Monthly Archives: November 2007

Balance

For all the difficulty involved in pregnancy there is so much good in it as well. I am talking to the Lizard more and more because now the child can hear me. We are having some good, though one-sided, conversations. I’m talking to the baby about my hopes and dreams for myself, and for him/her. I am telling the child about some of the pitfalls involved in dealing with me and with Noah. I’m trying to give the baby a head start on dealing with such a prickly mom.

I love looking down at my stomach and noticing the changes in my body and how they portend bringing life into the world. It’s interesting how I don’t exactly regard this as a “miracle” because it is a biological process yet it is still amazing. I get to do something that transforms a tiny piece of me, and a tiny piece of Noah, into an entirely different person. Noah has said many times that he wants to meet someone who is a piece of me and a piece of him. Thinking about that makes me smile, even when I hurt.

Holy Socializing Batman

I got out of the house. On three days out of the four days off. The first day I wasn’t feeling so hot so my socializing mostly consisted of breathing the same air and reading a book while huddled on a couch. Luckily my friends love me. Yesterday we got to a party for a couple of hours. I mostly sat on a couch while Noah talked graphic novels. 🙂 It was good anyway.
Today I remembered that Mr. tigman was in town and going to Dickens Fair. We were going to need to go this weekend or next anyway so we ambled over. We saw so many people. We saw some *good* people. I only had once dance in me so I saved it for my favorite dance partner. Of course it rocked. He didn’t go nuts on spinning me. 🙂 It was amusing telling the other random Fezzi’s fellows that they don’t want to dance with me because they don’t want to wear my lunch. I wouldn’t have put it so bluntly if they hadn’t been so pushy. I got to tell a bunch of people not to touch my stomach. It was amazing to me that people I never talk to or see already know I am pregnant. Apparently the grapevine speaks my name. We got to see other peoples’ babies. Yay babies! My friends make friggin cute kids. Of the six and a bit hours we were at Dickens we were sitting pretty still for more than three hours of them because I wasn’t doing so hot anymore. We stayed to see Naughty French Postcards. We shouldn’t have, the show was extremely uninspiring. Oh well. It was neat talking to people and seeing who said that they would absolutely be willing to come out to Pittsburgh to see me/us. I have a very strong appreciation for being able to look around my life and know who will be in my life no matter where we live.

And now I pay the piper. Physically I am a real mess. I need to go to bed in a big hurry and try to let my body rest. Even though I am likely to be sick pretty much all week for this, it was so worth it. I have some great people in my life. Now, to sleep…

Thankful

I love to watch him sleep. He is so beautiful in repose. I look at the character that remains in his face even as he dreams. I love how broad his shoulders are; how easily he shoulders burdens with them–both his own and those he willingly, even eagerly takes from me. I like that his body is soft and comfortable to curl up against. I love the whimsy that lead him to get a barrel of monkeys tattoo.

I love that he can forgive me anything. I love that he will do anything for his friends, even as that same habit drives me crazy sometimes. I love how completely he gives himself over to lusting after me. I love that he embraces the changes in my body as beautiful in recognition of the life we created together. I love that he tolerates my mood swings and often difficult temper. He gives of himself more freely and openly than any person I have ever known. I love how he loves me with the open eyed glee of a child being given the best toy in the world.

What I am thankful for is that he was willing to humble his pride and ask me for a second chance when I was too afraid to ask him. I am thankful for the gift of him in my life. It is a rare day when a fight is bad enough to cause me worry about whether this will really work out. Even in those moments I am still grateful he asked for the chance.

Life or something like it.

This whole moving thing requires that I somehow find the energy to pack. Have I mentioned lately that I hate packing? Does anyone have boxes?

Christmas is looming in that way that it does. I think we are actually mostly done with the shopping we want to do. With luck the remaining things can be found online so I can shun that evil place… the mall… Here’s hoping.

