My search for a new word trailed off

Image from 3DAstronomer.com

Yesterday, Diplopundit linked to my Trailer Trash post, sending a flurry of new folks my way (hello new folks!). It made me realize how hard it is to find a new word for something when the current one is in wide use.  I fall back on "trailing spouse" so often, just because I know people will know what I'm talking about.  And I'll admit I knew that if I stopped using "trailing spouse" altogether, no one new to these discussions would ever find this website.  So am I perpetuating it?

I wish the word "caboose" didn't sound silly when not used in reference to a train.  Because that's what we are, right?  Not the front end, but not dragging either. Attached, carrying half the weight, and pushing when needed.

Trailing makes me think of being a little sister and my older sister getting mad when I followed her around.  Or grades in school getting gradually lower, and falling behind.  Or following someone when they don't know it (like a private detective?).  The only positive thing I can think of is the trail left behind a comet:

Comet dust trails are the collections of large (greater than 0.1 mm) particles that closely follow a comet's orbit like the boxcars of a freight train (although trails are not physically bound together). Dust trails are the youngest meteoroid streams, and when they intersect the orbit of a planet they can create meteor showers. Some asteroids have been dynamically linked to meteor showers. However, dust trails have only been observed around comets. -  Astro.umd.edu

Hrm. Actually, that doesn't sound great either.  Though it does bring my train analogy into play.  Things that trail seem light or superfluous, without great consequence or presence:

An email from a colleague of my husband referred to his Trailing Spouse; you can imagine my reaction. When I told a friend about this, she asked if I were planning to wear Laura Ashley dresses and waft about, chiffon scarves floating in my wake. - La Douce Vie Suisse

I should change the name of my blog, completely.  I just need to leave bread crumbs so other women (like me, when I started this journey) can find there way here, and to other helpful places.

Our Lady of Idaho

Two Christmases ago, I gave my father-in-law a potato I won on eBay.  I can't remember exactly why I did this, but he ended up thinking it was very funny and sent me out to Hobby Lobby the next day for a length of red velvet to serve as a backdrop.  He is a novice photographer, and loves a challenge.  I finally got around to framing the photo he took and hanging it very prominently in our house.

Here is the photo of said potato, where I first heard of its fame:

from The Kitchn

My alternate name for it was Mary Mashdelene.

GONNA GET A JOB

J applied for two jobs last week, his first outside of academia.  So, in solemn respect for this milestone, a commemorative Blingee*:


Free Photo Editor


*Yes, ridiculous. But can also be used for literary lols: http://useyourallusion.tumblr.com/

New planet? Scientists debate whether or not to "friend" Tyche

[This post was supposed to be posted yesterday, but blogger was futzing. So I'm still in the 28 days of blogging race!]

I know this isn't a science blog, but I read about the possibility of a new planet beyond Neptune and the anthropomorphizing in the article made me chuckle. Words like "hiding" and "hidden" made it sound like a sneaky little planet, so I drew a masterful picture in MS Paint:

Tyche creeping on Neptune and Pluto

The article described it as "hiding in the Oort cloud", reading, but not commenting on Neptune's blog, and checking out Pluto's Facebook profile every few months to see if her Planet status has changed.

Yay! Step one! Eat it, Boehner and Shitty Democrats!

The various campaigns to strike a re-definition of rape from HR3 have had their first success: the wording has been taken out, but it's still a heinous bill.  Laugh at twitter, but it can get fiery.  Keep calling and writing your senators and don't stop thinking about people who have less than you-- be that money, privilege, access or power-- and how this affects them.  Here's some Kristen Schaal on The Daily Show to remind us all how effing stupid and mean people can really be.  J just declared this video "semi-epic".  I agree:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape Victim Abortion Funding
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Tiger Beatdown's latest post has the list of the shitty Dems who decided to vote yes on HR3, one of which is, of course, from Arkansas.  Hello Mike Ross!  So, I went to his website to see if I could shoot off a "You sir, are a douchebag" letter, and lo and behold, even if you type in a zipcode that applies to his district, you still can't send an email.  The contact form just loops back to the same spot, and the code is messed up.  So, if you can hear this, MIKE ROSS, YOU SIR, ARE A DOUCHEBAG.  I spare no eloquence in these matters.

