slippage

Let me tell you straight out, this post is written to elicit sympathy. I understand that posting a Hang In There kitty picture for myself was a risky maneuver in that light, but there we go. Love me despite the fact that I've already provided my own kitty.

This last week has been no good. No good. My mom had a sort of collapse last Tuesday, and it turned out that she had a couple of blood clots in her lungs. We had to get her quickly to the hospital, where she's been since and will be for a couple more days. She'll be all right, it's treatable. They're giving her blood thinners and she's stabilizing. But she came close, there, and that was horrible. And even though she's better and will be fine, you know how it is - there's a chapter in a novel I read once, the title of which (the chapter) was "The Prospect of Rescue Undoes You". My mom and I had a fine weep today as we contemplated how close she came to...yeah.

We've been staying most of this last week up at my mom's place with my brother, who has some chronic situations that require support. The bed there is not good for gigantic pregnant mofos who have enough trouble sleeping as it is! And, goddamnit, I am about to pop. No kidding. Trying to be all bustly and efficient for my mom and brother is a physical challenge right now. I can barely freaking walk! I'm having the Braxton Hicks contractions, but where they used to just feel like a sudden curling of my belly into tight armadillo formation, now they're getting painful and not-fuck-around-y. Saw the midwife last Thursday, and I was 60% effaced and a centimeter dilated already. I'm certain that things have advanced since then, because these contractions are, as I said, not fucking around. I'm trying to make peace with them as they hit, because hopefully they're sparing me some time during actual labor, hopefully they're getting the sort of early work done on my body that Dave and I have NOT been getting done on our house. Nice to know that my body isn't a procrastinator, even if my mind and my husband and I surely the hell are. Our house isn't quite ready, and I really suspect that Finn isn't going to sit around and wait for his due date. So that's freaking me out. Trying to juggle my beloved mom and brother and our baby readiness and my aching lump of a body is bringing me down.

And also, I'm the driver in the household, and driving's getting tougher all the time. I'm getting close to giving that shit up until the baby comes. So, waah to that as well!

It's all a bit much, I say. I feel that it's enough to be facing imminent birth and parenthood. Life was an asshole to throw motherly blood clots into our scene.

That's the suckball report. Bring on the pity! Come to the party! I'm totally throwing it!

For those who may be feeling ballsy: don't even think of invoking My Therapy Buddy right now.

oh, everything is going to be MORE than all right

Last night, the best thing in the world happened - something so great, I barely know how to tell you. My heart is so full, so happy. I – I can’t…it’s too…so happy, so happy.



Dave and I were watching American Inventor. Have you watched it? We’d never watched it before. It’s a marvel. Retarded, tragic, hilarious. The cringiest, most wonderful car accident ever. A man comes on who’s given up his whole life – job, house, 26 years – for this game he invented, Bullet Ball. It’s awful, how on fire he is for this game. He’s sweating, nearly weeping. He’s positive that this game will one day be an Olympic event. It’s this little round table game where you bat a little ball back and forth with another person…it’s…no. The judges ask him what he has left of his life. He answers, his eyes blazing with tears, “I HAVE BULLET BALL.” He doesn’t move to the next round. This bizarre 12-year-old boy from Atlanta comes on, he’s accidentally invented an “invisible tear gas”. He’s the roundest, most deadpan, crazy-accented little man you’ve ever seen. The judges are all, oh, hey. You’re a good guy. You’re a good guy. But, no. Later the boy is seen in a montage of weeping losers against a white background. He looks almost completely stoic, but then he sniffles twice, slowly. Hugely. Majestically.

But you want to know about the thing that happened that’s the best thing. That’s what you want to know. I almost don’t want to talk about it. It’s so sacred. I’ll do it, though.

A man came on. A tender, wobbly man. He was holding one of these:



This is My Therapy Buddy.

Dave and I grabbed at each other.

The gentle, traumatized man spoke tremulously to the judges about My Therapy Buddy. By the looks on the judges’ faces, they were not as transported by My Therapy Buddy and his creator as Dave and I were. And then the gentle man pulled one of My Therapy Buddy’s feet (MTB was not wearing his velvet sarong on tv, his spindly legs were bare).

My Therapy Buddy said in a tenderly robotic voice:

Everything is going to be all right.

I hit Dave, Dave hit me, I hit him, he hit me.

The judges turned him down.

NO! NO! NO!

Dave and I were horrified. He walked away clutching the buddy with tragic dignity. The buddy had its long weird arms around him, hugging him. Dave and I instantly had the same frantic thought,

GetontheinternetlookupMyTherapyBuddyGOGOGO!!

And we threw the computer open and got right to it. We were in no way ready to say goodbye to My Therapy Buddy. We needed to see it a little more.

The first item we see on the search page is the My Therapy Buddy online store.

We can buy it??


We barely have to discuss it. My Therapy Buddy is $70. Sold, SOLD, it’s a bargain. We’re moving lightning fast through this transaction, I’m typing our information perfectly at top speed, the whole exchange is practically lubricated by how in favor we are of what is happening.

We’ve done it. We’re thrilled and exhausted. He is ours. She. It is ours. It’s coming to our house.

