That is all.

Yesterday I did not fit into my pants. I blamed Shaun for shrinking them. Today, I had trouble cramming myself into two completely different pairs of pants. I finally squeezed into my black pants, but the muffin-top action was out of control, say nothing of the butt-lovin’ fit. 

When I went through puberty, I grew hips literally overnight. It took me a summer to grow 7 painful inches, but the hips: they came in 24-hours. Now that my body is pumping full of hormones again, I seem to have had a similar spurt.

Last night, while walking to the bus, I felt a really weird feeling near my tail-bone, stretching into my sides. It felt nasty, like a popping sensation. I felt the same weird thing this morning, too. It was freaking me out (and somehow exhausting me), so I called the doctor’s office this morning to see what was the what. The nurse practitioner said that my body was having a growth spurt. She also casually mentioned that my uterus is the size of a grapefruit at the moment. A freaking grapefruit! Two days ago I was a size-6. This afternoon, I’m sporting a brand new pair of size-10 pants.

I took a long lunch for myself and went to Express. My rationale was:

1.) They have tall sizes
2.) They have a sale on
3.) I’ve seen ladies look nice in dark trouser jeans from there. These seem work-dressy when paired with a blouse, yet causal when paired with a t-shirt. This, in theory, means the trouser jean will help me get away with buying less.

I walked out of Express with two pairs of trouser jeans and a boxy checked blazer to hide my bloat behind. I’m bummed to part with the money that I don’t really have. However, I don’t really see any option here. My workplace, while liberal, is not clothing-optional. And my body is not waiting until end of February, as budgeted, to change.

While I know that a size ten is far from a “hey look! it’s a pregnant lady!” size, I think you can definitely tell I’ve put on a grapefruit-shaped weight on my middle. If you’re looking. Which I hope people aren’t. Is it horrible that I’d be mortified if people just thought I was letting myself go? It’s just that wellness and fitness are such a big part of my life; if people thought I was just getting fat, I’d feel really misunderstood. God, that’s vain.

In other news, I am fantisicing wabout hiding out at a friend’s house in Milwaukee this weekend. Shaun’s sister and her husband are coming to Chicago and are scheduled to stay in our apartment. I just don’t see how I can be in the same living space with people when I don’t want our families to know that I’m preggers yet. It will be so painfully obvious. The not drinking will be a dead giveaway. Not to mention the staggering yucky morning feeling.

Soon I can stop leading a double life. I’ve decided to spill the beans once I get the results back from the test I’m going for on Thursday. It’s a test to make sure that the Grain is not developing in a deformed/impaired kind of way. Once the doctor gives Grain the green light, I can finally tell people without feeling weird about it.
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Have you anything new to wear?

I love me blog. I really do. But it’s been a bitch to keep up lately, for a few reasons.

1.) Hijacked Computer
Shaun’s computer is broken. He earns his keep by writing articles and scripts and whatever else anyone wants to pay him to write. He needs a computer for this and has hijacked mine while the Mac Pros dawdle around on his for a million years.

2.) The Grain is Eating Me Alive.
Starting tomorrow, I’ll be in week #9 of Vessle-dom. On the upside, my skin looks amazing and my boobs are getting pretty rad, even if they hurt like a bitch sometimes. Plus, the doctor tells me that The Grain is doing it’s webbed-toed thang pretty well.

On the downside, this week has been the first time that I really felt anything different. And what I felt is gross between the hours of 8:30am-11:30am, with intermittent spells of shock and horror that the world smells like ripe ass. The time of day is really inconvienent for me, too, as I have to be on the bus at 8:30 for work. And nothing starts your day off on the right foot like morning sickness on public transit. When I arrive to work, I lead a staff meeting for my crew before we head downstairs to open the museum. I excuse myself if retch in the bathroom for a while before coming up to my desk, where I stare at the computer screen pretending to work but really just trying not to look at anything too hard or to move. Then, at 10:45, I give my staff breaks at the admissions desk. Here, I get to greet the public, sell tickets, and provide information about our current exhibitions. And I do it all while managing not to dry heave in their faces. This is particuarly tricky when fur-coated old ladies come in with buckets of purfume on. I’m usually back to my desk by 11am or so. I sit still for a little while longer. And then, all of a sudden, I’m back. Energy like normal. Buzzing around, happy but sort of stressed that I now have only 1/2 the day to get everything I need to get done. So yeah. I think I need to come clean about the bun in my oven soon, because my staff must think I’m coming in hung-over every day. Plus, the Box Office manager has had to cover for me once already, with a second time coming this Thursday, for Grain-related doctor’s appointments.