Con stuff is not going so well as I would hope. Between the people who moved away, the people who flaked (love that one of them was telling his girlfriend he was still involved–mad slick that move), and the people who are just not fucking responding to email despite the fact that we need their fucking piece of work to move on… I just want to scream. That said, once I get responses from the last round of emails I am pretty sure I am done with programs. Now to create the class matrix and send out confirmations and pertinent information to people. With luck that will be done in the next week. (I say luck, really it depends on me feeling human for multiple days in a row.) Although one thing this con has done is reminded me just how much Jon, Erik, and Sarah rock. I wasn’t ever really doubting, but right now I am fucking thrilled with them. (Look at the website! www.tngcon.org Erik did that! He rocks!) See, one should always remain friends with one’s ex’s. 😉

I am still only barely hanging in there with teaching. Everyone wishes I was nicer and my only response is, yeah and I wish I didn’t feel like shit 24/7. And I want a fucking Oompa Loompa. We don’t get what we want in life. 🙁 I’m trying really hard to be nice. It just isn’t going so well as normal. I’ve been looking around my classroom and thinking about the fact that in the next month I need to take things down from the walls. It will be sad. I seriously moved in to this room. I’m going to miss these memories.

Noah is riding the waves of hormonal freak outs spectacularly well. A couple of bumps were very unpleasant all the way around, but I think that being on the other side of those bumps is better in every way so it’s ok. Having the best boy in the world is a really nice feeling.

I miss being social, but I don’t see how more of it can possibly happen seeing as my window for social on most days is about two hours long. That will probably improve come January when I am not working anymore. Holy cow the kids suck energy like mad.

We are looking at flying out to Pittsburgh in January. Noah figures that exposing me to the freaking cold during the coldest month of the year is fair warning. We are also going to try and figure out a little bit more about where things are located and what parts of the city we actually want to live in. Brrrrrr.

This weekend we get to drive up to Napa and pick up Noah’s wedding ring. We decided that after a year of marriage it was time to get around to getting him the ring we had been talking about getting. We found a really neat jewelery up there on accident and it has been in process for a while. Maybe I will get around to posting pictures of my ring as well when we get his and we can show how perty and cute and matching like they are. 🙂

Sleep

Amusingly, apparently I can sleep. I can sleep starting at 7:30 pm. I can wake up four times during the night to pee and never be awake for more than about 15 minutes so I got at least 9 hours of (broken) sleep. And I’m still so tired I feel like I could walk into a wall. My tummy hurts and I’m whiny.

I am having horrible nightmares all the time. Weird, random nightmares all the time. Thankfully Noah doesn’t mind being woken up to comfort me. It is looking more and more like there is no chance of me going part time. That means six more full-time weeks till I stop working. Four of those weeks are before Christmas break and then the two weeks after are review and finals. The four weeks are going to be a little tough physically but if I wuss down what I am teaching I think I can do it. The two weeks of finals prep and taking exams is no big deal. That means I will get paid until February due to having my paychecks divided up over the year instead of just the months I am teaching.

Babbling. Out of it. Tired. Ugh. Not feeling good. Is today over yet?

{the girlys} Why I married him.

He came home from work early for reasons not having to do with me. I proceed to start babbling/crying at high speed all the stuff that has been in my head since last night. I explained the sheer overwhelming magnitude of how many ways and to what degree I am giving up *my* indpendence. I asked him if he has ever stopped to consider what I am giving up. He hadn’t. I asked him if I have complained or whined or railed at the gods about how unfair it is. He said I haven’t at all. He then sat and thought about this and said, “Well it is starting to sound like there are a few things I need to suck it up about.”

We then discussed in more detail that if he wants to take the charity of Tao money and blow it on other things then he just doesn’t have the money to give to friends or political organizations or whatever. But he can do it. This seems to be enough for him.

When he has been a butthead in the past few hours I have a hard time remembering that he is ever not a butthead. But then he goes and acts like the complete opposite of a butthead and I remember why I married him. Thank you all for listening to me vent and not overreacting along with me.

Small gratitutes

Support from the girlys. Love my girlys. Phone call from my Julia. Single best thing about moving to Pittsburgh: being only three hours drive from my Julia. Sweetie you are going to get so sick of me. Offer of solution to potential problem from Sarah. You so get my shit. My work buddy didn’t manage to salvage my lesson plans, but he tried really hard and that counts for a lot.

I’m trying to think of more. If I manage I may update.

Edited:
I’m grateful that Noah is not a douchebag. And that we now have pie.

Rob says

“Dear Rob: I have eight distinctly different voices in my head. There’s a hurt, oddly puffed-up voice that complains about everyone who has ever done me wrong. There’s an hysterical voice that nags me with the thought that nothing I could ever do or say will make any difference to anyone, so why bother. Then there’s the still, small voice. It has more gravity and feels more honest. It gives me useful instructions about specific things I could do to live a more meaningful life. The only trouble is, the other voices always blabber so loud I tend to neglect the only one that’s actually helpful. Any advice? – Drowned Out.” Dear Drowned: Set aside five minutes each morning and five minutes before bed. Whisper “Shut up, all the rest of you!”, and then listen reverently to the still, small voice.

