Happy New Year, sink full-o-dishes

I got to wash pots and pans, while an afternoon pot of coffee got itself ready on the stove just now. It was pretty wonderful.

Both my beloveds are asleep, one in each bedroom, and the dog is still with the sitter for a few more days. So I had the kitchen to myself. And the living room, and the dining room. Just me. A cup of fresh, strong coffee on the window ledge, the NYTimes crossword and a mechnical pencil near my feet, a new Barbara Kingsolver book on my iPhone. I'll do the dishes for that kind of solitary time anytime.

We took a different approach to Christmas this year, which meant a really short trip to North America. And no "getting over" jetlag. A was awake from 2 or 4am through midday most days, which meant so was one of us. The "box of baking soda" item on the fridge list for American goods to bring home remains unchecked. We almost just stayed in Zurich, since we'd had a long trip in fall, and the travel (especially said jet-lag skews about 5 days on either end, usually all for me and the pistachio). But my South American family decided to go for a white Christmas this year, and it was A's first chance to meet them all, and our chance to see them after 5 years. It was hectic, tiring, full of people and laughs and kids and food and great.

And I don't ever want to do such a short trip to North America with a small child again.

But we made it back here in time for New Year' Eve. And had a small party, which was actually the exact right size. Two other couples and 3 other kids. A full house for our apartment. The apartment with the killer view of the valley and the city and the lake, which meant about 100 min. of fireworks in all directions starting at 11:00pm last night. By 10pm, I was starting to worry that I'd oversold the fireworks view to our guests, only a pop or a flash here and there happening. But, no worries. By 11:30pm I'd realized that I'd undersold it. Cars were parking in our neighborhood so people could go up the hill to look over the valley. Fireworks were going off east, west, below us, above us, about 5 per second. By the time the city started its show, I was almost done with beautiful, multi-colored lights. And the kids, the littlest ones, made it the whole way through to 12:40pm. A did not. She fell asleep in her stroller on balcony, covered in down blankets and footie pajamas by 11:15pm.

So here's to a new year. A new chance at practicing slowing down - writing a blog instead of clicking through horrible TV channels, calling an old friend instead of going shopping, doing my back exercises, and noticing the passage of time. Of being aware of moods and their transience. Of practicing not doing too much. Of making my temporary home country a better place with things I bring to the mix, instead of just despairing about what is here already.

And now, 12 hours later, M and A are asleep, and I have the place to myself. Both the washing machine and the dishwasher are running, sounds which make me feel even more soothed. I can flip through the earmarked pages of my physical copy of Bitch magazine, drink my coffee, and sit down to write a blog post on an old laptop that got resurrected last night to show kids' videos because none of our new computers have CD drives anymore. Ahhh, the passage of time.

The trailing spouse.

It makes me sound like the toilet paper stuck on M's shoe that he forgot to check for before leaving the bathroom.

http://scientopia.org/blogs/drugmonkey/2010/05/20/spousal-hiring-is-unethical-puhleeze/

There are a lot of spouses of university faculty who work where I work. I'm one of them. And although I have been trying to go from being embarrassed by the fact to acting like it is okay, it is definitely a situation fraught with complexity and needing a lot more active consideration than it gets. So far, most of us are just left to separate (or not) our home and work relationships as we see fit. But the resulting range of spousal situations is extremely diverse, including in the variable of "how well you leave your home life at home."

But there is no way to do this. Not completely. If A is sick, and we can't use the babysitter, one of us will have to stay home. And if both of us has a deadline that day within the same department or unit, one of those deadlines will not get met. But even in day to day interactions - of course I'll be more likely to act towards M in a way that reflects our, um, frankness with each other as husband and wife. Now, sometimes, this means I'm the only one in the workplace who tells M he's wrong about something. And some of the time, I even have a valid point! But other times it means I exert more influence on him than others can, and vice versa.

What I am most confused about in this situation is just what a good balance is. We are married, and we have a certain relationship with each other. While we will not have a marital fight in a university hallway, there are parts of this relationship that it would be impossible to change. Especially in exchange for some sort of perception of a less closely familiar relationship. In the same way that close friends in academia will interact differently, and a very sympathetic advisor-advisee relationship will lead to different behaviors. And for the latter, I don't mean a romantic relationship, I just mean one in which an advisor has a personality match better with some advisees than others.

I'd love to hear some stories from the workplace of better ways of working with spousal colleagues than just pretending it isn't a special situation. Of acknowledging the relationship as something that has an effect, but doing with more subtlety than just requiring one spouse is not responsible for work evaluation of the other spouse (although, in some places, I'm sure that would be a good start).