Also, some days the energy doesn’t come back after sickie-time and I’m just tired. Luckily, this happened mostly this weekend, so I was off anyhow. Yesterday, I stayed in bed most of the day. I read mostly. I also napped. I had a horrible dream in which my lower abdomen had a hot-tub shaped plastic jet thing in it. The jet had an small opening that was covered in alge and seaweed. I was just realizing in the dream that not everyone had this. Shaun was really nice about it in the dream and implied it had something to do with the belly button ring I used to have.

3.) A Hitch of a Personal Nature
The only hitch with The Grain is that there was some miniscule teeny-tiny bit of blood that showed up on the ultra sound I had at the very first appointment on Jan 9th. I’ve not spotted or bled or anything weird. The nurse practitioner/midwife lassie said that this was no biggie, that it happens all the freaking time, that I have no extra restrictions, and that the blood would most likely be absorbed back into my body in a few days.

But then, when we went to the second appointment with the primary doctor last Tuesday (she did not do another ultra-sound), the doctor was full of crazy talk.

Doctor: Have you had sex since the last appointment?
Me: What? Of course! That last appointment was AGES ago! Why?
Doctor: You should refrain until your next appointment. I mean, if you’ve done it already, you know, oh well. But…[Here, she trailed off in a way that was simultaniously ominous and dismissive.]

Needless to say, I am dismayed. First of all, because the next appointment is YEARS away (Feb 11th!). Plus, rationale that is confusing to me. The doctor did not put any other restrictions on me. She encouraged me to keep up with my 3x-per-week work out schedule, I’m not on bed-rest, I’m still allowed to ride the #147 express bus to work (which should require a mouth-guard, since the ride is so pot-hole ridden). So my question is this: how could sex harder on a body than running 5K? Plus, it makes it confusing to me to figure out how serious this is.

4.) Isolation
This weekend was the first weekend I wanted to tell anyone. Mainly because I finally had a chance to digest it all for myself and I’m a little worried and just generally feel like I’m in the closet.

We have a test-thing on Thursday to see if the Grain might be developing in a deformed or mentally impaired way. Although this is all really unlikely. No history of anything on either side. I’ll only be 27 when the Grain is born. Things will probably be fine. I’d wanted to wait until we got the test results telling us that the Grain would be a-okay before telling our family. I’d hate for them to get happy and then have to be sad. But then again, do Shaun and I really want to go through it alone if something is wrong? Why should we feel weird about saying anything about it? Perhaps if more people talked about shit like this, things would be less devastating.

I’m still undecided about when/what to tell people. I also dread the onslaught of societal expectations and assumptions. I dread people talking about us behind our backs, mostly about how poor we are. As if I didn’t already have enough to be sick over.
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On a scale of 1-10: how are you, Xanga friend?

2/16 Edit: The “miniscule teeny-tiny bit of blood that showed up on the ultra sound” is completely gone, so says the doctor. It’s called an “abruption” and is fairly common; the blood was so little and it just got soaked up by my blood stream and dissapeared. Everything is a-okay now.

That is all.

Shaun and I don’t like to celebrate our wedding anniversary, since that was just this big party we threw. We discovered that we fit together in some fuzzy space before that. We became life partners sometime between our first date and five minutes ago. But we like to celebrate things, so we decided to celebrate our first date day instead.

Eleven years ago yesterday, Shaun and I went to see Jackie Brown at the Waterford Cinema 11. We went to Big Boy after and split a brownie sunday. After, he came to my house to watch The RuPaul Show. We kissed as my favorite drag queen paraded onscreen in her finest gowns. When we came up for air, we both glanced at the screen and laughed. Magic.

Yesterday, we celebrated by going to an Ethiopian Restaurant for dinner. We ordered lamb stews, cabbages, greens, and lentils to pick up with sponge-y bread. We talked about what we remembered most from January 9, 1998. He remembers standing in line for the movie with me, thinking I gorgeous. I remember riding in the car with him, laughing and inventing a silly musical (we pitched it as “Death of a Salesman meets Tarzan”). We both remember thinking how easy it was to be with one another, how fun it was, how funny. Still is.