We go a little more languidly back to the search page and find the whole website. More treasure. This is a holy, holy night. My favorite quote from the website: "98% of the people on this planet can find comfort from a Buddy. " I enjoy imagining the benighted, stonehearted 2% who cannot.

We’re so happy that Finn is going to grow up in a house with My Therapy Buddy, where he will learn:

a. that everything will be all right

&

b. irony.

From our hearts to yours, Dave and I give you

http://www.mytherapybuddy.com/. *

*Be sure to have the sound on.

You are so welcome.

first day of spring & countdown to reality

Spring is my favorite. I'll say it. I've said it. I might say something different come the autumn but shut up. It's spring!



When I was a tiny girl in New York state, we had a next-door neighbor named Mrs. Thomas. One day every spring she would let me and my brother come into her yard and pick daffodils. There were rows and rows and rows of them, a little daffodil farm under a giant weeping willow. I loved how tall the daffodils were compared to me -almost up to my waist. Crazy white and yellow and peach and orange trumpets! And I loved how the scent immediately drove springtime home, drove it right up my nose, the imminence of the Easter Bunny and how gorgeous it was to play outside again. I loved how it felt in the shade of the big tree, cool and warm and perfect. We were allowed to pick as many daffodils as we could carry in our arms on that one day. There was the tiny tinge of sadness as we left her yard and hit the unlovely asphalt of the street on our 20 foot walk home, arms full of blooms, fun part over.

****************

Here comes the boy, now, in just a few weeks. Could be 3 weeks. Could be 7 weeks. Could be anywhere in between. As we get closer to the day, the reality of the situation is pushing its head out more and more. We get these vivid moments, where the reality has this strange new texture to it. I can't get it right while I'm writing this, this isn't one of the moments. But last night I had it in rolling waves.

Sadness!

Goodbye, free girl. I can barely buy into the idea that I'm a woman. I feel so young. But somebody in the house is going to be THE YOUNGEST OF ALL and I will need to be OLD and GOOD and ON TOP OF IT. And also, the nice sadness of admitting that I am an actual woman, and I've always wanted to be one, and how sweet it will be to be old and good and on top of it and loving somebody small. That's the sadness of having a dream sort of come true, hitting the asphalt with my arms full. It will have happened. No more wondering what it will look like.

Permanence!

We're parents, we're parents, we're parents, we're parents, we're still parents, we're still parents, we'll never stop until we're dead, nothing else is so certain and so permanent. This is a string which ties us to our mortality more thoroughly than our marriage can, however exactly right our marriage is.

Terrifying love!

Already I love Dave in a way that aches - that, like our baby, holds our deaths in it. There's no time to appreciate him, I can't drink him in enough in any given moment. And here comes somebody else, who is going to drag this aching love out of me and be horribly central and precious to my life.

Clarity!

Dave and Finn, here they are. They're hired. They are the most extremely essential personnel that will be traveling with me through this life. So, it's you! You and you. Me, you and you. Of course, there are others, lots of other essential personnel, but these two - I will see them just about every day of my life. My life looks, will look - among other things - like their faces.

Fear!

This large, lumpy baby is seriously coming out from between my legs. Seriously. You mean it. In a matter of weeks. And in the meanwhile, he's getting larger, you say. Well. Well, well. And if I try to make a break for it, the baby is coming with me anyway and will come out from in between my legs in Puerto Vallarta or southern Oregon or wherever it is I'm hiding. So, I am, as they say, fucked. Every night I'm online googling "good birth stories", "wonderful first-time births", "idyllic home births". I'm trying to re-establish connections with Ganesha, the excellent Hindu god who is responsible for the placing and removal of obstacles.



Hey, you great big good old elephant head! Remember me? Say, so, what...what do you think about removing some obstacles for this birth here? Hey, um, if you don't have anything else to do, you could remove some obstacles, maybe hook us up with one of those super-smooth births that I've read about? I just, you know, love your work, man, and just....keep us in mind! Oh - Om Gum Ganapatayai Namaha. Yes. Straight up to you.

Like many people, I become a total kiss-ass when I'm in need.

Tomorrow is our last childbirth class. Roll it out, lady. Break out the Ark of the Childbirth Covenant and open that mofo for us. Shine that face-melting light of knowledge right in my face. ANY FINAL TIPS YOU HAVE, I'M LISTENING.



P.S. The Beatles were right that happiness is a warm gun, only the gun is a bra that just came out of the dryer. Hold 'em up, y'old warm horse.

blog nesting

I'm changing my color scheme now because a) I was tired of the Miami preppy theme and b) once I give birth to the bunny, I think I won't want to spend four hours futzing around with my template and the non-dithering color chart. Not now, Finn. Hold up, child. You'll eat soon. I just have to try fifteen or sixteen more looks for the hover-over-the-link color. What do you think of #CCFFOO? Is it...? No, you're right. Too muted. That makes me cry, too. Shhh. Hang on. I'm fixing it.

I call this new color scheme

"Blueberries and the Sea"*.




*YES, THAT'S WHAT I CALL IT.

Some people who have different brands of blogs have a little thing at the bottom that says "current song".

Current song: Styx, Too Much Time on My Hands

Good night.

Edit: All right. For La Ketch, I have altered my beloved Blueberries and the Sea scheme. She wanted it all legible and shit. But that's it.

