Anything Said: May 2006

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Weekend at Bernie's

Things I Loved About The Long Weekend:

1. Going home to Indiana to see my family. This, in short doses, is almost always fun. The express purpose of this particular trip was to take my mom out for a belated Mother's Day brunch. We went to a fancy-pants place that touts itself as being the area's "most romantic restaurant," because - really - nothing says romance like eating eggs with your mom.

My mom was adorable and happy and wanted to talk about my pregnancy non-stop. She offered to come stay with us for a few days after the baby is born, which I was really, really hoping she would want to do. Because she's raised five kids and didn't kill a one of them, so chances are good that she can teach me some of those not-killing skills, and also how to change a diaper and how to use one of those thermometers that you stick in your baby's behind.

After brunch, she took me shopping and bought me a pair of dressy maternity pants for work. She also presented me with some recent garage sale finds: a couple of surprisingly acceptable maternity shirts and an outfit for the baby that she got for a quarter. As this tiny shirt-and-pants combo is officially Baby's First Outfit, I feel compelled to share. Yes, it's way more girly than I would've picked out myself, but I'm not made of stone, people:

2. Hanging out with the fam like they were my posse. This is a new, grown-up phenomenon for me: my parents and my siblings are people I can enjoy, like, voluntarily. My sisters and I played cards in front of a backdrop of our favorite Lifetime Made-for-TV Movie, Death of a Cheerleader. (I can always tell when Lifetime replays this one, by the way, because my site meter reveals tons of hits from Google searches for "Stacy Lockwood murder".) My parents and my brothers and I went out for ice cream Sunday night. And then Monday afternoon we all grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and then ate them inside in front of the air conditioner.

3. Rocking the tunes on my Ipod Shuffle. During the drive to and from Indiana, I plugged my Ipod into the tape deck and patted myself on the back for my stellar selection of road music. Speeding down the empty Sunday morning highway beside hot cornfields, singing along at the top of my lungs to Rilo Kiley and the new Dixie Chicks album (if you are not already a fan, this might be the record to convert you), bopping to Prince and the Talking Heads through deserted toll booths. It was a great drive; even the Dan Ryan construction couldn't dampen it for me.

Things I Didn't Love About the Long Weekend.

1. What is UP with the 90 degree weather? It is HOT. And I am PREGNANT. Which means I am hotter than you are, so quit complaining and bring me some iced tea.

This is how the dog has looked since Saturday:

Pugs have a terrible time cooling themselves off in the summer, so all my poor fat puppy can do is lie around on the floor, heave great sighs of woe, and lick ice cubes from a little bowl. Last night the husband and I went out to buy a window air conditioner unit, so at least one room of our sweaty apartment could be tolerable. Apparently all of Chicago had the same idea, though, because we had to go to three stores before we could find one that wasn't sold out. We snatched up the least expensive unit, brought it home, and promptly discovered that our windows are too oddly-constructed to hold it without supports. So now we have to get some wood planks or something so that the AC can tilt and drain, I don't even know, the husband is taking care of it, all I can do is sit around and bitch about how hot I am, which let me assure you TOTALLY helps the situation in every way.

2. The street outside my house is being ripped up for some who-knows-what construction project. The work zone extends onto the strip of grass that serves as the dog's bathroom. We have specifically trained her to use that same spot for the sake of consistency and efficiency, and now that spot is a big gaping hole filled with debris. Also, the digging of that big gaping hole and the flinging of that debris? Is LOUD. It shakes our house at roughly ten-minute intervals starting at 7:00 AM. This morning, the construction workers brought a radio with them. They seem to like Top 40 country. A lot. And because it is so hot, I cannot close myself off from this mess by shutting the windows lest I fry up in my own home like an egg. Surely, this construction is the work of The Man. They're probably building a Hooters or something.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Penis envy

Apparently, on-target motherly instincts aren't a guarantee; they don't come free with the belly. Like today: on the drive home from work, I thought I felt Cletus the Fetus asking me for a chicken sandwich from Burger King. I complied, went through the drive through, and subsequently felt like hurling. Turns out that what Cletus really wanted was a glass of milk and a Nutrigrain bar.