I’m not even sure there is a still, small voice inside me anymore.

{the girlys} More festivity.

First: thank you all for the comments. I really appreciate the acknowledgment right now.

Last night ended up being one of our Marathon Processing Nights. The nights I use as evidence that I married a Berkeley dyke. Most of it went reasonably well. I finally got him to see the difference between saying, “I don’t like it when you are nasty about Tao” as opposed to, “Why are you ALWAYS so nasty about EVERY girl I know better than you do?” The latter just makes me feel defensive and angry because it isn’t bloody true. I came up with a huge laundry list of names to prove that it isn’t true. He had a lot of trouble accepting it at first but eventually grudgingly saw the difference. Then we turned to talking about his frequent loud pronouncements that EVERYTHING he tries to do to deal with problems fails. Uhm, that isn’t true because we are not having many of the problems we had two years ago. Obviously things have been fixed. The problem is there isn’t one big one size fits all solution to all problems that can be set down on problem after problem and that pisses him off. He hates that each individual problem has to be dealt with as a separate case. I finally yelled at him (in a Denny’s, so classy “I’m not one of your fucking computer programs where you can fix a dozen bugs by fixing one line of code.” Strangely it helped.

So that was all incredibly festive but actually lead to resolutions so it was ok. We had agreed yesterday morning before work that we would do the “What does money mean to me” exercise my therapist recommended after work. So we got to come home from about two hours of processing to that. At first it seemed like the exercise wasn’t going to be very helpful cause we already know most of what we wrote about. I was torn between being amused and being irritated that he described my set of expectations/experiences about money as looking like someone who grew up around Columbian druglords. Dude, is that your only understanding of poverty? Don’t you see how money is power and control fucking everywhere?? Eventually the conversation became focused on how he sees having money as having independence. This lead to a huge battle in which he wants to have money set aside for him to spend however he wants without consulting me. Because he feels like he is losing all of his independence if all of the money is “ours”. Well, bitch, you are the one who wanted me to start thinking of it as “our” money. You have pushed and pushed and pushed. I have given up my personal claim to the part of the money that I am bringing into the household right now as preparation for when none of the money will be mine. He wants to set aside money that will be “his” and that will be “mine” for us to spend in whatever ways we see fit. Uhm, we already spend this money. Why do you need it to be specifically labeled and set aside? What do you gain from that? He gets to not have to consult me anymore–he gets his precious independence. Let’s ignore the fact that the basis of my independence since I was 14 fucking years old has been that I support myself. I get to give that up to stay home with our kids, but he doesn’t give up any of his independence? Oh–he will *choose* to *let* me call part of his money my money and that will make it all better? Fuck you. That isn’t my god damn money. I didn’t earn it. So he said that taking care of the kids and the house is work we would pay someone else to do so why not pay me to do it. I almost turned around and said, “Some people pay someone to get laid. Are you going to start paying me every time we fuck so I can be your whore as well as your nanny and housekeeper?” I didn’t say it. I started crying instead. I left the room and cried in the guest room for a while. Then I took a bath and cried so more. I had a really hard time not cutting. Then I slept in the guest room all night. That bed is the one thing in this house of any serious value that is *mine* so if he wants to fight about indpendence that is the closest I have to any of my independence left.

Before I left the room crying I realized that at this point I am pretty trapped because of the baby. I could keep working even with the baby, but I really don’t want to do that to my kid. So I told him that I never thought I would ever regret getting pregnant. That’s when I left. I haven’t talked to him since. I stayed home today. My head hurts so bad it feels like it might explode. My stomach is in knots. My throat is tight and achey. What in the fuck am I doing?

{the girlys} Frustration

There are exactly six people on this filter. You are the women I trust to a)listen to me vent and not let it color your opinions overall b)give me advice when I ask for it and not when I don’t want it c)understand that mostly right now I am freaking out because I am pregnant and not because something is basically broken in my life.

Noah and I are fighting a lot about things we shouldn’t be fighting about. He has a lot of friendships based around him taking care of people. I have an incredibly hard time with this. I have an even harder time when those friendships involve him giving them money/buying them things. I’m angry because it feels like this is a threat to my long-term security. We have reached a more stable place on this front thanks to advice from Crystal–he now has a yearly budget on how much he can give away. He’s not thrilled that the amount is as low as it is, but oh well. It’s all that I feel comfortable with.