*Blueberry Lagoon*

stays like it is now, unless I get like 25 comments that are like, I can't read Blueberry Lagoon. And Miami Preppy can never come back. It was making me want to pull off my eyelashes.

more lovely and psychedelic as the months go by

Is everybody here? Right on, right on.



So, I'm dipping into this battered old 1970's copy of Spiritual Midwifery that I borrowed from my childbirth class library. Here's a taste of what I'm learning:

Stretch marks are less likely to happen if you're not uptight.

Oh, yeah? Is that right? Well, then, it appears as though I must have a telephone pole up my ass, because I look like I've been mauled by a tiger. I had no idea it was because I'm so rigid.

Now, here's a nugget of advice to husbands on the care and feeding of pregnant ladies, courtesy of "Stephen":

Be tantric with your lady - be subtle enough in touch with her that when she tries to steer you, you feel it and follow her like a good horse follows a rider. Try to do it with her exactly as she directs on the most subtle planes. If you do that, she'll trust you and get you high. It's a tasty yoga - you have to work at it, but you can do it. It's actually fancier than just dancing by yourself. You feel somebody else and let them direct; and if you let them direct, they'll tell you what to do.

A tasty yoga, indeed!



The book is full of the birth stories of groovy 70's couples who all, all have the same hair. Long, thick, wavy, parted down the middle. The men all have long beards. A quality that all their experiences have in common is

psychedelicness.


This comes up all the time, I tell you. Let's catch a few quotes:

...It kept feeling more psychedelic as the baby grew, and that night I felt very calm and high...

...I remember my mouth hanging open, drooling, and feeling very warm and psychedelic and light-headed....

...Having my baby was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. It was the best psychedelic experience yet......If you decide you want to keep yourself together and get high on the energy of your kid being born and have that agreement with your man and the midwives, it can easily be the most Holy day of your life...

...We had a good time the rest of the morning hours, smooching, joking, and napping. We felt loose, psychedelic, in love...

Now, despite what my stretch marks would have you believe, I'm fairly groovy. On the spectrum from square/mainstreaminess to far out/grooviness, I fall pretty far to the latter. I fully embrace many hippiefied ideas. I was brought up in a relatively unusual family of Eastern philosophy-embracing, vegetarian Theosophists. I have eaten the mushroom, taken the acid, worn the round colorful sunglasses in the style of Meg Ryan as Pamela Courson in The Doors. And we're planning a groovy birth for Finn, with the birth pool and the candles and the breathing and the midwives. But this book makes me feel like...Patricia Heaton*. I mean, I'm enjoying the book, but wow. Wooo.

*the gross Republican who was the wife on Everybody Loves Raymond and now haunts those horrible Albertson's commercials

That said, I am engaging in what might appear from the outside to be some whack shit in trying to bond with Finn. One thing I've been doing to help make sure his head goes down in the right direction, away from breechiness, is staging Concerts Between My Legs. This, a of all, is not something I invented. I heard about it somewhere. It means that I hold the earphones of a Walkman in the general vicinity of my, you know, vicinity, in the hopes that he will float downwards interestedly to get his ears closer to the stage. Tonight some of our selections were "Here Comes the Sun", "Over the Rainbow" and "Follow the Yellow Brick Road". A previous concert consisted of Men at Work's "Down Under" on repeat about eight times. And...there is no b of all.


I chose this version of the yellow brick road to put here because
I like the idea of luring Finn out of the womb not only by telling him
which road to follow, but by insinuating that there will be an appealing
menu once he reaches his destination - one that caters to children.

I leave you with the words of one of these Spiritual Midwifery husbands:

Stay real well-connected with her if she's emotional and don't get upset. Keep your body connection strong and make her feel good. She is going to get more lovely and psychedelic as the months go by and it is a blessing to be in her presence.

Oh, amen, groovy man. I know that as I lie there burping and bitching next to him, Dave feels as I do that it is a blessing to be in my presence.

i love a new blog and who is our secret santa?

No, um. The blog that I love isn't new. My love is new. I've seen this blog linked on many, many other blogs, so it would seem that it's a famous blog. Its name is Fussy.

I feel like I'm like, have you guys listened to this band?? I think they're called The White Stripes*?? You should listen to them! I found them.


************Well, helLO there! Who are you?***********

*This is not Meg White's blog that I'm speaking of, I say to head off confusion. I don't know if Meg White has a blog. I'm going to go ahead and surmise that she doesn't. This is the blog of one Eden Kennedy.

But really, I read a few posts and then I've started from the beginning of the archives and am reading all the way through. Hitting the spot, is what you're doing, you famous blog that I'm the first to discover.

Um. Anything else?

Yes. I have to sleep on my left side, and what's new is that Finn sticks some part of himself out of that side at some point in the night, so it's like I'm sleeping on a random rock. It is so comfortable. Also, when he moves a lot I'm like, JEEZ YOU'RE WOW WHAT ARE YOU DOING? and when he's having a slow mover day I'm like, HEY, WHATSAMATTER? HEY, MOVE AROUND SOME MORE!

I fear and expect that this will carry over into parenthood.

Wait - and also, ALSO...a mystery person sent us this beautiful Maya Wrap sling for the baby, and we don't know who it was!! It came with no note!

