Here's that serving of humble pie you ordered
Somehow, I worked on various freelance thingies today from 7:45 to 5:45, and have only eight billable hours to show for it. Yes, I did take my car to get an oil change this afternoon, but I took work with me to do while I waited. So where did those two hours go? The house is a mess, the dogs haven't been walked (nor have I, for that matter, though in these winds I don't think I'd make it very far) and there is nothing planned for dinner. Curious.
Anyway, to get to the subject of this post: I heard back from my aunt, she of the incredibly offensive book, last night. Her e-mail was kind and calm -- she didn't take offense at my (very clipped) tone, but rather said that in fact she didn't know we weren't Catholic anymore, and that she'd gone through that herself when she was in college and thought it was a healthy thing to do. (Yes, this does presuppose that I am going through some kind of "phase," which is a little irritating, but she did ask what's behind our decision -- and not at all in a way that made me think she's going to try to refute my arguments, though I guess we'll see about that part.)
Her intention in sending the book, she said, was to provide me "with a way to peacefully and positively deal with some of those aspects of a first pregnancy that can be daunting...to say the least. In the end we all want to do what will promote the greatest and longest-term GOOD for our children. ;-)" And she suggested that I just ignore the parts of it that I find unacceptable (which is pretty much everything), and said she hoped she didn't offend me. It does make me think that some of you might have been right, that perhaps she didn't look at it closely before she sent it.
So now I feel a little guilty for my earlier reaction... though I do have to say that writing about it now makes me think that her note wasn't so astonishingly wonderful as I first thought; what it was was much better than what I'd expected. And there is also the fact that she seems genuinely interested in having a conversation about this, rather than a one-way harangue. So that is good. And now I feel a little sheepish about the bashing to the Internets... though my opinions on the book itself haven't changed one bit.
In other news: Work, work, work. My prenatal yoga class for tomorrow morning was cancelled, which means that I get an uninterrupted morning of writing time, when I tend to work best and fastest, but that I don't get to stretch and flex and peek at other women's bellies. As I said to Darren last night, though, the good thing about working on the weekend now is that I actually get paid for it, since both projects I'm working on at the moment pay me on an hourly basis. This is a marked contrast to the days of my old job, where I was salaried and the many, many weekends I worked simply sucked the life out of me and gave me nothing in return.
And one last tidbit in what has become the grab-baggiest of posts: I have completed the front and back of the sweater I'm making for Annika's raffle. Looking ahead at the sleeve instructions, I'm a little perplexed: they seem to have you work them flat, rather than in the round, and the pattern seems not to address how they go from two dimensional to three. I can obviously seam them together if I have to, but it seems to me figuring that out might have been a good thing for the pattern's author to do...
Anyway, to get to the subject of this post: I heard back from my aunt, she of the incredibly offensive book, last night. Her e-mail was kind and calm -- she didn't take offense at my (very clipped) tone, but rather said that in fact she didn't know we weren't Catholic anymore, and that she'd gone through that herself when she was in college and thought it was a healthy thing to do. (Yes, this does presuppose that I am going through some kind of "phase," which is a little irritating, but she did ask what's behind our decision -- and not at all in a way that made me think she's going to try to refute my arguments, though I guess we'll see about that part.)
Her intention in sending the book, she said, was to provide me "with a way to peacefully and positively deal with some of those aspects of a first pregnancy that can be daunting...to say the least. In the end we all want to do what will promote the greatest and longest-term GOOD for our children. ;-)" And she suggested that I just ignore the parts of it that I find unacceptable (which is pretty much everything), and said she hoped she didn't offend me. It does make me think that some of you might have been right, that perhaps she didn't look at it closely before she sent it.
So now I feel a little guilty for my earlier reaction... though I do have to say that writing about it now makes me think that her note wasn't so astonishingly wonderful as I first thought; what it was was much better than what I'd expected. And there is also the fact that she seems genuinely interested in having a conversation about this, rather than a one-way harangue. So that is good. And now I feel a little sheepish about the bashing to the Internets... though my opinions on the book itself haven't changed one bit.
In other news: Work, work, work. My prenatal yoga class for tomorrow morning was cancelled, which means that I get an uninterrupted morning of writing time, when I tend to work best and fastest, but that I don't get to stretch and flex and peek at other women's bellies. As I said to Darren last night, though, the good thing about working on the weekend now is that I actually get paid for it, since both projects I'm working on at the moment pay me on an hourly basis. This is a marked contrast to the days of my old job, where I was salaried and the many, many weekends I worked simply sucked the life out of me and gave me nothing in return.
And one last tidbit in what has become the grab-baggiest of posts: I have completed the front and back of the sweater I'm making for Annika's raffle. Looking ahead at the sleeve instructions, I'm a little perplexed: they seem to have you work them flat, rather than in the round, and the pattern seems not to address how they go from two dimensional to three. I can obviously seam them together if I have to, but it seems to me figuring that out might have been a good thing for the pattern's author to do...
posted by mc at 6:09 PM
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