting a whiff of fresh air for three solid days, maybe it’s 750 moms converging in one area, bringing with them all the various and sundry germs they’ve inherited from their children, maybe it’s coincidence. I don’t know.

But I do know one thing – if I go to Blissdom next year, I’m wearing this:

I happened to glance at a status update from the Dayton Daily News on Facebook, and saw this terrifying headline:

The deer population is expected to be up 25,000 this year, presenting a greater risk for deer-vehicle accidents.

*Shudder.*

Most people see these little creatures and say “Aww…”

I see them and it makes me want to vomit.

You see, many moons ago when I was a new driver, my sister and I were coming home from our grandma’s house in the evening and a deer ran out in front of our car. I slammed on the brakes, but I still hit it. Or, more accurately, the deer sort of flopped onto the hood, bounced off and ran back the way he had come. My car was just dented (it looked like someone had thrown a basketball at it), but I was shaken.

I have been paranoid of deer ever since. (Me? Paranoid? I know – shocker.)

My crippling fear quickly became a joke among my family and friends, and once, during high school, I came home to find one of these on my front porch:

My adventures with deer didn’t stop then, unfortunately. Earlier this fall there was an incident that involved me running through our neighborhood at the same time a deer was running through our neighborhood (I have never run so fast in my life). I can’t do it justice through the written word. But it was pretty much exactly like this:

It was horrible.

So anyway, hearing that the population of those nasty lovely creatures is UP by 25,000 – 25,000!!! – was not exactly what I wanted to hear. In fact, I thought it must be a misprint – surely they meant it was up to 25,000. But no, it turns out that the deer population has gone from 700,000 to 725,000.

725,000!!!! That is three quarters of a million! Deer! In OHIO.

Hold me.

Of course, more deer equals more crashes. According to the article, last “November saw the most crashes last year with 6,043 — an average of 200 per day.” So at least we have that to look forward to next month.

Our family is getting a head start on the deer hitting season, however. Last week, Andy called me early one morning to say he had hit a deer on the way to Sam’s babysitter’s house. Fortunately, they were fine, but the deer was not so lucky. (Unfortunately, our car was fine as well – but I will admit that my first thought after hearing they were ok was “ooooh maybe the car’s totaled!”). Sammy didn’t know what happened – he heard the thud and said “Hey, who did that?!?” but since he didn’t realize it was a deer, I’m hoping he’ll avoid the same post-traumatic stress disorder that’s plagued me for years.

In any case, I have a very bad attitude toward these furry friends, and frankly I wish they’d just GO AWAY. But no, no… instead they’re rapidly multiplying.

Kate is much more compassionate, and when I told her Andy had hit one with his car, she was actually worried about the beast. She told me, “Mommy, I know you don’t like them, but they are animals and we need to care about them too” or something along those lines. All I heard was “blah, blah, blah.”

When does hunting season start? I’ll be the one sounding the horn. But I will not be the one waiting in trees for days at a time with pee (purposefully) all over me. I’ll leave that to the experts.

Go get ’em.

Those of you who have been around for a while may remember that shortly after Sam was born, I had an identity crisis got the bright idea to start graduate school.

Jenny went out of her way – repeatedly – to tell me what a bad plan it was. But did I listen? Of course not.

So here I sit, two years later. I actually managed to complete all my coursework (and got all A’s… except for one awful online course. I got a C+ in that. Learn from my mistakes, kids – buy the correct text book). It meant late evenings one or two nights a week, and fitting things like reading and writing papers into my schedule, but I lived to tell about it.

However.

One minor detail stands between me and my MA.

My thesis.

Yeah. My thesis. Originally I had planned to write it and be done by May 2010. Then the plan shifted to an August graduation. But here I sit at the end of August, and all I have to show for it is a draft of a proposal (not even the real thing, just the proposal!) that my advisor chewed up and spit out. That happened in May, and I haven’t managed to do a thing with it since then.

It is a giant monkey on my back. I want to get it over with, I want to be done already. But I don’t want to do it. I don’t have time to do it.

I’m going to have to find both the time and the motivation, and I know the longer I put it off the harder it’s going to be. Ugh.

Jenny was right all along. Grad school is for suckers.