Getting into Gear

Another night I sit before my computer with the intention of writing/preparing my thesis proposal. I know it will be done before the due date--that is never my problem. My problem is the perpetual procrastination that I am afflicted with and the resulting stress. It is hard to find the time for this piece of myself while tending to the needs of children. Every waking minute is spent on their care and activities and when I finally take that breath of relief--it's late and I'm tired.

Precisely why I wanted to branch out into the blog world. Not that anyone will ever find their way to my blog, though I hope that they do, but I need a venue where I can release and ideally channel my energy on those rare occasions that I have any left. This blog will probably sit in isolation--isolation, that is the problem. So many mothers are isolated and feel inept in the job that they are doing or overwhelmed or lost or even, forsaken. It's easy to feel forsaken. Especially when there are men out there spouting their mouth on a topic that they could never understand. Take for example Senator Rick Santorum--you know that I was going somewhere with this. He was on the Today Show this morning with Katie Couric under the pretense of speaking about the Supreme Court Justice Nominee until Katie so predictably (for mainstream news) turned the tables to speak on his new book, "It Takes a Family." Katie gave him one, maybe two, hardlined questions and then set the floundering bastard free. Forgive my animosity but he had the audacity to say that single women must work--married women had the luxury and therefore the choice to stay at home with their children but for women with no husband (because I assume this conservative tighthole is NOT considering "partners") THEY MUST WORK and therefore have no choice. Pardon me for a second but since when is raising/guiding/rearing/nurturing a child NOT work? Oh wait! He means paid work. I get it--what have I been thinking, of course! Woman with man=choice and stamp of approval for rearing children as sole responsibility. Woman with no man=no choice and self-righteous dismay at the decision to be with children instead of holding her own and taking care of her own in the labor force. Notice anything here? "Man" is peripheral. If you've got one, great! Then you have more flexibility and a stamp of approval for the arduous task of raising children. But if you don't have a man then damn woman, get to work--no more popping bon-bons while the 25th chair gets thrown on Springer, while junior is dragging a five-pound diaper as he trys to outrun older sis who is chasing him with a stick of some sort, while they whither away getting dumber by the sheer seconds that they spend with you--you manless woman with no choice.

This is a problem folks--Rick Santorum said nothing about men--the fathers in this whole equation. The semen in the biological process, the penis in the union of sexual organs, the free bird sailing away. Rick Santorum can never know the feeling of taking it on alone and knowing good and damn well that the whole world is watching, waiting to say--damn those mothers. In a patriarchal society that lifts him up and justifies his choices, Rick Santorum can never know the feeling of screaming when he can't be heard, crying for a hopeless cause and performing a service in the absence of choice for a world that deems you unproductive.

It's late and I've retyped my thoughts after I lost my original entry. I probably lost some of the fire too but I think I recovered most of the heat.

Alas, no thesis proposal tonight. I guess I had a few things to get off my chest. I only wish the weight was gone--the weight will press upon me in ways that Rick Santorum can never understand.