It looks like this:



Was it you? If you're out there, tell us, so we can aim our gratitude in the right direction. Right now, our gratitude's swinging around like an out-of-control garden hose. It's forceful, but, um, the right target is...not getting watered.

Dear somebody, we love it.

P.S. Mystery solved! The recipient was outed when more treats arrived from her in the mail. Now we know what we have to do.

yowling won't help

Listen, my friends, I have to ask you guys to keep little Sam in your thoughts again. He’s in surgery this morning, starting at 7:30EST, and they say the surgery will last 5-6 hours. So, rock it out there, doctors, and go, little Sammy. May it all go so well.

****************

Dave and Morgan and I saw Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story yesterday. It’s...go. Go. Go see it. There’s a part – no. No, I’m not going to say. I’ll just say that there are a couple of parts where Dave and I were laughing so hard and so long, long after everyone else in the audience had stopped laughing, so hard it seemed like we both might give birth on the spot. Weeping, hitting each other. I want to tell you so badly what the funny part was but I don’t want to ruin it for you. And really, the funny part...the whole damn movie is the funny part.

I’ll just tell you that this guy



was responsible for the part where Dave and I were hitting each other.

He played Doctor Slop.

Mmmph.

********

In other fabulous news, I LIKE COFFEE AGAIN!! For seven fucked-up, perplexing months, pregnancy has rendered coffee foul in my nose and mouth. But today I brought Dave a cup of coffee in the bathtub, and I had a sip of it since it smelled good, and it was yummy! So we were at Larry's Market today and went to the Peet's coffee stand and I got a cup of delicious decaf coffee and my favorite coffee girl was there whom I adore and haven't seen since this post. So not only did I get a cup of sweet and creamy coffee, the sweetie-pie girl was there for the big moment and celebrated with me in that charming, groovy way she has. I for sure have a crush on her and I have a crush on goddamned coffee, too.

See you in the morning, my prodigal beverage.



**********

So we have our…which one?…our fourth childbirth class tonight.

In our second class, everyone who sucked in the first class stopped sucking and became pleasant. Also, we supplied the snacks and won everyone over with German chocolate cake and potato salad. Also in the second class, we did this exercise where we pick a number between 0 and 100, representing a pain scale where 0 is none and 100 is the amount of pain you feel right before you pass out. The women were supposed to guess for ourselves what the number would be at the most difficult part of our labor, and the men were guessing for their partners. I guessed 75, Dave guessed 80 for me. Then the teacher led us through this thing where we would imagine that we were in labor, and 50% of the way to that number we’d chosen, and we were supposed to imagine what we’d be doing for ourselves to cope at that point. Then the number went up to 75% of the number we’d picked, same question, and then 96%, and then 110%. At 50% I ventured that I’d be trying to go limp and relax every part of my body. At 75% I thought that I’d be doing the same thing as at 50%, but also seriously praying. At 96% I thought I’d be looking to the midwives for ideas. At 110% I drew a blank, and the idea started getting funny to me. Like, stop it! 100% was all I was considering! Anyway, the point of all this was for us to know that even though none of us had done this before, we have ideas and resources available to us. It was good.

And then she was talking about how during transition (which - if you haven’t given birth or aren’t a crazy pregnant person who’s boning up on the info like her life depended on it - is the point where the cervix is finishing dilating all the way, and the contractions are super strong and right on top of each other) a lot of women think they’re dying.

Yeah, the word “dying” came into it. And I was like SHUTUPDON’TSAYIT. Because that’s been the fear that I haven’t wanted to look at – the fear that I’d die, or be in such a horrible place that I’d think that was what was happening. But then once she hung it out there and we got to sit with it a minute, I was glad it came up. That’s a good fear to look in the face. That’s not something I would want to be surprised with while in the big moment. But it really called that fear right out into the open, and for the next few days I was really sitting in it, and I started losing confidence in my ability to do this.

Which was good! Because then I could deal with that. I got a copy of the book Birthing from Within, which is what her class is based on, and devoured it quickly. Great book! Among other things, it has these art exercises you can do to find out what sort of ideas you’re harboring around pregnancy and birth and parenthood. Art exercises and I are friends. We get along well. I find them fruity-fruity-fruitful*, always. So I drew some pictures about pregnancy, and then drew a picture of my biggest fear for childbirth.

*Oh, no, I'm Ned Flanders.

I’d put it out here for you, but it’s huge and I don’t have a scanner, and if I did, I wouldn’t have that big a scanner. So, I’ll just describe it to you. In the drawing, I’m kneeling on the floor with blood gushing out everywhere, and my sides are jaggedy instead of round, with big scary bands of red circling them. I have a red sort of seeing-stars-Saturn-orbit-I’ve-gone-mad-pain-crown around my head. My body’s surrounded by this black membrane that prevents me from being able to see or hear what anyone in the room is saying to me, and my little pale green soul is leaving my body through my head. I’m dying. The people in the room are drawn vaguely, but they’re crying and calling 911 and rummaging through emergency equipment.

Oof. It was sad, scary and a big release to draw this. Then the next task was to draw this fear being transformed in some way – either how I’d cope if it came to pass, or what could happen to prevent it. I drew myself with the red pain bands, but with no big black membrane. I drew my eyes and ears enormously large, so I’d still be in contact with all the reassuring people in the room, and I drew my hands very large and emphasized, with Dave holding them.

