Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Past Year: Grad School and a Feminist Job

Does anyone else feel guilty about abandoning online spaces? This disused blog is one of two such digital creations that I ignore—including my erstwhile LiveJournal, which I’m scared to look for. Oh, the angst.

If it were a crime to ignore your digital creations, we’d all be serving time. I think it’s probably a good thing that real life gets in the way.

Even though it’s been more than a year, I do think it’s useful to stop by here to give a little update on the Moulton Belecs since, surprisingly, some distant friends do check in here. Again, I’m not sure what to do with this space now that we’re not documenting our contrarian wedding planning. I think if we have kids, I’ll probably do a lot of writing about how horrifying and gross pregnancy and childrearing is (or seems to be), since women are typically under a social gag rule—even among their closest friends and relatives—about the downsides of compulsory heterosexuality and reproduction.

But those blog topics are mere speculation at this point, because I’m not sure what the future holds for our careers, location or multiplication. But since it’s been a while, let me catch you up on our lives since I had that delicious, free salt bagel in May of 2010.

Two major life shifts began last year: I started grad school and a new job. In the same week.

After my three-year tenure at the enviro magazine Trout, I applied for an editing job at a women’s issues nonprofit on a whim. During the painful graduate school application process, I decided I wanted to move into a career that aligned more precisely with my interests: film criticism and feminism. Because I’m an inexplicably fortunate person, I was well on my way by late summer to do just that when I started an MA program in women’s studies and film and somehow landed the editing and writing job at a major feminist organization.

Embarking on these new endeavors was scary. I had to give up an awesome workplace and boss at Trout Unlimited, and starting a new school journey was an intimidating prospect, especially since I knew I’d still be working. But luckily, I’m still in good touch with my old boss and TU friends, I made great friends at GW, I survived the insane reading and academic blowhards in my first two semesters, and my new job (well, not that new anymore) convinced me that I would enjoy sticking with a career in the publishing world. Before that, I was planning to leave editing behind for teaching or academia. But being busier and working with copy that’s more relevant to my political passions has made all the difference.

So from August to May, that’s basically all you need to know about the life of HB—work, school and tears. But life as I knew it couldn’t have worked without Eric’s help. Not a lot has changed for him since last year. He’s still a brilliant teacher, still jamming in a funky band, still a skinny runner, still bearded and still my total rock. The only thing that has changed is that he probably has a thicker skin for my stress-induced breakdowns near finals time and has definitely sharpened his cooking skills since he was kind enough to pick up my domestic slack.

And now you’re up to date on Talls and Smalls. We’re so happy to be enjoying summer (well, he will be in two days), and we’re looking forward to volcanic adventures in Hawaii in late July. Until then, look for us

  • on our futon watching Battlestar Galactica as research for my thesis,
  • harvesting the mighty bounty of my garden,
  • reading Entertainment Weekly cover to cover,
  • avoiding watching season five of The Wire because we don’t want it to end,
  • brunching or drinking with my favorite feminists
  • maybe, just maybe, running a race or two.