Today we got into it because he brought up a book he wants me to read. We need to buy a new copy because he loaned his copy to one of his ex’s and she got rid of it. This is the second book she has done this with. Ok, books aren’t that expensive but the actual monetary value isn’t the point. She doesn’t think about how her actuons will affect the people around her. She treats her husband like shit. She treated Noah like shit when they dated. What am I supposed to think about her? He has another friend he has been talking to more lately and what he has told me about her is even worse than the freakin ex. Why shouldn’t I think of these women as bitches? The problem is that he wants to bring them up and talk about them and I am supposed to be friendly and warm. I can’t do it. I’m hostile. But that isn’t ok.

I keep telling people off. Everything I have been thinking for years I am saying. I feel like I should just shut up and yet I can’t seem to keep my opinions to myself.

I’m feeling miserable all the time. I’m tired of feeling this way. I’m tired of whining and bitching and not going out. I want my body back. I’m tired of feeling pressured to have sex because if I don’t Noah is an asshole. I don’t know what to do right now. I feel so dead inside.

Me being involved with an open invite party seems like a recipe for disaster… oh wait…

(Yes, I’m aware that some of you have seen this 5 times in the last five minutes. Take that as a sign of our high esteem of you and don’t bitch. 😛 )

Noah quite pithily says:

Since Krissy (now my wife) and I are moving out of state next summer, and selling our house sooner yet (this time for sure!), we’re having a final DHP before the house goes away. Since we’re leaving the state (no, not permanently) for Christmas, we’re calling everybody together on December 15th.

In the spirit of nostalgia, and *not* because I’m too lazy to put together a full invitation, you can see the usual details on the previous invitation — “http://www.angelbob.com/houseparty.html”. This party, though, is for December 15th. Yes, the one in 2007.

We’ll have food and beverage, naturally. There will be paraffin and 151 for firebreathing. We’ll see if we can’t get our hands on a pinata. Hot tub. Drunkenness, nudity, fire, and all the usual (I’m trusting you guys here — don’t make me a liar). And hey, there’s no excuse to put off attending this time, ’cause after this, no more Disaster House!

Invite your friends. Invite your enemies, at least if they’re more interesting than your friends 🙂 What you don’t drink, we have to move! So ask me to mix you a drink at your peril…

Why December 15th? What, you mean *other* than the release of “The Sound of Music”? Or Netscape 1.0? Well then, let’s say “the birth of Nero,” or if you liked Nero, “the death of Walt Disney”. Togas remain optional. Togas plus mouse-ears, while optional, will have you looking more stylish than… Um… if you wore laurels on your brow with that little silly red-pants-and-suspenders thing with white buttons a la Mickey?

Questions and Answers

On Friday I was just not up for the lesson I was supposed to be teaching. Of course I felt massive guilt about this, but my students comforted me by telling me that they are content waiting until next week because if I wait until I feel better to do the heavy stuff I will teach it so well they will get lots out of the lecture whereas if I push myself when I am distinctly under the weather they won’t get as much. Such sweet little manipulators.

So I told them to get out a piece of paper and write down any questions they have that they have always been afraid to ask. They can get anonymous answers so no one has to feel silly or stupid or ignorant. I maintained absolute discipline and fierceness through the answering–no one got to laugh at a question they thought was stupid because it was probably hard for someone to get up the nerve to ask.

The questions ranged from silly/stupid/trying to get a rise out of me to fairly deep questions to things that are probably scaring the shit out of them. I answered everything completely bluntly and honestly and straighforwardly with no sign of shame or hesitation. It went remarkably well. I can’t remember all of the questions (there were probably a hundred or so) but here is a sampling:

