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Tuesday, January 30th
Apparently hippies aren't the only ones
It turns out that, underneath my snarky exterior, pregnancy has turned me into a gigantic ball of mush. I was just commenting to Dave the other day that I haven't been experiencing the viscious mood swings commonly attributed to pregnancy and because he didn't want me to bite his head off, he agreed. Ha ha! Little joke there. Actually, he really did agree, because he has experienced my awful mood swings in the past and they do not hold a candle to any misunderstandings I may have overblown in this pregnancy. My PMS has been the stuff of legends in the past and pregnancy? Is a cakewalk. I don't know why, but I've been stable.
Well. Stable in the sense that I do not swing from elation to bitch on wheels to sobbing to ecstatic and back again in the space of 3 minutes. I have done that in my life and believe me, it wasn't fun for anyone. However, pregnancy is having its revenge and I do not like it. No sir.
See, I thought that it was just the hippies that made me cry, right? But it wasn't just them, which is sort of a relief. Last night? Last night a dog food commercial made me cry. I will repeat that. A dog. Food. Commercial. Made me. Cry.
I know. I couldn't believe it either but it's true.
Have you seen this commercial? The one in which David Duchovny (a.k.a. Luscious Hot Mulder) is the voice-over and there are these shots of dogs in the pound looking achingly at the outside world? And Mulder, as the sexy voice of impounded dogs everywhere, says, "I know how to sit, how to fetch, and how to roll over. What I don't know is how I ended up in here. But I do know that I am a good dog...and I just want to go home."
Oh my God, I can't even type it without crying. Seriously - I'm all teared up right now. "I am a good dog... and I just want to go home." This commercial is on EVERY DAMN MINUTE it seems and every time it comes on I have to mute the TV and hug my dog. Good lord... give me a second to find a tissue... sheesh...
OK, I'm back. If you want to bawl your eyes out, you can watch the commercial in question here. Just don't make me watch it again. I simply cannot handle it.
The other thing I cannot handle, and this makes no sense at all is Clare Torrey's singing in "The Great Gig in the Sky" on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon". You know what I'm talking about - the end of side 1. The part just after the old guy says, "And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it, you've got to go some time". Actually, the singing didn't get me so much as the old guy. I was driving to work today and got to that part of the CD and I had to turn it off. I absolutely knew I wouldn't be able to make it through the whole piece. And I've listened to that song twenty gazillion times! I can sing along with her for God's sake. There are no surprises here. Except that I can't listen to it right now. For no good reason at all except that somehow the idea of that guy not being afraid to die just cuts me right here.
Between the dog food commercials and the Pink Floyd I can't wait to see what's next. Maybe next time Yanni will bring me to tears. If that happens, I may not tell you about it. The shame would be too great.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/30/07 at 10:57 AM [link]
Monday, January 29th
And she dances, too!
Just thought I'd pop in and let you know that my unborn child? My heart of hearts? The true and mysterious love of my life? Well, it seems that she's a tap dancer. In the past week she's taken on the persona of Shirley Temple and is tap tap tapping her way into America's heart with her unbelievably advanced brush-step-kick-ball-change routines.
Unfortunately her favorite place to jazz it up is on my bladder. This is about what I should have expected.
I don't know what happened this week, but Tycho is now huge. I have, as the pregnancy books say, popped. It would take a very dim person to think that I was merely gaining weight these days. My belly, especially when I'm sitting, has taken on a lovely roundness that bespeaks glowing mother-to-be instead of too-many-Doritos. This is a relief because I was starting to worry that the people at Motherhood Maternity thought that I was just a slovenly fat girl looking for stretchy pants and not a legitimate consumer of the belly pant. It doesn't help that I'm still trying to wear regular T-shirts because I'm basically cheap. If I can get away with my sweatpants and Disneyland tees (purchased at the outlet mall, by the way, for anything from 50 to 80% off...) I will do so for as long as possible.
