My positive outlook is failing me.

My friend T is in the hospital now having her baby boy. And I have been sobbing for hours.

Because I am ANGRY. T had an easy pregnancy. My friends from high school, who got pregnant the same time as me, are both having easy pregnancies. One of them updated her facebook status this morning about how she shoveled 2 feet of snow from her car. I can't even GO OUTSIDE.

Of course I want everything to turn out for the best with all my friends and all their children. But at the same time, I am angry at everyone in the world who had an easy pregnancy with a healthy outcome, because they get to enjoy their pregnancies. Because they seem to deserve that more than me.

I know things could be a lot worse for me and for little Anouk. But they could be a lot better, too. And I don't know why the hard way always falls to me to walk. JUST ONCE I would like to have things turn out ideally, to not have to worry so much or so hard.

Most of all I am angry at myself. Why do I have to be so faulty? Why can't my body do the right thing by my baby? Why can't I keep her safe?

I want to turn to God, but the truth is that right now I am angry at Him, too.

Let your heart be light.

Well, things very rarely go as planned. do they?

A week ago, I was running around getting ready for a busy holiday. Today I am back on bed rest--AGAIN. It appears that my cervix (like myself) is TOO SHORT and I have to try and take some pressure off of it. It doesn't help that baby Anne is sitting right on top of things, kicking merrily away.

So we're looking at a very different holiday this year. I won't be going to church. I won't be making cookies or visiting family. I'll be lying on my left side on the couch or in bed with a pillow under my rear.

"Christmas is CANCELED," said James, half-jokingly.

But I don't think it is, really. It's amazing how a situation like this makes you realize what the season is truly about. I don't care about presents or trappings. I have my husband and right now I have my baby and we are all safe and well. And hopefully, next year Anne will be here and at least this particular trouble will be out of sight.

Merry Christmas to all!

Holidays and book carnage

It's always such a sad thing to get rid of books, at least in my experience. You picture them the first time you held them, crisp-paged and pristine and clean-covered. Now that they are old and dog-eared and have given you all that they can give, it feels like an act of treason to get rid of them, like putting a beloved elderly relative out on an ice flow. I have a stack of books now, spread out over the office floor, like bodies fallen atop each other in the trenches. It's breaking my heart a little.

But when you have 850 square feet for two adults, three cats and one impending baby, then you do what you gotta to have a little more space.

It doesn't make it any easier but it does lead to some funny moments, though. Today James and I cavalierly decided to throw away an entire Hemingway oevre in paperback, but ended up keeping a joke of a self-help book called "You are Worthless" that we got at Spencer's a lifetime ago. One is available at the library, you see, but the other? Who knows if we will ever run into it again! I am also not proud to admit that I got rid of a very serviceable edition of SHAKESPEARE...so that I could keep half a dozen installments in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.

____________________

I am in grave danger of never updating about James's and my first-ever (and probably only ever) solo Thanksgiving holiday, so I'll tack it onto the end of this entry to make sure it gets covered. We spent Tuesday cooking our feast. Our menu? I'll write it out, all fancy-style, so that it looks most impressive:

Salad of mixed greens with balsamic vinaigrette
Curried pumpkin soup
Roasted red potatoes, red onions and butternut squash
Stuffing*
Turkey**
Chocolate pecan pie

*from a box, though we added red peppers and celery of our own
**Turkey, free-range, organic, heritage breed bought directly from farm that cost $45 for EIGHT POUNDS

We drove down to Luray, VA on Wednesday. Home of the scary Luray caverns that you are forced to visit as a child when you grow up in Virginia. Luray is located in the Blue Ridge mountains, right in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. Our cabin was located atop the highest of these mountains. We drove up and up and up, around twisty switch-backed roads, and I was so carsick. I also, on the way, as the streetlights faded behind me and the 7-11s grew few and far between, realized how much being out in the middle of nowhere scares me. For better or for worse, and as much as I enjoy nature, I am a creature of the city. I'd rather see a rat with a big, fat scaly tail than a fox or a snake or whatever else lives in the woods. Ugh.

Speaking of woods creatures, on Wednesday night, I was relaxing in front of the cabin's HUGE plasma TV when James came in. "Did you get the bags?" I asked him.

"No, and I am loath to go back out there because of the FUCKING BEAR that's out there in the yard," he replied.

It seems funny now, but I have to admit at the time that I was quite upset. I ran around the cabin locking windows, as if the bear could get in that way.