Yesterday, the husband and I showed up for our 20-week ultrasound appointment. This was to be the appointment that would confirm what I had felt to my core all along: that Cletus was a strong strapping penis-toting boy-baby, a tiny manchild that I could dress in flowing robes and teach about the patriarchy. I had been having boy-centric dreams. I had my boy-baby name picked out, one that the husband and I both easily agreed upon. I was ready to have my womanly premonitions verified: laid out in the ultrasound booth, warm gel squished all over my big fat belly, all-seeing wand being swept back and forth over my skin by the ultrasound tech who asked me, smiling, "Do you think it's a boy or a girl?"

"A boy," I announced confidently, trying out my new "a mother just knows these things" affect with great gusto.

"Nope!" chirped the ultrasound lady. "It's a girl!"

The husband's face broke out into a huge, soul-squeezing grin. Clearly he had been hoping for this news. I was (and am) happy too -- but also left wondering A) why and from whence the penis dreams? B) why do my instincts suck so much? and C) exactly how many Precious Moments figurines will my Indiana relatives purchase for this daughter of mine before she is even out of the womb? (Seriously - you should've seen the scary haul I received for my wedding alone. The husband was like: what ARE these little elfin babies, and why are they all staring at me?) The ultrasound tech was stoked too -- so stoked that she printed out a photograph of Cletus' crotch that we could take home with us. Baby's first cooter-shot. I'm thinking of having it made into a t-shirt, or a commemorative plate.

At a staff meeting this morning, I shared the news of Cletus' sex with my colleagues. They all responded with a hearty "How wonderful! Now you can start shopping!" Which is also what my mother said. And the ultrasound lady, come to think of it. Rewind the clock to four days ago, when the husband and I spent a lazy Sunday afternoon, or what was meant to be a lazy Sunday afternoon anyway, starting up a baby registry at Babies R' Us. After filling out some preliminary paperwork and receiving our complimentary copies of about 30 different brochures -- all entitled something like "Why Your Baby Will Die If You Don't Buy A Whole Bunch Of Shit" -- the peppy store manager popped over to congratulate us on our pregnancy and to ask us if we knew what we were having. "Not yet," I told the woman, "but we're finding out soon." The manager smiled knowingly and nodded. "Well don't worry about it," she said. "You can always come back and change your wish list once you do find out the sex."

I looked at her, all "girl please, i don't play those reindeer games", and the husband looked at me, all "this is neither the time nor the place", and I swallowed the little Women's Studies thesis threatening to bubble through my pores and instead just shrugged my shoulders and muttered a "meh." What is that all about, anyway? Is it just a stupid color debate? Like if we wrapped up a girl-baby in a blue blanket and took her outside she would instantly get drafted into the military? Or if we slapped a pink cap on our boy-baby's head, he would get snatched up for a baby Cover Girl commercial and be called Suzie or Tiffany by mistake for the rest of his life? Is it really that simplistic? Or is it more than that, and the husband and I are just not getting it?

Most of the stuff that we put on our registry -- the stroller, the car seat, the crib -- are items that should be entirely gender-neutral. What's so gendered about the thingamajig that straps you into your parents' bitchin' Hyundai, or the whatchamacallit you sit in while your parents wheel you around to garage sales to buy you other babies' old clothes? And even if we were talking about baby toys, or decorations for the nursery (or in our case unless we get our acts together, storage room), the fact remains: it's a BABY, about as pure and simple as you can get. Babies like to chew on plastic nipples and their own feet; they think that playing peek-a-boo and listening to their parents coo like freaks are the most fun things in the world. Do they care if we decorate their room in animal-print or plaid? Do we really have to start piling gender baggage on them while they're still in utero?

And another thing. Did I mention I'm having a freaking daughter???

Friday, May 19, 2006

Twenty-week appointment in haiku

Midwife says: "Fatso!
You gained six pounds in four weeks!
Lay off the Twinkies!"

I say: "I only
super-sized it that one time!
Or maybe twice. Um."

Cletus the Fetus
says: "Bitch, please. Now go fix me
a turkey pot pie."

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Now if you'll turn to page 46 in your packet...

