Shaky Egg

Why shaky egg?

There’s a Laurie Berkner song (I’ll explain why an adult hipster like me would be listening to Laurie Berkner in a bit) that caught in my head as I was trying to figure out what to call my new blog.

“I know a chicken… and she laid an egg… oh my goodness! It was a shaky egg!”

I was trying to think of a name somehow as catchy as the name of my last blog–something that denoted my state of being and my joys, hopes, triumphs, and insights, aesthetic, epoch, failures and frailties humorously yet hiply.

That’s just too much to ask of a title. Or anyway, I wearied of trying to figure it out. The shaky egg song stuck in my head and I can get a whole lot of mileage out of the connotations of those two words.

Shaky– anxiety. nervous. (per m-w.com) precarious. likely to give way or break down. lacking in firmness. questionable.

Egg– creativity. capacity to nourish and protect. a beautiful curve that’s extremely difficult to crush. fertility. hopes for another baby. Good egg. Bad egg. (per m-w.com) to incite to action.
m-w.com: Main Entry: curate’s egg
Function: noun
Etymology: from the story of a curate who was given a stale egg by his bishop and declared that parts of it were excellent
chiefly British : something with both good and bad parts or qualities

Here are the parts, qualities, and other perhaps reliable markers of me.
I’m almost 37, a proud generation x-er. I find myself, professionally and culturally, firmly betwixt and between– the near-retirements see my age group as whippersnappers, and the twenty-somethings see my age group as dinosaurs trying to be cool.

I’m a degreed librarian, though not a great one– most reference questions and cataloging questions leave me in the dust. I wear glasses and I stick my long hair up in a bun with a pencil on a daily basis and I share many of the other quirky traits of our profession. And let me tell you, being a librarian involves very little sitting around peacefully reading– unless you’re in my job. More about that in another post.

I have a lot of black in my wardrobe. Until the weather changes and I can go out and buy some more black hip librarian suits, I also have a lot of matronly business casual.

After a checkered career as a student and single career girl I embarked upon a shaky marriage and birthed a baby in quick succession fourish years ago (that’s how I happen to be into Laurie Berkner). My husband is sort of a trophy husband. He’s ornamental and smart and caring but anti-intellectual, a good earner, a stereotypical man’s man except that he doesn’t like sports praise Jesus. We have learned, and are even able to joke about it, that far from post feminist conceptions of soul mates and partnership, marriage is actually the antithesis of getting one’s needs met. We just bought our first house, he’s a decent father, and he makes smart, attractive babies so I guess I’m in, for now.

I wish I were staying home to parent and housekeep, but right now I’m a working part time stepmother of two and full time mother of one hoping to become a mother of three before I’m done. I pray every day for twins– we’re not planning annother pregnancy any time soon but I figure it doesn’t hurt to proactively visualize and petition. I often wonder if depression is the existential lot of a working mother, or any mother. Recently I got on two medications, one to pep me up, and one to ease my anxiety and negativity. I am constantly trying to shake cigarette smoking as a coping mechanism and as an indicator of my rebellion and individuality. I am constantly finding myself between huge frustration and exhaustion, and sublime moments of zen.

I’m a big fat materialist lefty. I’m concerned about, in no particular order, racism, health care for all, corporations’ complete lack of accountability, the environment, social justice, abortion (though I’m pro choice), gun violence, and family issues.

I’ve lived in the South or Appalachia most of my life. I was raised Southern Baptist but defected to Episcopalian in my early twenties. While I am still greatly comforted by the ritual of the church, I am also well into agnosticism and perhaps New Age or mysticism or magical thinking.

I write obsessively. I’ve long wished to be a writer, but I, well, I didn’t really write, except for my personal journal style blog. I’ve finally decided that if I’m going to be a writer, I’m going to have to write. Navel gazing, middle class pondering of one’s lot, is one of my favorite things to do. But each day, when I sit down to write, the fiction gets done first, or else the navel gazing does not get done.

I blog about music, pop culture, housewifery, cooking, mothering, marriage, working, social issues, movies, relationships, books, wellness, and general life events. Thanks for stopping by. I’ll add more soon, and often.