I've moved from being able to sort of, maybe, kinda, well, I guess possibly I can feel the baby to out and out knowing when she's moving around. Mostly I can feel her kick about 3 inches to the right of my navel, but the past couple of days she's all over the place. For those who haven't been there, the best way I can describe it is like the kind of shift you feel if you have gas and it's moving through the bowels. A sort of popping sort of feeling, as if there was a popcorn machine in the lower abdomen (which is, perhaps, the grossest analogy I've ever made on this blog). It is, frankly, bizarre. But terrifically comforting as well. The knowledge that I not alone is both freaky and lovely.
Much of pregnancy is both freaky and lovely. I had an awful dream the other night, for example, in which I had a very graphic and frightening miscarriage. It wasn't at all like the loss I had over the summer, which was more of a heavy period and complete mental freakout than anything physically painful - but having had the loss I am not new to the pregnancy loss dream. Like I say, though, this one was a whopper. I will not gross you out with a description but suffice it to say that the spaghetti we'd had for dinner the night before had apparently locked itself into my subconcious so that I could revisit it in the middle of the night (gee, thanks for not grossing us out, Kristin. You're welcome!)
Anyhow, I woke from the dream pretty upset and rolled onto my back. Technically I'm not supposed to rest on my back, but I don't get dizzy or nauseous when I do and that's supposed to be the indication to knock it off, so every once in a while I take advantage of the lovely new mattress that we were forced to spend an obscene amount of money for and just lie on my back, damn it. So there I am, freaked by the dream, and I put my hand on my belly and - bang! - she rolled over. I felt a head or a butt or a leg or something roll past my palm. It was like, "Don't worry Mom. I'm right here. And if you don't stop wigging out I will gladly kick you. Would you like a kick? A nice reassuring whack? I can accomodate."
It was the first and, as of right now, only time I've been able to feel her from the outside. I wish it would happen more often, as I would like Dave to be able to feel her but I'm only 22 weeks and my own adipose tissue gets in the way. Soon, I expect, we'll get to the point where he can feel her too. I'm really looking forward to that.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/29/07 at 01:19 PM [link]
Wednesday, January 24th
Hippies made me cry
It's a funny thing to admit, living half an hour south of Berkeley as I do, but I have to be honest with you and admit that I'm not all that thrilled with hippies. Oh, I don't have anything against them, per se, and there were a few in my family (I think my aunt Bean qualifies), but they still don't excite me. I don't just mean people who wore a bit too much fringe or had scary hair or marched in protests. I like those people. Hell, I have pictures of my Dad which send me into gales of laughter because it's like, "Um, Dad? The suede vest with the fringe and the plaid pants and the beard and the hair? (dear god, the hair...) Not a good look." But I don't blame people for dressing like that because I understand that just as with acid washed jeans in 1992, there was precious little choice. It wasn't that we wanted to wear acid washed jeans - we just couldn't find anything else. So too with the suede fringe. I wasn't there, but I can imagine vast warehouses of the stuff. My sympathies go out to those with such limited choice.
It's not individual hippies that I take issue with. It's more... the whole breed. The class of hippies. And I'm talking about, like, Woodstock hippies. The whole lot of them. The ones who need to wash their feet. And their hair. And maybe get a change of clothes because the layers of peasant shirts and paisley? They need an airing. I am a child of the eighties and, frankly, I'm a steel and leather kind of girl. I like my rooms devoid of clutter, my clothes tailored and I want a distinct lack of patchouli oil in my life. I'm not socially conservative, I don't think - I'm all pro-choice and yay, organics and environmentally aware and all that. But granny glasses and being one with the Allness? Not my thing.
Let me give you an example of my style of conservatism. I call it SnarkCon. A few months ago I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Mendocino county. If you know anything about California, you know that Mendo is the heart of The Green Triangle (refers to the growing of a certain illegal crop) and it's one of the many places that hippies wind up when city life gets 'em down. My aunt and uncle fit into this category. My uncle, in fact, proudly refers to himself as a Socialist with absolutely no irony whatsoever.