We had a very low key time. We went out to eat Wednesday night at the town's fancy Artisan Grill. The next morning we went to a dingy little diner that I loved. Then we cooked our turkey, ate our dinner, and watched movies the rest of the day. We saw (OK) and The Men who Stare at Goats and (GREAT) I Capture the Castle, based on the Dodie Smith book of the same name. Friday morning we got up early and drove back home. The drive should have taken 2 hours but took 5 because I stopped at every antique store we passed.

So that was our holiday and it was so restful that I don't know how I am going to face next year's drama and sniping and running around like chickens with the heads cut off, but luckily it's a year away. Maybe my entire family and James's will get kidnapped by Colombian drug lords by then.

Here's to hoping!!

Every year, around the time of major holidays, my paternal side of the family exchanges the kind of newsy emails that you get in Christmas cards, just to keep everybody in the loop. These are usually initiated by my Aunt Judy, who is the youngest and most sentimental of my dad's siblings. She likes to keep us all talking together, because without her, we would probably not tend to keep in touch. Well, this year, in our post-Thanksgiving email, Judy had some very interesting news for us: she and Uncle Jon are moving. To Belize!

Here's how it happened, I gather from what she told us: Aunt Judy has been afraid for a while that she will lose her librarian job. She and Uncle Jon recently started their own screen-printing business. And Judy and Jon recently visited Belize and fell in love with it. I guess with all of this combined, and with their children, my cousins Dane and Brynn, getting older, they decided to just go for it and pursue this dream.

And I am so proud of them.

It probably sounds crazy to a lot of people, to pick up and move to your favorite vacation destination, to leave your teenaged, adult kids on their own in the States, as they have no interest in going with their parents. But every single one of us has a dream like this. Mine is to pick up and move somewhere not chosen by proximity to family but by a kinship with the place: Massachusetts, Olympia, New Orleans, Vancouver. James's is to tour the world with his band. The only difference is that most people think it's crazy to pursue this kind of dream, but Judy and Jon don't. I love them for that. They've given me hope that one day I might throw all my chips in and pursue my own dreams despite great odds.

My aunt Judy has long been an inspiration to me but has become even more of one since I found out I was going to be a mother. My own mother had a very rigid, very cold style of parenting. I was to do exactly as she said, to get her permission for everything I wore, ate, thought, or else risk her wrath. I have this vivid memory of dyeing my hair in 9th grade at my friend Alana's house, dyeing it literally one subtle, reddish shade from my natural hair color. My mother didn't even notice until days later, after I had confessed what I'd done in a fit of guilt. Then she mocked me, said my hair was purple, that I looked ridiculous. And she hadn't even noticed.

My relationship with my mother has always been one long struggle: my mother struggling to make me into the daughter she had always imagined having, me struggling to just be myself. My mother sees herself as having failed in her job as a parent because I never did turn into that girl she wanted me to be. It doesn't matter that I think I'm pretty damn awesome, that I am charitable and successful in what I do, that I try to be kind and caring, that I have friends and a husband that love me. She has failed, because I am not her. She resents me for being the person I actually am, and even 30 years into this experiment, hasn't quite given up hope that if she just squeezes hard enough, one day I'll start being the daughter she actually wanted. She really believes that I will be happier and a genuinely better person if, like her, I'd start wearing low-heeled Aigner pumps with every outfit and counting the Weight Watchers points in everything. No more punk rock! No more gumbo! No more fun!

No thanks. I'll pass.

Aunt Judy's relationship with her own daughter is so relaxed, easy, and affectionate, by comparison. My 17-year-old cousin Brynn dyes her hair another crazy color every week, and that's OK, because it doesn't actually hurt anybody and because Brynn wants to. Right now it's shaved on the sides, with dreadlocks in between. It might not be her best look, in my or even her mother's opinion, but it suits her, allows her to express herself, and makes her happy. Brynn also has a nose piercing that she gave herself a year or two ago. Aunt Judy was upset when she found out about it...because she was afraid Brynn could have injured herself not having it done by a professional. She didn't care that Brynn had chosen a way to express herself that she might not have chosen for her.

Aunt Judy has always listened to Brynn, treated her as a person, allowed her to choose her own path, supported the person she is rather than some idealized person Judy might want her daughter to be. And I hope to do the same thing with my daughter. I hope to nurture the person she is rather than steer her to become the person I want her to be. I hope to have the fortitude to guide her, without pushing. To let her raise herself, to a certain extent--at least to decide the course of her own life. I'll be there to help her find out what that is, and to support her in it. But I want her to be free to be herself, and if I didn't have Aunt Judy's shining example in my life, I might have never learned how to do that.

I don't talk to my aunt nearly enough, but next time I do, this is what I think I'll say: I love you. Thank you for being you. Thank you for letting Brynn be Brynn. And thank you for showing me how to be a mother, so that I don't have to be MY mother.