Yesterday, I attended a professional training class. Professional training classes, in general, give me hives. I have a lifelong and debilitating aversion to the following: going around the table and sharing; oversized tablets of paper, especially when affixed to an easel and accompanied by multicolored markers; ground rules, both the setting of and the following; role-plays; ropes courses; trust falls.

In addition, I have a distressingly low tolerance for annoying people. Have you ever attended a professional training class at which a significant portion of those in attendance were NOT bugging the shit out of you? Even if those same people do not necessarily bother you when returned to their cubicles, offices, or other natural habitats? Why IS that? What happens to people when they are set free in conference rooms and fed coffee and danish? Previously benign and genial colleagues transform themselves before your very eyes into the following predictable cast of characters:

Deaf Lady: Generally of the older persuasion, Deaf Lady sits in the back of the room and barks out "Speak up!" at roughly 3-5 minute intervals. "I can't hear what you're saying!" she shouts. "Is there a microphone you could use?" she wails. When the training delves into the sharing-by-participants portion, Deaf Lady becomes even more agitated, turning to those seated on either side of her and muttering, "I can't hear a word that woman is saying. Can you? I really wish they would speak up down there. This is getting ridiculous..."

Will This Be On The Exam Lady: Self-consciously well-coiffed, WTBOTE Lady clings to the pre-printed training binder and supplement packet as if they hold the secrets of the universe. She is the only person in the room taking notes in the designated "notes sections" of the obligatory and obnoxious PowerPoint print-outs. With each change of topic, she quickly calls out "Which handout are we on?" She raises her hand mid-training to inform the group of a misnumbered page she just noticed while reading ahead in the binder. She stays late filling out the evaluation.

Devil's Advocate Man: So witty, so stoked to "stir the pot," Devil's Advocate Man is way too counter-culture for you to handle. He's got ideas, dammit, and they fucking rock! "Isn't that policy just a band-aid for a much deeper problem that the administration isn't prepared to face?" "I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the whole 'child molesters = bad' line we're following here." "Don't you think that Item 5 in the proposed list of group norms is, oh I don't know, a little RACIST?" Devil's Advocate Man drinks from a 2-gallon jug of distilled water. He attached a bumper sticker to his training binder before the session even begins. He rolls his eyes dramatically at every opportunity, extends the length of the training class by at least 30 minutes, and thanks the trainers afterwards for their "opinions."

Mrs. Overshare: Mrs. Overshare just had hip surgery and she'd like to thank you all for your support, without which she'd still be at home lying on her back. Aww, Mrs. Overshare has a little beagle puppy just like the one pictured on the whimsical opening PowerPoint slide. Why yes, Mrs. Overshare certainly CAN think of a time when she felt overwhelmed by technological changes in the workplace, thank you for asking. Mrs. Overshare is sorry for getting so emotional, but that guided relaxation exercise just really reminded her of her grandchildren down in Florida.

I'm So Invested It Hurts Lady: Often confused with WTBOTE Lady, I'm So Invested It Hurts Lady is unique in one key way: she has something to prove. "GodDAMN, I love my job," she says with her ferocious eye contact. "I WILL be promoted to associate director by age 28," she says with the dramatic raise of one slender arm in response to the facilitator's question. "Sweet merciful JESUS I hope this trainer is friends with my boss," she silently pleads as she volunteers to pass out discussion questions.

And then there's me. I'm a type, too: eyeing the donut tray and trying to figure out how I can smuggle a couple out, maybe in the top pouch of my maternity pants, for an afternoon snack. Doodling possible names for my offspring along the borders of the handout pages. Mentally predicting the next American Idol boot. Silently judging as if for sport.

Call me Disaffected Anti-Training Grouch. I don't care. Just don't call me up for a role-play.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Girl on girl action

This weekend, the Boston girlfriend posse of Dori, R., and K. invaded Chicago. These women are my Sex and the City girls, the three people I would meet for dinner and drinks and six-hour conversations back in Massachusetts. Just like the old days, we spent the weekend eating and laughing and basking in our collective brilliance: Dori, a brilliant professional seeker of economic justice; R., a brilliant computer genius and master of all crafts involving yarn and/or fabric; K., a brilliant child-whisperer and doctoral candidate; and me, a brilliant befriender of brilliant people.