So we're visiting and the movie Woodstock comes on one evening. I'm knitting away, my mom is knitting away, my aunt is knitting away and my uncle is rocking out with Hendrix and Sha Na Na and whoever else was there. And just to drive him a little crazy, every once in a while during a lull in the conversation I would look up from my knitting and, in my prissiest Midwestern accent, say, "Aw, doncha know they're all hopped up on the goofballs! Oh yah hey and they need a haircut, every one of 'em." This would send my mother into giggles and earn me a shake of the head from my uncle. I think he lost all faith in me when, during a scene in which hippies were grooving in the mud, man, I looked up and said, "Ewww... how unsanitary." His generation tried to save the world and mine was overly concerned about grass stains. It's an unbridgeable divide.
It's not that I disagree with much of the hippie philosophy and the music wasn't bad (well, some of it was, but by no means all and disco was a far greater crisis, so I can forgive Neil Young, I guess. If I have to). I guess it's the naivete that gets me after a while - I'm sort of cynical if you hadn't noticed. And some hippies get really sanctimonious, which I hate in anyone, but any group has it's overly intense members so I can't paint all hippies with the same brush.
It's hard to put a finger on, exactly. It's sort of an overall eye-rolling, "here come the hippies" reaction, I guess. And it was the reaction I had when I noticed that Dave had Tivo'd "Hair" last week. "Oh, brother," thought I. "It's the age of aquarius all over again. Let me bust out my love beads."
Except, you know, with less enthusiam.
"Hair" is not the sort of movie I would have Tivo'd. See hippies, above. I'm too conservative, I guess, and long hair on guys is not my thing. I didn't even recognize Treat Williams until he cut his hair, ok? I was like, "Oh look, George cut his hair and is Treat Williams. Has Treat Williams been in this movie the whole time?"
But I agreed to watch "Hair" because it's not like the hippies were going to come out the TV or anything (although, wouldn't that be awful? Like in The Ring? Except that instead of that drippy drowned girl you'd get a decaying, lumpy Jerry Garcia? shiver)
And do you know what the hippies did, people? I never could have guessed the awesome power of the hippie. But in spite of my better judgement, I watched "Hair" and I let the hippies make me cry.
I don't want to ruin it for the last four people on the planet who haven't seen "Hair" yet, but I will tell you this. The end of that movie is sad! It will make you cry! Even if you don't want to. Which I didn't. But I did! Because... wow. Sad. And also ironic and senseless.
I really did not want Dave to know that the hippies made me cry. I tried to play it off. "Oh, these tears? Hormones. Got something in my eye. Allergies. Not related in any way to the hippies." But it didn't work. Dave saw that the hippies made me cry. But, people, it was so sad! Even though I totally saw it coming! I was like, "Hmm... that doesn't seem like the best plan, George. Perhaps there will be complications." And I was right! I was more farsighted than the hippie! But I do not feel good about that. The fact that I could envision the plan going awry means that I am cynical and George was not and maybe that is not a good thing. I don't think I want to be that cynical...
Oh God. You know what this means right? Not only can hippies make me cry, they can make me think.
Damn hippies.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/24/07 at 02:35 PM [link]
Friday, January 19th
Thinking outside the uterus
A few entries ago I said something about worrying about this pregnancy having become second nature to me. That's still very true. Every odd twinge, painful cramp, stretched muscle, craving, extra gas - whatever it is gets me worried. Am I peeing too often or not often enough? Am I thirsty because I don't drink water during class time so I don't have to run to the bathroom during lectures or because I'm becoming diabetic? Does my back ache because I've been slouching on the couch or because I'm going into premature labor? Am I eating too many egg salad sandwiches? How much is too much egg salad? Because I really seem to have hit full stride in the egg salad phase of pregnancy and I worry that this kid is going to come out clucking.