Felt better. And then we had a good visit with one of our midwives, and I talked about my fears with her, and she was fabulous. She said we should bring the drawings in and we can talk about them. (I can’t help but imagine what our old suckball OB/GYN* would have done if I’d brought these fears in or, heavens forfend, mentioned a large crayon drawing I’d done to cope. She would have laughed us out of the room.) She talked about what’s happening for her when the ladies are in transition, and how she could help, and what emergencies could be and how we’d deal with them. She was a fairy fucking princess!

Then last Tuesday we had our third birth class, where we learned that the uterus is a blue striped knit bag with an end like a turtleneck. There was a rag doll baby and a skeleton pelvis, and the rag doll baby came right out of the turtleneck and worked himself through the skeleton pelvis with no problem, just like Finn will do. The whole thing will take like ten minutes. I’m totally not scared anymore. No, though, we learned a lot about what exactly is going down during birth, and what the chemical processes are in the body, and the whole thing was pretty reassuring, actually.

And then at the end of class, the teacher said she’d been thinking about something I’d asked during the first couple of classes. I’d asked how athletic a person needs to be to have a natural childbirth, and I’d alluded to some worry about having enough physical strength for this. So she said that the body is built for this, and you don’t have to be good enough, or an athlete, that women through the ages have given birth naturally and they didn’t eat tofu and do yoga. Even a couch potato can do this. (And lords and ladies, I am all kinds of potato.) I was really touched that she said this, and that she’d been thinking about it, and it made me cry. Something inside really let go and understood that I have it in me to do this. I have a lot going for me to make me a good candidate for natural childbirth. I was very grateful to her.

*If you do see Tristram Shandy, imagine that Dr. Slop is the young, white, 18th century, wasted male version of our old OB/GYN. And don’t for the love of Pete let there be an “if” about you going to see it. Just go. Go.



Wow, who put a goddamn nickel in me?! Such a long post. If you’re still reading, and you’re a woman, I think that you’re a good candidate for natural childbirth. You got endurance.

edit: And if you're a man*, I think that you could easily pass a golf ball through your penis. You're strong!

*Thanks, Adam, for alerting me to the hole in my post.

update and some hot hot jokes

Well, it looks like the little man I told you about was born, and his surgery will be next week.

Here's a link to Snazzykat's blog entry telling about it.

In other linkiness, please visit John Moe's blog and read the hilarious jokes his son Charlie has made. Charlie is a genius. Charlie is a GENIUS.

I tell you now that I will tell you more about childbirth class, I promise, I promise that I will. But today I am going to stay in bed and read novels, eat mini-croissants and watch my son's butt travel back and forth across my enormous belly.

send the good wishes to this family

Hey, everyone.

Laura at KoVixen posted about this family's situation, and I just want to invite anybody out there to send the best vibes and prayers to this family between now and later this week.

Snazzykat is the mama's blog, and their little boy Sam is going to be brought into the world on Wednesday or Thursday, only to be sent right the hell into open heart surgery. I can't imagine everything they must be feeling, but I'm going to be willing them

STRENGTH

PEACE

& A PERFECT OUTCOME.

Please join me, friends of the Monkey, yes?

More about childbirth class later, complete with no complaining.

baby school, part one

We’re taking a childbirth class. We’ve had two sessions as of now. Here are my thoughts so far:

Session One

*When you walk into a room full of new people, who are all equally unfamiliar to each other, do you not smile at the other people? Don’t you make a little contact, like, hey, I see you, person…? It looks like we’ll be in this class together. See, I do. And most people give you a little something back, a little smile or a hello. But one lady didn’t. She left me hanging, a couple of times. And when that happens I get all sniffy inside, like, are we going to have a problem?

*We all go around and say our names and when our baby’s coming and where we’re having it and who’s our caregiver, and also we’re supposed to mention a non-baby-related passion of ours. Except for me and Dave, this is a room full of snowboarding gardeners. Like, to a one.

*….Oh, yeah. It looks like we are going to have a problem. When we went around and talked about ourselves, I said that we were going to have the baby at home. What I did NOT say was anything remotely to the effect of, “And anyone who doesn’t is a fucking SUCKER. Home births are for champions, hospitals are for PUSSIES, pussies!” A little later, Miss No-Smile-For-You is talking about what she wants for her birth, and she looks right at me with this dirty look and says, “…Home birth is right for SOME PEOPLE but not EVERYONE is going to want to do it that way.” Aw, snap. She told me!

*Break time is awkward! I can’t seem to smoothly get into a conversation with anybody except Dave. I alternate between hiding my face in the baby photos on the wall, and tentatively trying to open out my body language so as to welcome conversation. Nothing happens. First day of school sucks!

*The teacher, though, is great. More about her later.

*Towards the end of class, she leads us in a relaxation exercise and guided visualization. The thing is, as I’m one of the two farthest-along women in the class, getting into a comfortable position isn’t something that I can pull off very quickly. So by the time the relaxation part has started, I’m in this totally awkward whackjobber position that I just end up going with:


In the red circle it says, "My shoulder is above my ear."


