4/23

I was going to write about what I miss more: beer or sex, when I realized that I had other more pressing matters to discuss. Besides, the beer vs. sex issue is really a draw. If you drink enough beer, you can pass out before ever really missing sex. If you’re having enough sex, beer is like the cherry on top of your ice cream cone; it’s nice, but not really needed. If you don’t have either in your life, you are obviously a member of the clergy or a single pregnant woman.

I talked to my friend, Beth, last night. She had just returned to Boston from a two-week backpacking trip in Europe. She was eating at a restaurant when she called me, surrounded by friends, on her way to a margarita bar. Hmmmm….. When her friends finally got frustrated by her continued talking on her cell phone, she asked if she could call me back on Sunday. She said something like, “What are you doing on Sunday? Are you going to be busy? I’ll call you.” I laughed. What am I doing on Sunday? What do I do on any given day? I watch home decorating shows, cook, clean and try to stay awake to stave off nighttime insomnia. Yeah, I’m free on Sunday.

After I hung up the phone I went into the bathroom, pulled up my shirt, and rubbed by bulging belly. I have a baby in there. A human baby. A little life that will one day feel frustrated and isolated by partying friends and lovers that abandon him. A life that is not my own is inside my body. He has needs, desires, and dreams that are completely separate from my own. He woke me up this morning because he was hungry. All it took was some swift kicks to my lower intestine and gnawing feeling that I could eat a small horse. Little tyrant.

4/21

I’ve realized that I’m a need-to-know kind of person. It’s not that I don’t love gossip, rants, and secretive whispers about the way the woman in the back of the restaurant is chewing. I love all that stuff. I’m secretive when it comes to myself and how much information I disclose to strangers.

Before you jump on the, “But you have a blog and you tell random strangers all about your life and your reproductive system,” bandwagon, let me tell you that blog writing is different from actually talking. Writing on my blog is like retelling myself a funny story. You know, the kind of stories that when you think about them again they make you smile and even chuckle to yourself. That is what my blog is like.

In person, I’m not extremely forthcoming about personal information. Vacationing with my Grandma was a lot like vacationing with a three year-old, only she has better credit. I kept expecting her to say, “….and I have a toy truck named Cleveland and dog and cat and my cat likes to go potty indoors and it makes my Mom really mad…..” She would start talking to everyone about everything from her bowel movements to the death of her husband and the pain in her hip. Waiters, people on the elevator, hotel clerks: no one was immune to the onslaught of information. God help the person that would answer her back. That person was in for a thirty minute conversation while I tried to slip away and look at the $50 Hawaiian shirts.

We flew on separate flights from Seattle to Hawaii because she couldn’t find her driver’s license and credit card at the airport. Granted, it was 4am and we were both tired from harassing the airport shuttle driver who picked us up at 2:45am. She went back home from the airport to find the identification and I traveled on without her. I arrived in Honolulu around 10:30am (Hawaiian time) and she came around 11pm. When the bellboy came to the hotel room with her luggage he looked at me and said, “She’s hard a hard flight and she’s really tired, but I’m sure that you will hear all about it.” He left the room quickly with a panicked look on his face as she ambled in with her purse and cane. I did hear all about it.

She likes to introduce me by saying, “This is my Granddaughter. She’s pregnant. She’s going to make me a Great-Grandmother. My great grandson is in here.” Then she would pat my stomach. The whole thing was highly embarrassing. Anyone with any kind of sense would know that I’m pregnant. My belly sticks out over my feet for God’s sake!! I finally had to ask her to stop telling people that I was pregnant. I would tell them myself if they asked.

Apparently, this need to divulge information is genetic. My Mom strikes up conversations in the same way. At our birthing class yesterday, I kept repeating that I went on vacation and missed the first class. She would turn conspiratorially to the person sitting beside us and announce, “She just got back from Hawaii.” Then I would be forced to answer what islands I went to and whether or not I had a good time. I'm not shy, just a little closed off.

If my son is anything like me, someone kill me if I announce personal information to strangers about him. If this truly is a strange, hormonal phenomenon that happens to women when they become mothers, somone that loves me, kill me. Please.

4/14

How do I put this?.....I'm in Hawaii.....on vacation......six months pregnant.....with my grandmother. I haven't updated in so long because blogspot wasn't working. Then I went to Seattle for a family reunion and baby shower. Now I'm in my ex-boyfriend's apartment in Waikiki, updating my blog, and hanging out with him and his new girlfriend. I dated B. in high school for three years and we broke up when he went to college. He joined a fraternity in early summer at Washington State University and I left for the East Coast in late summer. I cried a lot that summer, but now his new woman, A., is lovely and I'm very happy for him. I also promised to give him my blog address for letting me use his computer, so I have to say nice things about the two of them. Ha! Just kidding.

Seeing my extended family in Seattle was like stepping back in time in a wonderful, graceful way. Whether I'm seven or twenty-four, nothing really changes. Here is a little story to illustrate why I love my family so much. My cousin called everyone in the family on April Fool's Day (which my Great Uncle has renamed George Bush Day) to say that her son had run off to Vegas with his new girlfriend to get married. What makes this story so funny is that she lives in Germany so she went through a lot of trouble for this joke and her son, Owen, hasn't ever really dated anyone. So, she's calling everyone and she gets to her Dad, the man that Owen is named after. The elder Owen got really excited at the news and started asking her a lot of questions, starting with, "Is she pregnant? Because I really like having little ones around. I really hope that he got her pregnant." When my Great Aunt was telling story, everyone was laughing, there were little kids running in and out of the room screaming, we were eating cake and talking about names for Peanut. That is why I love my family.

Peanut went into the ocean today for the first time. He's been kicking me ever since, which I take to mean that liked it. I'll try and post some more stories and pictures from Hawaii when I get back. Until then, Aloha!

4/02

I've been knocked down by a crazy head/neck/stomach pain. Whenever the stress levels in my life kick up a little, my body responds through massive doses of pain. Fun. Regular blogging will resume soon.