Can you get AIDS from oral sex?
What is phone sex?
Does sex hurt?
How young is too young to be a parent?
My sister is 12 and likes to pretend she has a penis and that it hurts her just as much as it hurts a boy when she is hit between the legs–what is wrong with her? Is she stuck in the toddler phase? (We are studying Freud and his phallic obsession stage blew their little minds.)
Why did you want to be a teacher?
Why are you moving away?
Why don’t you want to stay with us?
How many times a week do you have sex? (I was a little funny with this one–I told them not as often as I used to because it is uncomfortable right now.)
Can a transvestite make a baby by itself? (They didn’t understand the difference between a transvestite and a hermaphrodite so I told them and I explained what being transgendered or transsexual is as well.)
Can two transvestites have sex together?
Why are boys such horndogs?/Why do boys have urges?
Are all men perverts?
Are there teachers who hate kids? If so, why do they teach?
Do you hate any of the teachers at this school? If so, who? (I declined to give names but I did say that there are teachers I don’t have much respect for.)
What _is_ love?
What makes a boyfriend different from a good friend? How do you know when you are ready to have a boyfriend?
If my boyfriend wants to kiss another girl, should I let him or should I dump him?
How can I stand up to my super oppressive parents?
Why do some guys ejaculate so quickly?
What is testosterone?
Do the carpets always match the drapes?

That’s all I can remember right now. There were some really stupid ones that I didn’t bother to answer because they were just being silly. I frequently prefaced my answers with statements about how I have my beliefs about these subjects and my beliefs are very different from what many other people think and it’s ok that we don’t agree. I am not trying to convert anyone to being like me, I just want the kids to know that opinions like mine exist and they should be aware of that. (Though it would be nice to convert the kids. 😉

Good boundaries.

My mother informed me that she would be coming up to stay with us after the baby comes. I told her that she will not. I said that if she wants to stay with Denise (my sister) or Vonnie (her sister) and visit during the day that is fine, but she is not welcome to stay in my house 24 hours a day right after I have had a kid. I told her that if she tried it I am likely to attempt to kill her and there will be a permanent rift in our relationship. Just No. She took it fairly well actually. She laughed when I said, “Do you really think it is a good idea to be in my face constantly after I have been in that much pain with a bunch of sleep deprivation? Do you think I will have any patience or kindness left in me?!”

Boundaries are my friend. Next time I talk to her I will mention that she also isn’t welcome in the first three weeks as I am trying to figure out how to deal with the Lizard. Her telling me what to do with the Lizard at the beginning is not likely to go over well. If I don’t specifically ask for advice my instinct is to do the opposite of whatever I am told to do. This isn’t a good thing when it comes to caring for my infant so I’m going to avoid the person who will give the most unsolicited advice. 🙂

This shit is going way better than it used to.

Or… not.

Uhm, so uhh had an ultrasound this morning. I found out that my midwife apparently can’t tell the difference between a uterus and belly fat. This is not confidence inspiring. I’m 11 weeks and 6 days. So I’m not showing, I’m just really fat these days. WTF? At least now I am back to hoping that the second trimester clears up my nausea.

Due date: May 25th.

I’m carrying a fucking alien. I’ve seen pictures. It’s kind of creepy.

Relationship thinking

Have I ever mentioned that sometimes Noah drives me crazy? He and I come from such completely different worlds that sometimes it seems like there is no way to handle our respective baggage in tandem. Sometimes the arguing gets fierce and kind of nasty. Sometimes the fighting can stretch out over a couple of weeks. We keep fighting because we know we have to find a way to deal with the problem because this is forever and that means not only tolerating one another but getting to a place we are both happy with. This kind of blows in the middle of it. We both have coping mechanisms for these situations that aren’t very helpful. Eventually we find a way to really talk about what is going on beneath the situation. I try so hard to be honest with him and I’m impressed by how honest he is with me.

Last night I didn’t sleep because the couch is fucking uncomfortable and I was upset and crying. Tonight I can’t sleep because I can’t find a comfortable position. Tonight I know that when I finish my ice cream (hey–I still haven’t gained a pound it’s ok for me to have lots of fat/sugar/calories in the middle of the night) I can go back into my room and curl up around the best boy in the whole world. A day can make such a world of difference. A day can provide the opportunity to actually hear one another.

Hey Crystal–I took your advice. Thank you for beating it into my stubborn head. Love you.

ew

Today I tried an experiment. Usually by the end of the school day I feel seriously nauseous becouse I am overly hungry. Today I ate a little bit all day everytime I felt a little hungry. Now I feel disgusting and like I would like to vomit just to get rid of the full feeling in my stomach.

I can’t win.

Hostility abounds

Today is not a good day. Last night was a really bad night. I’m exhausted. I’m cranky. I don’t want to be here. I want to cry and scream and punch someone. But then again that might take too much energy. Today may be the first day when I literally put my head down on my desk and go to sleep during class.

Right now I don’t see how this problem shall be resolved. Right now I don’t see how I am in the wrong. Right now my whole body hurts. I’m tired of crying.