I've always been a person who needed girlfriends to feel complete. Like, dudes are ok, and the ones I have in my life are even great, but give me a good snarky, shit-talking, master-of-her-domain woman any day and I'm all set. I'm not talking about the kind of women who obsess over their appearances and buy $500 purses and are afraid to go to public restrooms alone -- I'm talking about the ones who put their heads together and laugh like they mean it, the ones who unabashedly tell stories about peeing their pants on a date or who stop an entire conversation mid-stream in order to go Google how long sperm can live outside the body. Those kind of women. The ones who scoop up life like they're about to cover it in chocolate sauce.

When I was little I had this best friend named Brandi. Brandi's grandparents lived next door to me, so Brandi came over to play a lot. We would ride our bikes around the neighborhood, pretending to be police officers patrolling the streets for delinquents. Sometimes we would even leave notes in the neighbors' mailboxes, citing them for flagrant offenses like "Halloween decorations still up in November," "Grass too long," "Ugly house." We spent a lot of time making trips to the drugstore a few blocks away to spend our allowance money on candy and Garbage Pail Kids. We also went through a period of intense obsession with the musical "Annie," during which time we would perform daily reenactments of the play, backed up by the broadway soundtrack on cassette tape. I played the role of Annie (because, please - it was MY house) and Brandi played all of the orphans as well as Punjab the snake-charming servant.

Brandi was loud and mouthy and always talked with her mouth full of food. I thought she hung the moon. Her parents were wealthy by northern Indiana standards, and Brandi had a swimming pool, her own VCR, cable tv, and a water bed. Sometimes I got to spend the night at Brandi's house, and ohmygod those were fabulous times. Sometimes Brandi spent the night at my house, and those were less fabulous times but still fun, especially after we found out where my mom hid her Harlequin romance novels. Those books were porn for the repressed Sunday School teacher in us all.

Eventually, Brandi got all popular and boy-crazy while I stayed all, well, not. But my relationship with her set me up for a lifetime of intense friendships with women. In elementary school, those friendships were marked by wearing matching lockets, forming secret clubs at recess, borrowing each other's Michael Jackson trapper keepers. In high school, they elevated to sharing lockers, passing notes, driving around town in our parents' cars and feeling all progressive about the Violent Femmes tape we were rocking with the windows rolled down. In college, my female friendships made me a family, not the kind you're forced to see at the extended family holiday potluck but the kind you feel in your bones. Most of them now live in faraway cities and states, but when we talk on the phone you'd never know we weren't clinking our beer bottles together from across a table.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and found my three Sex and the City girlfriends curled up together on an air mattress in my guest bedroom. I heaved my four-and-a-half-months-pregnant self in on top of them and laughed as K. told a story in what I call her "ambiguous K. voice" (the high-pitched voice she uses to imitate her mother, the students in the classes she TAs, bank tellers, random strangers), as Dori tried desperately to keep my 10-month old puppy from licking her face by saying "No licking!" and the dog laughed, all "Girl, please." And I thought to myself: if you're lucky enough to live down the street from the girlfriends who really get you, more power to you. For me, I feel lucky enough just to know they exist, that somewhere, always, one of them is doing something hilarious and brilliant, that every once in awhile we get to share the covers and eat breakfast together in our pjs.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

The entry I'm not going to write

I've started, and subsequently erased, about four different blog entries this morning, all about the billion-year-old man who came into the library yesterday wearing urine-encrusted clothes (the same guy who tried to grab me by my neck cord a few weeks ago) and who proceeded to scream and flail his arms around because his stock report wouldn't print correctly, berate me and my stupidity when he disagreed with the logic of the solution I proposed (which, by the way, totally got his report to print), threaten to do to me "what his does to his wife" while pretending to crack a whip over my head, and then finally call me a "pest" in front of other patrons as he dragged his pee-covered self out the door. But, you know, I thought that would be revealing too much information about work on my blog.

So instead, allow me to tell you this: last night I dreamed that I was starting a clothing company to serve pregnant women who "carry small," meaning they don't look as visibly and classically Pregnant as some other women might.