This sort of thinking does not bode well for my sanity.
Last night was a doozy. I woke up in the middle of the night around 1:15 to go to the bathroom (this is the normal time for me - 11 pm, 1:15 am, and 5:20 am. Like clockwork. One might suggest that I drink less before bed but... please see concern over thirst, above. Also? My skin has turned part-crocodile since I got pregnant. I must hydrate lest I shrivel into a wad of dust before the third trimester). Anyway, when I woke up and rolled over, I noticed that one butt cheek felt cold - really weird. It's not like my fanny was hanging out of the bed or anything! It was a damp cold, too, like I'd been lying on a wet towel.
Half asleep and in the dark, I went to the bathroom and when I returned to bed, I ran a hand over the sheets and noticed a wet spot about 6 inches around. Panicked, I turned on the light, convinced I was bleeding. When I miscarried, I woke in the middle of the night to blood and of course, that's the first place I went. The light revealved that the spot wasn't blood, but the bed was definitely wet. I checked myself... no detectable leaks. So what's up with that?
You need to understand here that sneezing? Has become an exercise in muscle control for me. Dave laughs at me when I sneeze now because it always is followed by a trip to the bathroom to... tidy up. If you get my drift. And I think you do. I cannot wait for the third trimester! Wheee!
But I digress, because although that was a suggested possible explaination, I hadn't been sneezing in my sleep. I don't even know if you can do that, but I know I wasn't. So what was the deal on the wet area?
Dave came in (he was downstairs watching TV) and I showed him the spot, horrified. He suggested I fold up a towel and try to sleep - if there was a new spot on top of the towel it was me, if not, it was something else. I got the towel but there wasn't going to be any sleep for me until I figured this out. So we lay there for about 30 minutes while I tried to piece togther what the heck had happened. Had I wet the bed while I slept? Was I leaking amniotic fluid? Should I call the doctor? And why couldn't I find any source for this?
Progressively more and more freaked out, at 1:45 I had to go to the bathroom again so I got up. When I came back to bed, there was *another* spot about 4 inches across but higher up on my side of the bed, under where my chest would have been. This was completely shocking - how could I not know that had happened? For another 30 minutes we tried to figure out what the heck was going on. Was I leaking colostrum? No. Incontinence? No - I would have known since I was awake. Did it get there when I sat up and slid out of bed (a not graceful prospect for me these days)? If something was wrong and my water had broken, how could I be leaking amniotic fluid and not feel it? And how did the spot get so high on the bed????
About 20 minutes later I got up to find my pregnancy books to see if there was any clue in them. No dice, but when I came back to bed, one of the spots had gotten bigger! And there was a new spot that was not there when I'd left the bed. There were spots everywhere! And all of a sudden it hit me - it couldn't be me leaking if I wasn't in the bed.
The waterbed.
Which must have sprung a leak in the night.
Of course, I need to jump in here and mention that Dave had brought this up as a possibility about eleventy-nine times. But I, in my pregnancy induced delirium, could not wrap my mind around the idea of anyone or anything leaking in my home but me. It was all about me, people. In the worst way possible.
Bien sur, when we opened the bed, we found that we clearly have a leak in one of the tubes. I cried with relief, thrilled to have to spend several hundred dollars on a new mattress if it meant Tycho was OK. After all, you can buy a new mattress but a new cervix is a much more problematic prospect.
So what did we learn today, class? Dave would argue that the lesson was "Listen to Dave". When we figured out the source of the water he pointed out that what he really needed was a show called, "How to Test Theories Until the Mystery is Solved" and I pointed out that really it should be called "The Dave Thinks He's Always Right Show" and the ratings would be lousy because people, especially pregnant people, don't need that sort of aggravation, so perhaps, you know, no.