Going back to work tomorrow, just in time to start dreaming about the weekend. Thanks snow!

Channeling of Anger works!

Despite the exclamation point's assumed cheeriness, this wasn't so great.  When I said yesterday that it was less harmful to channel anger into sadness, that was ridiculous.  I spent my first day back at work in total doldrums, trying to maybe find a silver lining to working in a basement with one other person (who acts like she hates you). I tried not to get down about J's current job progress, but those two things combined into me somehow working myself into a lather from the time it took to lock my bike in the basement and come through the front door to him sitting on the couch.  I got mad, said some mean things, and then started crying.  J. was patient and I got it all out (I could tell, even in my bad place, that things weren't as bad as they were seeming at that exact second) in time to head over to the gym.  That made me feel a lot better, and when I came home I was in a better mood.

Other things contributing to my strange-feeling first day back were being ignored/rebuffed by two people I said hello to.  One was a faculty member I interact with at my job, and another was a woman I'd had several classes with and similar social circles.  The former gave me a weak and noncommittal little wave (I figured he had the sun in his eyes) and the latter just gave me a look like, "Who the hell are you?"  What's worse than someone who  knows you not recognizing you is thinking that you have done something so horrible that they're pretending they don't know you, and you must be even more horrible for not knowing what that misdeed was.

I ate my lunch (at the same place as my new enemy(?)) and felt a little off.  What's up with this day? When I got to the gym and was stretching for a run, I saw a guy from my cycling team, who I hadn't seen much of since I hurt my knee and it got cold.  He was with his new girlfriend, who I had not met yet.  I gave one of my goofy excited waves (he is a person I can be safely goofy around) and he gave a small, non-committal wave as if he wasn't sure I was waving at him specifically.  At this point, I realized that it was totally self-centered to think that there was a conspiracy against waving at me, perpetrated by the entirety of campus.

When you're walking on a track, but the person you're coming up on is walking
slower,  it feels boastful to pass them, as if to say, "I know we're just walking here,
but I'm walking faster."
Photo from flickr user dbtaylor1959

Still, made me uneasy.  I thought, "Does he have such a jealous girlfriend, maybe, that he didn't want to wave at another lady?" but that is the stuff of bad movies.  I started my run/walk, and at one point was walking behind them, at a slightly fast pace, and there was no way to pass them in a non-awkward way.  As I passed him on his left, I gave a little wave and said hi.  My friend looked completely surprised to see me suddenly walking beside him and said, "A! I wasn't sure who that was waving at me, and thought maybe they were waving at someone behind me!" I laughed and told him it'd happened twice already that day.

"Well, it's probably because of your hair".

My hair? Oooooooooh.  I have very short hair, for about 12 years (or longer than anyone here has ever known me, with one exception) but have been growing it out for fun and because I'm too lazy to cut it.  I've been pulling it back in teeny-tiny pigtails for the last few days, and that was probably what threw people off.  It was pretty funny to me, and just that little bit of laughter put me in a better mood. J. was certainly thankful for that when I got back home.

[UPDATE: Dig my new background! I took macro shots of some of my costume jewelry. Spangles!]

"Where you go, I will go"

If I'd have been drinking while reading this e-book I just downloaded, my keyboard would be fried.  I turned up Veenstrateam.com in a search for "trailing spouse" on twitter, and found an e-book called We're moving where? ...Surviving Life as a Trailing Spouse.   From the cover, I am guessing this book may be a little outdated:

They are moving to a place where they cannot buy edible eyewear! Or turtlenecks!  It is also (and not to offend religious people, it was surprising) slanted towards "Godly career women" of the Christian faith.  I had no idea, I thought it was just a Kalamazoo real estate website!

Godly business women know that if their husbands’ job transfers are in God’s will, then they will follow Ruth’s example and say, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay” (Ruth 1:16). Yet faith never comes without risk, and leaving a successful career behind to become a “trailing spouse” is always a step of faith.

I had to sign up for a download and get to it through my email, so hopefully I don't have a bunch of Kalamazoo spam.  But you know what?  Maybe I'll look through it and see if there are any helpful tidbits I can share.  Love that jacket, Ruth.