The company was to be called (are you ready for this?): "I Didn't Know You Had It In You"

Monday, May 08, 2006

A-B-C, Easy as 1-2-3

Lazy Monday morning alphabet meme, courtesy of Dori. If you're reading this and interested, consider yourself tagged.

Accent: Indistinctly Midwestern, with just a twinge of completely affected Minnesotan vowels. I've never lived there, but have always coveted their "o"s and "ey"s.

Booze: Beer so dark and thick you have to, as my sister-in-law once wrote in a poem, "take a knife and fork to it and eat it like a steak dinner."

Chore I Hate: Doing the dishes. I hate touching the soggy bits of food that cling to the plates and gather in the drain.

Dogs/Cats: One 10-month-old pug puppy, currently sleeping in my lap.

Essential electronics: I don't know - I guess the computer and the I-pod. I want a Tivo but am afraid of the mind-control.

Favorite perfume/cologne: I hate perfume and cologne. But I do like smelly lotion. Does that count?

Gold/Silver: The only real pieces of jewelry I own are my wedding band and engagement ring, both of which are gold. So I guess that's my answer.

Hometown: Rural Mennonite Haven, Indiana.

Insomnia: God, yes. And it's debilitating and awful when it strikes, often for weeks at a time. I have, though, seen a lot of kick-ass late-night infomercials as a result.

Job Title: Librarian, aka The Public's Bitch

Kids: Cooking up a baby for you folks as we speak.

Living Arrangements: 2-BR apartment in a Chicago suburb, with husband and dog and cable tv.

Most Admired Trait: I have no idea. Someone once said to me: "It must be really cool to not care whether or not people think you're a bitch." I don't think that was a complement, though.

Number of Sexual Partners: Few enough that I still get embarrassed during Sex and the City reruns.

Overnight Hospital Stays: None yet.

Phobias: Flying in airplanes. Every time I get on a plane, I look around and examine the faces of all my fellow passengers, imaging how they will appear in the Newsweek memorial article that will run following the event of our fiery crash into the ocean. I also fear bats, eye injuries, and female Republicans.

Quote: The husband and I joke about how I can tell who really gets my sense of humor by their response to this movie-quote question: "Dad, how can you hate the colonel?" (Correct answers win a cookie)
Runner-up: "I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell."

Religion: Ambiguously Christian, with general Anabaptist leanings. Raised Church of the Brethren.

Siblings: Two younger sisters, two younger brothers. As a kid, I used to fantasize about having older siblings, creating an imaginary set of older twin brothers named Jon and Joe. When I was in junior high school, one of my imaginary older brothers got sent to Operation Desert Storm and never came back. I don't know.

Time I usually wake up: Varies based on my work schedule. These days, no earlier than 9:00 if I can help it.

Unusual talent: I can't tell you which countries fought on which side in major wars throughout history, but I can spew endless facts about celebrity divorces like no one's business.

Vegetable I refuse to eat: Celery is a joke on us all. Yuck.

Worst habit: Biting my cuticles. It's disgusting and I am a slave to it.

X-rays: About a million on my evil ankles of doom, plus some ultrasounds of Cletus the Fetus.

Yummy foods I make: I can rock a good choco-veggie chili, or a batch of Whoopie Pies. But lately, I'm afraid, if it doesn't come frozen from Trader Joe's, I don't have much to do with it.

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius. Hey, does anyone else remember that New Kids on the Block song from their first album, where all five of the New Kids spoke-sang about their Zodiac sign and how much they loved the ladies? Like "Hi, I'm Joe, and I'm a Libra. I may be young, but I'm not too young to know what I want. And I want to be loved by only you." Except that they were barely past puberty and their voices were way high and plus they totally were into guys the whole time? Yeah. That was awesome.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

I've been seeing visions

Last night I dreamed that the husband left me. He told me he was going out for a run, but for some reason I didn't believe him. I questioned him on what he was really going to do, and he admitted that he was actually going to go down to the neighborhood park where he knew there was a group of people gathering to play Hearts. I was upset and didn't want him to go, so in response I sat on the couch and ate an entire bag of "jealousy-flavored" potato chips. Like, they actually said "jealousy-flavored" on the bag. And I remember thinking to myself: wow, jealousy tastes a lot like barbecue. The husband saw me eating the chips and got disgusted, walked out the door and slammed it shut. He returned soon after to announce, and I remember this verbatim because I repeated it to him when I woke up this morning: "I'm leaving you and moving forward with Laura, because she's the only thing that moves around here." Who's Laura? I have no idea. But apparently she's way mobile.