Another update.

Slowly but surely, I feel as though I am getting back in the swing of things.

My bedrest edict was lifted officially about a week ago. Unofficially, I am supposed to get horizontal whenever I feel winded, crampy, tired, or just plain not good. So I'm spending a lot of time on my back. Morning sickness continues--I can't seem to eat enough food to keep the nausea at bay. I've actually lost weight in this pregnancy, which marks the very first time ever that I was not fat enough. The only thing that is getting me through this is books and prayers, both of which I have gotten from kind friends. I am extremely grateful for all three.

I actually had to turn down a work project that I felt would be a good opportunity because overall, I thought it would put too much strain on me. It worried me to give up such a great opportunity; I have to keep reminding myself that an opportunity isn't actually that great if it comes at the wrong time, and this one did, for me. There will be other projects.

But I am starting to stop worrying and start to really love my baby. James and I found out there is an 85% chance she's a girl, and so we tentatively started calling her by the name we picked out, instead of Jawbone. But the more that we called her that name, and the more we looked at her little pouty face in the 3D ultrasound, we found that a particular nickname suited her better. It just feels more natural. I mean to do a first trimester write-up, because there is so much I want to remember about this pregnancy--my Tabasco cravings, my crying jags over children's literature, being SO HOT and sleeping with all the windows open on 40-degree nights, not wanting to "jinx" things, but not being able to stop from buying the baby books, spelling out VIVAT JAWBONE in word tiles on the coffee table and leaving them there for weeks, seeing a pair of perfectly formed feet frog-kicking across an ultrasound screen--the greatest moment in my life to date... But to be quite honest, the way things are going, I probably won't get around to expounding more on these things than I already have. It makes me sad to think that this time is already slipping away from me, but then I remember all the things I will be glad to miss. Reading in front of the toilet, sick sick sick, mood swings, food aversions, sleeplessness, never being able to empty my bladder quite completely...

My good friends Jamie and Patrick had their baby early on November 10. His name is Atom Gray I_____. I am not a fan of the name, but I am a fan of Baby Atom himself. He is so sweet, with Patrick's Austrian nose and Jamie's Korean eyes, in a peculiar shade of blue that I hope endures. He never fusses, and he makes the grumpiest faces when he is displeased. He is going to be my baby's first friend, and I love him for that, but I also love him because he is the living embodiment of my friends' love for each other. I love going over to their house with supper and folding his little onesies and then holding him while his mother eats and naps.

In non-baby related news, we've completed a few home improvement projects in the past few weeks. Rather: James has, although I consider myself the mastermind behind the finished products. Example: James laid new vinyl flooring in the bathroom and I caulked! And also: I laid tile on the easy parts of the kitchen floor, and left the cut outs around the radiator and doorjamb to him. Tomorrow, James will spray paint a new bookcase that I picked out online! I just love feathering my little nest.

Thanksgiving is in three days, and I am looking forward to spending it with James and James alone. No cats, even! It seems impossible that we have been together for 10 years and never spent the holiday alone before (unless you count the impromptu Ghetto Thanksgiving of 2003 with Patrick Riggs, Eli, Alex, etc), but this has been such a nice entry that I will decide not to go into the "James's Mom is a Crazy and Manipulative You-Know-What" spiel and just say that we're looking forward to it. We rented a luxury cabin in the mountains near Luray, Virginia, and we will spend it there (and keep our phones on silent to avoid the thousand mournful calls from You-Know-Who, just checking in! To say she misses us! And ask if we need anything! And by the way, she misses us! And isn't having such a good time. Because she misses...)

There is a great big golden orb of a moon tonight, hanging in a ring of hazy smoke right over top of my building. I keep going downstairs to look at it. Because it's pretty, and because I can.

If thou could'st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, "This is not dead,"
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou art replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes He says, "This is enow
Unto itself--'twere better let it be,
It is so small and full there is no room for Me."

-Sir Thomas Browne, 1605-1682

Picture post

I've been super busy/sick/tired lately so I haven't had the energy to do much beside work/eat/sleep. But a lot has been going on! My brain has sort of stopped functioning properly enough to tell you about it, though. So I'm going to rely heavily on visual aids to get me through this post.

First, and most importantly:

This is the Jawbone 3 weeks ago at 7w1d. It was the first time he looked like anything more than a speck and it was so, so exciting to us. We saw his heart beating again, not just a flicker like the first time but more like an actual heart, with a pumping motion. (His heart rate was 140, which puts him right on the cusp of that old wives' tale: below 140 bpm is a girl and above 140 bpm is a boy. I still think boy, though, and James still thinks girl.)