I figure I’m going to miss the whole thing if I keep trying to get comfortable. The visualization part is great. I always thought the womb was this pitch-dark scene! Apparently not! Depending on how bright the room/the day is, there’s quite a rosy glow going on in there! Finn can see the shadow of our hands on my belly and whatnot! This detail makes me unaccountably delighted.

I’ll tell you about the second class later. The second class rocked it, and was also terrifying!

tepid whale spa

Tonight, I took a bath for the first time since the beginning of my pregnancy. Our house was all clean and shiny, and I'd just scrubbed the tub, and I thought that I would take advantage of the rare cuteness of the bathroom scene.

I got the candles all going, I dimmed the dimmer, I was psyched.

I like to sit in the tub while it fills. That's how I roll at bathtime, homey. So I sat there, heavy and wiiiiide, while it filled up.

I didn't make the water too warm, since I've heard that an overly hot bath can bring on labor. But that was going to be allright! Warm would be good enough! I was just so ready for my belly to get floating. That water was going to sing to me about my leaden boobs and belly, they ain't heavy.....they're my brother.....

Floating. Mmm-hmmm.

I think my belly could have floated if my bathtub were three or four feet deep. Instead, my belly loomed over the tub like the Matterhorn, like a big fleshy Baked Alaska. Boobs, belly, nothing. Low tide, motherfuckers. Low tide.

And night was going to be falling any minute on that big, flesh beach, night and cold.

Plus also, the bath water just never got all that warm to begin with. It just wasn't in the mood. It was like, this is all I got. The warmth is away warming something else. Don't ask me what. It ain't here, is all you need to know.

I started scooping the lukewarm water frantically with my hands across the giant flesh foothills, up the mountain. Not relaxing, and also futile. Dave brought me a mug so I could pour the water a little more efficiently. No, no, not enough. He brought me a big hand towel to drape across myself, to spread the "warm" water across the whole scene. I dropped mugfuls of water on to my big soaking terrycloth landscape, to keep the "warmth" in. But wherever the water hit, it just called attention to how cold the towel had already gotten in that particular place.

I stuck it out in my wilted spa experience for many more minutes past the point where all hope had been lost already, because I knew I would need airlifting out of there. But then eventually I called the chopper I married, and he hoisted me free.

Suckball bathball whale belly spa time.

she love to wear a dress with the same grace as of an cocktail dress (SEXY).

A lady got an email from a man, looking for a woman who wasn't afraid to seat alone with him in an car, and I read about this email (FUNNY) while trolling about on the internet. Hence the pulled quote which is the title of this post, which doesn't have any reason to exist other than giving me the chance to have the phrase

the same grace as of an cocktail dress

on my blog repeatedly.

Then, elsewhere in what I thought was funny from the internet was the exhortation from a longer list of listy things to have a person page themselves on an office intercom, not bothering to disguise their voice.

Tina, please report to your blog.

the superblow...

...superblew. All of the Sleestaks in town are feeling grim.

In other news, Finn is getting long. He stuck his foot somewhere up near my neck during the game.

Now I'm going to go watch more Sopranos and eat ice cream with no pants on.

fussy

Poor, poor Dave.

4 out of 5 nights I make a racket when I’m getting settled into bed. I’m unwieldy and uncomfortable, and I’m not taking it like Gary Cooper.

I get into bed.

“Oof.”

I pull my pregnancy pillow up between my legs.

“Unh!”

I go to lie on my side.

“Ow. OW. Oh.”

I organize the pillows under my head.

“Ow. Mmm! Mmmm. Ow.”

I settle in.

“Oh my god.”

I mean, thank God I’m not both pregnant and an old lady, because it would be intolerable. I’d be like, OH LORD JESUS! JESUS, LET A WOMAN SLEEP. OH DEAR GOD. OH MY BONES. OH HONEY.

So two nights ago, I have my regular “oof” routine going, but this time it is bookended by

Full-on fussiness.

Dave had gone to bed hours before I did, and was sound asleep. When I came in, I stepped in some water that had spilled. And I was like, “I just stepped in something WET! God!” Dave murmured, “Wha?” And I said, “Some water spilled on the floor! What is that?” I stomped off to get a towel and then I stepped on something sharp, and I was like, “FUCK!” And Dave, slightly more awake now, was like “Wha? What?” And I said, “Now I stepped on something SHARP! Goddamnit!” and I reached down to pick it up, oof, and it was just a little piece of plastic, nothing dangerous, but I was like, “It’s this sharp little THING! I’m just…I’ve stepped in enough tonight!”

I wasn’t done.

I got into bed and did the oof oof ugh thing but extra-petulantly, and then my neck and back started hurting, and I started crying, “My neck! My neck hurts! Ow!” and then I realized that the top sheet had been put on sideways, and I was like “GOD, this SHEET is SIDEWAYS!!” Dave was totally awake now, and was like, “What? What? Do you want me to fix it?” and I was like “NO, it’s FINE!”

I want you to know that I realized that I was being a ginormous baby lady. I just couldn’t stop. I tried. I lay there, muffling my weeping under a pillow. And then it hit.

OVERWHELMING FEAR OF IMMINENT PARENTHOOD.