I've been having a lot of dreams lately about the husband hating me and leaving me -- a side effect, I guess, of being knocked-up, slow, and vulnerable. I'm used to being the one who holds our little household together: the one who pays the bills, does the chores, remembers to buy the toothpaste and the toilet paper. Lately, I can hardly remember to scratch my ass when it itches. The husband has been working overtime, getting up early to feed and walk the dog, coming home to buy the groceries and cook the meals and walk the dog again, and then finishing up his workday on our home computer while I lay on the couch and try to recover from my wimpy little 6-hour library shift. Yesterday I couldn't even manage my teeny portion of the morning chores, as I was flat on my back struggling through my first encounter with round ligament pain. I feel lame and slovenly and DISTINCTLY NOT GLOWING. When does the glowing start, people?

It's not just the general deadbeat-ness of pregnancy that's fueling my dreams of enforced singlehood, though. It's also the hormones, filling my head with all kinds of nightmare scenarios of the "Holy shit we're having a baby think of how many things can go WRONG!!" variety. Three or four weeks ago, I managed to work myself into a sobbing frenzy of near-nervous-breakdown proportions while driving home from work one night. I was listening to Delilah (ok, shut up, you KNOW you've done it too) and she was spouting some crap about, basically, how you haven't lived until you've had a baby, and then she played some Phil Collins song or something and I felt nothing but mind-numbing fear. My mind was wiped clean of all daydreams of holding and smelling a sweet fat baby. Instead, all I could see was myself, unemployed, tethered to a breast pump, wearing a sweatshirt with Winnie the Pooh appliqued on the front.

I got home and crashed into the apartment and sank down onto the kitchen floor, at the feet of the lovely and unsuspecting man who was bent over the stove making me grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner. I burst out crying, telling the husband: "I don't think you've thought this through! I don't think you really understand that I meant it when I said I don't think I can stay home with the baby! I don't think you realize that your life and your schedule is going to have to be turned upside down for us to make this work! You're going to resent me and then you're going to leave me and then I'll be a single moooooooooooooooooom!"

The husband, I could tell, was trying not to laugh, but he valiantly kept it together long enough to crouch down beside me, put a hand on my arm and say, "Hey. I did think it through. I do understand. Look -- grilled cheese." And then we ate dinner. And I wondered, for like the 57,000th time, why on earth this man agreed to marry me.

(And just as a side note, the husband dreamed last night that he had to cook dinner for his parents, but he couldn't figure out what to cook, so he called the woman who runs the laboratory where he works, who told him he should make a whole chicken coated in sour cream and jelly. Try that one on for size.)

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Perusing the Big Book of Baby Names

The husband: What about Brandon?

Me: No.

Husband: Kevin?

Me: No.

Husband: Seth?

Me: Ew, no. Seth is the kid who gets beat up on the playground at recess.

Husband: Um, ok. [Pause] How about Dylan?

Me: No way. Too many 90210 associations.

Husband: [Stares at me] You're turning down a possible baby name because of a tv show?

Me: Dude, Dylan McKay was bad news. Trust me.

Husband: [Shakes head; goes back to book] Ok... hey! What do you think about Duncan?

Me: [Laughs out loud]

Husband: What?

Me: Oh. You were serious?

Husband: Yes.

Me: Um. Duncan gets beat up on the playground with Seth.

Husband: [Rolls eyes]

Me: First they join the computer club together and then they get the crap kicked out of them.

Husband: What's wrong with the computer club?

[Silence]

Husband: Ok, how about Emmanuel?

Me: Webster!

Husband: What?

Me: Webster. The teeny little guy who played Webster was named Emmanuel Lewis. Can't go there.

Husband: You're kidding, right?

Me: No way. Every time I looked at the kid I would think of a little televised midget.

Husband: [Closes eyes; remembers all the normal girlfriends he had before he met me]

[Silence]

Me: This is going to be a blog entry. You know that, right?