We were just amazed by this picture, and we didn't mind at all that our baby looked like a delicious shrimp and not actually like a baby at all. So imagine how we felt when we saw him again:


That looks definitively babyish at 9w1d. Here's Jawby hanging out upside down like a bat. Bat-baby! His head is on the left and you can see his little feet sticking out on the right. And when we were there, we not only saw his heart beating some more, but we saw him moving his arms, legs, back, and head!!

He is 2.36 centimeters (or was, there--I understand this is a big growing week for him, so he's almost double that, now, or should be). That's about an inch, and about the size of a medium green olive (which actually...sounds pretty yummy. I need olives. And I don't even LIKE olives!)

James totaled the old green Camry last week (he's OK, the car is, sadly, not) in the lamest accident resulting in a totaled car ever (but the safest, so we're not complaining). He was pulling out of a parallel parking spot on the street and a guy came roaring by and smashed into him, crumpling the hood and breaking an axle. So....we got a new car!


It is a silver 2007 Toyota Rav4 with 35,000 miles on it. It was listed for a good price, but even so, James haggled them down another 1,000 and got the dealership to pay the taxes on it for us. This is the first time we have ever really bought a car instead of just driving what our parents didn't want or buying a car from a friend for $300 or so, so he had never bargained like that before and I wasn't sure he could. Disloyal wife! I was so nervous, and then when the salesman agreed, I wanted to jump up and down going, "IN YOUR FACE! HA HA! WE GOT YOU!" I think James did, too, but instead we settled for giving each other a surreptitious high five under the desk where they couldn't see.

We love the new car. It has already been to Roanoke and Norfolk. It has so much space and is so clean and I love driving it.

Because we saved so much money on the car, we can afford to replace the gross old couch and chair we've had since 2001. We're thinking of something like this:

The fabric is microfiber, and the color would be the lighter khaki instead of the darker sand on top. I'm not 100% sure about this couch because I find the arms a little funky, but I like the shape of it overall and I like the three-cushion back a lot. And the space underneath would keep things from becoming irretrievably lost under there (Like the TiVo remote that was missing for three months...)

I won't let anybody buy anything for the baby until 12 weeks (only 14 days to go!!!) and that includes James (although he might have accidentally gotten some little pumpkin socks) and me (who might have sort of kind of gotten the baby a book called The Fat Cat Sat on the Mat--but only because the cat looks like our Hank). But it hasn't stopped us from planning out what to do with the study when the baby is born. Right now, James works from home at the dining room table and I work in the second bedroom. But I've heard from all kinds of people about how HA HA you can't work in the same room where the baby is sleeping YOU CRAZY PERSON AHAHAHAHAHA. So we were chagrined to find out we probably wouldn't be able to have a nursery/home office like we had planned.

Our condo is really, really small, guys.

We have about 850 square feet. That's not a lot, since it feels like 30 or 40 percent of that is taken up by closets. We have 9 closets in this place, including pantries and the double closets in the bedrooms. I am not complaning, since I love closets for storage, but it does make it rather difficult to position furniture in the rooms. There are only so many combinations that don't leave you blocking a door.

This weekend, I made James push all the furniture around in the living room, wondering where we could fit an extra desk. (We call this game House Tetris, but it is NOT AS FUN and FAR MORE SWEATY than regular Tetris.) It was very frustrating because there was no good solution and I made James push the furniture around for two hours and finally we got snappish with each other and went to bed.

In the middle of the night, one on of my frequent (bi-hourly) bathroom breaks, I got an idea. A brilliant idea. This morning, I sat down and drew up a plan that I am pretty sure will allow us to have a workspace in the living room without sacrificing space or aesthetics.

Here is our living room as it stands now:

This is not really done to scale, but I think it gives you an idea of what we have to work with now. But this is what I think can happen:


The wine bar didn't make it--I think with it it will look too crowded--but I don't know where we'll put everything in it. I guess I could buy one of those vintage-y globe liquor cabinets or put a wine rack in the kitchen?

A better illustration of the desk/TV setup:

I get a workspace and I get to have my house still look nice and Pottery-Barn-esque. James gets a flatscreen TV! And Jawbone gets his very own room. Everybody wins!

James thinks that if it works, I should take pictures and send them to Apartment Therapy. I probably won't, but this post has given me the idea of doing a virtual tour around my house--I wish I had more pictures of different places I have lived throughout my life. I don't remember places very well--I have vague ideas, but it would be nice to have a concrete reminder of things. And it's neat to be able to look back and see how my design style--how my idea of home--has changed over the years.

I wish the gorgeous crisp weather we were having would come back and replace this muggy awfulness. Autumn, where are you?