It was like, my neck, my back, my belly, my foot, this sheet….in 10-14 weeks a tiny baby will be out here needing me to take care of it. The dam, already in a bad state of repair, burst. Burst. Buh-urst! Giant-mouthed, Peanuts-style weeping and howling. Poor Dave was trying to ask me what was wrong and I couldn’t tell him. I eventually squeaked out, “I’m afraid,” and went right back to wailing.

Dave sat up and rubbed my back while I howled, and eventually I calmed down enough to sleep.

I hope I’m getting this out of my system.

Dave is a hero.

we gotta get outta this place if it's the last thing we ever do

*********************This buffalo is how I felt.********************

Oh, friends. So sorry for the long absence. We’ve been up at my mom’s place taking care of her, as she’s had pneumonia. We’ve been away from our house for 2+ weeks. And now we’re home, and home is

SWEET.

The atmosphere at the house where my mom and brother live can get oppressive. (I love them both within an inch of their lives. However.) My brother suffers from both chronic pain and mental illness. And my mom, of course, was suffering from the pneumonia. She was a tough patient for the first week or so. Cranky, picky, morose. I mean, I get it. Pneumonia. No fun. But whoooosh! Some of her sample text for that first stretch:

I need hot water.
This applesauce is sour.
You abandoned me.

Finally, she started on the up and up; her mood lifted, and she was very appreciative and lovely. But then my brother’s mental illness started to jack up a bit. There’s no need to go into the details, but I will say that it’s maybe not the most relaxing thing in the world to hang around. Far less relaxing for him, I dig. But there you go.

So, I hain’t been feeling too bloggy. But now I’m home, and I’m all stuffed up with fried chicken from the 5-Spot, and there are cupcakes in the kitchen, and we have a stack of dvd’s to watch – we’re catching up on The Sopranos – and Finn is whaling and dolphining around my innards like a champ, and we’re going to sleep in our nice comparatively big bed that has room for me, Dave, Finn and my big pregnancy pillow to sleep without anyone falling out. Hallelujah.

I want to thank you for returning to this erstwhile tumbleweedy dustbowl. May I quickly make it re-inhabitable for you.

let's pretend we don't exist

For a long time, if someplace like a library or a video store sent me home with one of their items, or if a business accepted a check from me, or if a phone company let me have a phone or the city let me have light, my feeling was:

You're a sucker.

Or it was something slightly less malevolent and slightly more totally stupid, like:

I live in a magical world where everything for me is free! (or very close to it)

or

Nobody requires anything of me, ever!

Really, it was a blend of the three.

In a future post, I am going to be very classy and blame my mom. But look for that another day. And in the meantime, imagine how awesome I am, that that will happen.

Rain City Video was one of the sucker-entities that I crossed paths with back in the day. And in the Year of Our Lord Nineteen-Hundred and Ninety-Seven, when my level of personal irresponsibility was waxing strong and getting ready to peak, they allowed me to bring home this movie:



Have you seen it? It’s great. John Cassavetes. Rain City Video has it, if you want to go rent it. I mean, they have it NOW. They didn’t for a while.

It was out.

I really enjoyed watching it. And when I was done, I put it back in its box. And when it was back in its box, I put the box down someplace close to wherever I was standing. And that transaction, in my view, was complete.

I got on with my life.

Rain City Video had my phone number, and they used it a lot in the ensuing days and weeks…could it have been months? I don’t know. I was busy living. And what Rain City Video didn’t seem to realize was that there’s no law that a person has to answer their phone. And when you get messages, it’s so easy to delete them that a baby could do it. A baby DID do it. A baby did it a million and a half times.

Kristina, this is Rain City Vid-DELETE
Kristina, this is Rain Ci-DELETE
Kristina, this is Rai-DELETE
Kris-DELETE
DELETE
DELETE
DELETE

DELETE

I was at home one night, blissfully ignoring the phone, probably reading one of the magazines that I never took out to the recycling the whole time I lived there, as that was a task. This resulted in a situation where, when I finally moved out of that apartment, I had to make SIXTEEN TRIPS* to the recycle bin with HEAVY BOXES OF MAGAZINES. I was under the impression that at some point I was going to make a collage.

*A huge, big, ginormous task, yes, you know it. I was not what you would call a good predictor of the future**.

**And clairvoyance runs in my family. So that's sad.

Loodle doodle doodle, I am reading about celebrities or dresses, phone, I cannot hear you. I cannot heeeeear yoooooou. Blooodle doodle doodle dooo…..

And then my apartment buzzer rang.

Hmm. Who is here? Maybe it is the world delivering me some charming item that I deserve simply for having been born! Maybe it is a friend of mine, who grew weary of my never answering the phone or listening to my messages or returning phone calls, but somehow magically didn’t grow weary of my very friendship!

Who will it be?!

-Yes?

-Kristina?

-………yes?

-It’s Rain City Video.

!

!!

!!!

-Oh, um, uh…

-Look, we’re not mad. We’re not mad at you. We just would like to have the video back.

I buzzed the two nice young men in, trying to keep my face from melting off while I rummaged around for the video. My face was so hot, you see. So hot, so red. Never so red nor so hot. Hot red face.

Here you go, fellows. Hot, hot. Mind my face, there. There you are. There you go, there. Off you go.