But I think the real lesson, at least for me is: try to think outside the uterus. Every strange thing that happens is not, contrary to the way my brain works, immediately and directly related to the pregnancy. Of course, this is easier said than done, since every waking minute of mine is spent worrying about this baby. And I know that this sort of thinking is never, ever going to stop until I am dead because now I have entered The Mommy Zone and there is no coming back. None. I am finished. So I can either accept that and try to work with it or I can drive myself to an early grave stressing out about everything and not looking at the wider picture. I don't think I really want to live like that, but I'm also not convinced that I know how to slow down and think any other way.
Plus, it seems like a reasonable thing to start to worry when you're going through egg salad at a fantastic clip and it just keeps getting better and better. That's the sort of thing you should O.D. on eventually.
Sort of like worrying.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/19/07 at 10:39 AM [link]
Thursday, January 11th
I only want to stab myself in the head. That's all.
Dear friends of technology,
I don't know what I did wrong, but it seems that technology - once my friend and source of income - has turned on me. In an ugly way. Big time. Scary stuff. And I wish I knew what I was doing wrong because I want technology to like me more. It's really bad when technology hates me because when it hates me? It HATES me.
Maybe technology is mad at me for some slight I don't even know I made. If that's the case, I heartily apologize to technology and I'd like you to pass on the message, because it appears that technology won't hardly even speak to me anymore. I'm SOOOOO SOOORRR-EEEEEE, technology! Honest to God, I didn't know! I coudn't be sorrier! Please stop hating me!
See, the way I know that technology is being a hater is this. I have been nagging my students since the moment we got back from winter break to turn in late homework, NOW. I have turned into Hard-Ass Teacher and am giving out a day's lunch detention for each and every homework assignment that isn't turned in or is turned in late. I don't like being so tough but something had to change and this got their attention. I'm already seeing a lot more homework and instead of half the class not turning in their work, now I'm down to one or two missing. This is a vast improvement.
I am also seeing students turn in late homework for partial credit, which is good, because the quarter ends in two weeks. So this week and last have been a flurry of updating my electronic gradebook and giving credit where credit is due and so forth and so on.
Today, as I was adding the second to last grade on a HUGE assignment and was just about ready to print out updated grade sheets for my classes - technology turned on me. For some completely unknown reason, the file I was updating went... boom. Softly. It just... stopped working. I could not input the last 2 grades. The file refused to allow me to input the grades. And then it insisted - rather rudely - on shutting down. AND THEN IT WOULDN'T OPEN UP AGAIN, UH, UH, NO WAY, GO AWAY WE ARE CLOSED AND ALSO WE HATE YOU.
And the file size went from about 220 kb to about 50 kb and I wanted to begin stabbing myself in the head with a pitchfork because I know from corrupted files. Although there was no reason on God's green earth for this file to be corrupted because I wasn't doing anything to it except what it was made for, so I sort of hate it back.
I emailed our onsite tech guy, who said he'd seen the error before and the file had gone to it's grave. I sent a ticket in to the company who makes the software who replied very promptly but with no help whatsoever. Seems our district is using a version of this program so old that the tech support reps at the company that makes the software gave themselves hernias laughing at us. And we'll be using it for the next 18 months at least.
I don't know whether to hurt technology at this point, or our school district. Both are nebulous entities and it's hard to know where to begin.
Thus, I spent the last 45 minutes rebuilding the grade file from a backup I did over winter break. It's only 8 days out of date and not too bad, really, all things considered. I have a lot of unexpected work to do tomorrow to get things put back together and there are a few assignments I may have to throw out because I've turned the papers back to the kids and even though you tell 'em not to throw anything away until the quarter ends... they're 8th graders. They don't listen. It's heartbreaking, but it's true.
Anyway, friends of technology, please relay to aforementioned technology that I am very disappointed with it's behavior and hope that we can mend our relationship soon. Please let me know technology's demands at your earliest convenience. I will do whatever is in my power to see to it that technology is kept happier than it's current behavior indicates it is.
Thank you,
Kristin
Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/11/07 at 04:17 PM [link]
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Notes from a Yarn Hacker
