Month: November 2006

Joke Club

I have a joke up over at Josh A. Cagan’s Joke Club (scroll down until you see my photo). Mr. Cagan is an official NaBloPoMo participant, which means a solid month of hilarious posts from the Cagan household. Go read them.

Here’s, the joke he didn’t use:

Kevin Federline reportedly wrote a nasty message to his ex-wife Britney Spears on the shower door of his dressing room at the House of Blues in Chicago. The message was scrawled in permanent marker, which begs the question, where did he get opposable thumbs?

The Labor Party

I’m one of those women who strongly considered adopting because I was so afraid of labor. A month or two after I got pregnant, I had a two-week period of complete freak out and sent this note to a girlfriend:

“Last night I had a mini breakdown and decided that I definitely do not want to push a baby out my vagina. I want even less to have major abdominal surgery. I do not want to feed another human being with my boobs. Also, I will not be pushing a baby out of my vagina. I cannot imagine what my boobs are going to look like after this, let alone my ass. I have never felt less sexy. Also, my vagina is very small. I do want to be a parent, but don’t really want to be a mom. Also, I will not be pushing a baby out of my vagina. No.”

I was irrationally, but seriously, trying to think of other ways to get the baby out of my body. Intense meditation? Osmosis? Teleportation device? How ’bout it, science?

Anyway, I’m OK now. The panic eventually subsided as I made a conscious decision to stop playing Worst Case Scenario. I refused to read anything having to do with labor and related complications, and began screaming, “Only happy stories, please! Only happy stories, please!” when mothers tried to share their graphic labor survival stories.

This was unfortunately necessary, because when you’re pregnant, conversation in a group of women goes like this:

Me: I’m freaking out about labor.

Susie: Don’t worry, you’ll be fine! Just fine! God, I hated being pregnant, though. I was on seven months of bed rest vomiting into a pan.

Lisa: Really? (Pulls air in through teeth.) Yeah, I threw up every single day. Twice. And, hello? Jacob was 11 pounds. I was in labor for 46 hours. They really should have given me a C-section, I was pretty ripped up afterwards.

Gina: And then you’re just praying that you’ll never have to poop again because the thought is so terrifying. My first bowel movement was practically as painful as giving birth. I was so afraid the stitches would pop right out!

Cut to me keening and desperately trying to place my head between my knees, despite the watermelon sized belly impeding my ability to do so.

Susie: Oh, honey! I’m sure you’ll be fine.

Lisa: You’ll be fiiiine. You’re going natural, aren’t you?

Gina: Oh, yeah. You have to go natural.

Speaking of Dead People

With all the online shopping I do for Mighty Goods, I’ve often thought about putting together a site with some of the “what were they thinking” products I come across.

The latest? LifeGems:

“The LifeGem is a certified, high-quality diamond created from the carbon of your loved one as a memorial to their unique life.”

Oh, dear.

I recognize that this might be comforting for some people, and it may not ultimately be more creepy than carrying someone’s hair around in a locket. Still, my immediate reaction is to do the heeby-jeeby dance. Glah. Glaaaaaah.

On Grief

The best parts of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking:

“Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of “waves.”

“I was thinking as small children think, as if my thoughts had the power to reverse the narrative, change the outcome.”

“I found myself wondering with no sense of illogic, if it had also happened in Los Angeles. I was trying to work out what time it had been when he died, and whether it was that time yet in Los Angeles. (Was there time to go back? Could we have a different ending on Pacific Time?)”

Putting in a Window

By John Brantingham

Carpentry has a rhythm that should never
be violated. You need to move slowly,
methodically, never trying to finish early,
never even hoping that you’d be done sooner.
It’s best if you work without thought of the
end. If hurried, you end up with crooked
door joints and drafty rooms. Do not work
after you are annoyed just so the job
will be done more quickly. Stop when you
begin to curse at the wood. Putting in
a window should be a joy. You should love
the new header and the sound of
your electric screwdriver as it secures
the new beams. The only good carpenter
is the one who knows that he’s not good.
He’s afraid that he’ll ruin the whole house,
and he works slowly. It’s the same as
cooking or driving. The good cook
knows humility, and his soufflé never falls
because he is terrified that it will fall
the whole time he’s cooking. The good driver
knows that he might plow into a mother
walking her three-year old, and so watches
for them carefully. The good carpenter
knows that his beams might be weak, and a misstep
might ruin the place he loves. In the end,
you find your own pace, and you lose time.
When you started, the sun was high and now
that you’re finished, it’s dark. Tomorrow, you
might put in a door. The next day,
you’ll start on your new deck.

Oh, the Wonder

Why I avoid researching exactly what’s happening inside my body:

-The baby is excreting urine inside me.
-All babies are born with big boobs from absorbing so much of your hormones.
-Some female babies are born menstruating for the same reason.

Magical, no? Magical.

Three Odd Things

– A severed and decaying boar’s head resting on the ground — at the end of a driveway.

– A young man brushing his seat clean of smashed window glass from his driver’s side window. He is dazed and has a large, fresh cut on his temple.

– I find myself nodding furiously in agreement with Angelina Jolie, who says, “If you ask people what they’ve always wanted to do, most of them haven’t done it. That breaks my heart.”

Ed Note

OK, you know how I’ve been posting for more than six years and have never, ever posted on weekends? This NaBloPoMo schedule is really throwing me for a loop. If I inadvertently skip a weekend day out of deeply ingrained habit, please forgive me. I’ll even out the karmic debt by adding an extra post to make up for my stupitude.

Ow. My Heart.

More questionable wisdom from my baby-update newsletter. This one is from an article about things that will change once you become a mom:

“18. If you have a son, you no longer curse men. (Hooray for all men!)

19. If you have a daughter, you hope she won’t endure your same heartaches.”

Apparently, before I got pregnant I totally hated men and found that the most notable aspect of being a woman was how it made my soul ache, like, constantly.