It will have been soon after that that my phone service was turned off.

the enormous dare

I’m finding it increasingly incomprehensible that three-ish months from now, Finn will be born. Dave and I have accepted the most enormous dare from the universe. In fact, we dared it to dare us.

How much do we dare to love a person?

I’m afraid that we’re going to find out.

I don’t know what to expect, but I'm imagining a sort of tidal wave when Finn arrives. I’m fascinated and terrified by accounts of what mother love is like. A tidal wave is what I imagine, in which we’ll be flashing between swimming and drowning for, I don’t know, maybe the rest of our lives.

We’re planning for a water birth at home. A small sea creature is going to wash up on us. I can’t imagine the moment of his birth any more than I can imagine the moment of my own death. And the little sea creature is going to have to trust us. We’re whom he’s going to have to trust. We’re the parents. He’s looking to us. We’ll have to keep him alive, and that’s just the beginning.

!

I have the vaguest memory of being awake at nighttime as a tiny person, I have no idea how old, awake and alone in my dark bedroom with the little night light. Everything was stopped in the house, and my parents were gone. I had no idea how this worked, or if this night would end. Where did they go, my parents? Why was night so long? Where were the sounds? Was my brother at peace with this situation?

My parents were at their largest at night. If they weren’t gods during the day, this shifted after bedtime.

I’m horrified to think that a tiny person could regard me as some sort of saving god. “Please let that lady rescue me from the vastness of night.” I’m daunted that there’s no way around this. I will have to rescue Finn from the vastness of night, over and over again. I’m afraid to feel his little fear in my chest as my own.

Is the heart seriously built for this? If a heart can take this, and by taking it become something larger, then that’s thrilling and it will all be worth it. But that is the dare, whether it can take it, and how much.

T minus three and some months.

the towering...redemption!

On the other hand, this ending scored extremely well with audiences everywhere.

Instant karma, mofo.

Apparently, I'm into the animal...human...animal interest stories lately.

the shawshank...not redemption

Test audiences booed this ending.

Also, please suggest the antonym for redemption. I can't cook it up.

the smartest, weirdest newborn in the world

I had a dream about Finn last night. I dreamed that he was born and ready to be picked up at the hospital. (Apparently I didn't have to be there for the giving birth part.) I hurried to the hospital, and found a nurse tending to a tiny little baby that looked a lot like this:



Except newborn-sized and just wearing a diaper. And his glasses looked more like this:



And also, one of his internal organs was hanging outside his body with a note attached to it telling us not to worry, that it would eventually make its way back inside.

But the thing about this baby was that he was brilliantly precocious!

I said, "Hi, Finn!" - not expecting a response, of course - but he came back with "Hi!" and then I said, "Do you know who I am?" and he said, "You're my mommy! And I have a brother and a sister (huh?*) and my daddy is Dave."

* I took it to mean that he was dialed in with our future babies, so he didn't blow his credibility.

I grabbed his little carrier and made off home with him, and we were grinning at each other the whole way. Later, I attempted breastfeeding him, and a doctor from TV came into the room and confirmed that it was going well.

I'm just realizing that this isn't the first time I've dreamed about a precocious newborn who can speak. I had a dream once that Pete and Carolyn had a baby, and it had a huge head like a tennis ball and a teeny tiny body, and it could carry on conversations. Hmm.

happy new year

Hello, everyone! Look, I know this same picture is over there in my profile, but I wanted it on here a little bigger for a minute. When the picture is smaller, I look like a snaggletoothed hillbilly. I wanted this picture to be slightly cuter for a minute, before I embrace the small snaggletooth.

How I love to change the colors in the template! Oh! Jesus! The pleasure it brings me!

I have very little to offer you today. But:



Up there is a little hobbit house from the Lord of the Rings set.

Yes, but why?

I will tell you why. Dave and I are going to sell our beloved Pink House this year, because we are having a new house built for ourselves. My mom lives up in North Seattle, and the lower half of her lot is an unused orchard. (Well, no, it's a used orchard. Plums grow, get eaten. Apples live on it. Raspberries are there.) But now the orchard is going to be used for us living in it! We have a builder, and a great architect, and we are underway designing the joint.

We had our first meeting with the architect yesterday, and we got to tell him everything we wanted for the house: the specifics, the vibe of the place, the sort of architectural principles we wanted highlighted in the design. And the more we told him, the more of a glint he got in his eye! We love him, we love him. He asked us if we wanted some little space that could be used for casual performances, since he knew that so many of our friends are performers. What?! Thanks for asking! Yes, we would!

And best of all, as I was struggling along trying to articulate the sort of feeling we wanted in the place - not particularly traditional and not that cold icy modern angular feeling either, just something warm and rounded and harmonious with nature - he busted out with, "...Are you looking for something kind of like Bilbo Baggins' house?"

YES! YES! WE'RE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING LIKE BILBO BAGGINS' HOUSE!

Sputter, sputter, point to the nose, on the nose, bingo, that's it.

Oh, architect. Architect. We love you.

Our builder (who's a dear old friend of the family) told us later that Guy (our architect) said that we had described a house he'd want to live in. So we know he's going to be working with his heart in it. We're so happy. Before the end of the year, we will be ensconced in our Bilbo Baggins house. With our boy.

We decided that if we have another child, and it's a boy, we're naming him Frodo. Frodo Rowley.