January 9th, 2009 we spent at the doctor’s office. A giant dildo with an ulta-sound camera took pictures of a weird little grain that lives inside of me. The grain flickers onscreen, it’s heartbeat present throughout it’s whole structure. We listened to it, a little noise underwater, a million miles away. I am  6.5 weeks pregnant.

We’re excited. We’re nervous. Like everything we do, we’ve started in on this without enough resources. But that’s never stopped us from making things work before. We’ve had plenty of adventures on a shoestring. I’d like to think we’re sort of experts at the unpredictable now. We roll with it, laugh about it, and work hard to make sure it gets better. And it always does, at the very last minute. Things are just a bit more stressful now because more is at stake. We can rescue ourselves just fine; but this little grain will probably grow into a human. At first, that human won’t even be able to hold her neck upright.

I’ve not told anyone with the exception of my bff Bryan. And he guessed. He called the day I took all the Plus Signs tests. He asked if everything was okay, that I sounded weird. I told him I was fine, something slightly horrifying had happened and I’d tell him later. He said: “Oh my God: your brother got his girlfriend pregnant.” I laughed, “No!” “Oh my God: You’re pregnant.” Since then, he sends me a text daily about how excited he is to be Uncle Bryan. Last night, we spoke on the phone and I was relieved that the grain wasn’t the only thing we talked about. We talked about that for about 10 minutes or so and spent the rest of the hour dishing about other things.

The weirdest thing about this for me is that I feel exactly the same. I guess when I see pregnant people out in the world, I think they are all angelic and thinking mushy thoughts 24/7. I assume that pregnant people are preoccupied with thoughts of fetus, care only about nesting and the newest Baby Bjorn. But really, I’m still me. I still care just as much about art, society, fiction, and politics. I still care about movies and if that Joss Whedon series out this fall is going to be any good. I’m still excited to see friends. I still love my job. When we toasted at dinner last night, Shaun and I toasted to The Ninth. I was so relieved I nearly cried. The obvious choice would be to toast to The Grain. But I want the ninth just to be for us. The Grain will get plenty of attention in this life, trust me.

 I’m also sort of surprised that I’m not more interested in the science of The Grain. One thing I’ve always gotten a kick out of is research, but I don’t like researching pregnancy. We went into Borders yesterday to check out the pregnancy section and discovered that I HATE pregnancy books. The tone is so revolting. So gooey. So presumptuous. With stupid little “Dad Tips” in the margins that say things like “Vacuum the living room without having to be asked” or “Buy your wife flowers on your way home from work.” WTF?! What is this, 1950 where a dude with a vacuum is some big favor? That is just retarded. Plus, I really don’t want to hear about every freaking bowel movement I’ll take for nine months. What to Expect When You’re Expecting? Expect Hemroids. Pregnancy’s a bitch. Plus, I find that I get totally nauseous when I look at pictures of fetuses at various developmental stages. Seriously. I had to squat down with my head between my legs in the bookstore. Shaun did find a fun book called From The Hips that might be fun to read. He was laughing hysterically over a chart that had the size of the baby at different months. One month, the fetus is the size of a lobster. Another month, a duck. At nine months, it’s the size of a cat. A CAT! I so prefer this to gross pictures of squiggly alien things. To be honest, I didn’t even know if I was going to be okay looking at The Grain on the monitor at the doctor’s office. I still can’t really look at the pictures. There’s a white blob inside a the yolk sack. Beneath it, the tech typed “Baby.” Gives me the willies.

Aside from private-blogging about it and dishing with Bryan, I really don’t want to tell people. What if we get bombarded with horrifying questions?

* Are you going to move to the ‘burbs? (No!)
*  Are you going to buy a car? (We’ll probably to a car sharing service for a while).
* Are you going to quit work? (No!)
* Where will it go to school? (How should I know?)
* How are you going to afford everything? (I have no freaking clue.)

I guess I’ll have to say something sooner or later. I want to wait until The Grain has been alive for three months. That is the longest it seems you’re allowed to keep things to yourself without getting ragged on for it. I know I have to get over this, but it’s just hard. I don’t want people thinking about me in that stupid way I’ve been thinking about other pregnant people. I don’t want them to freak me out anymore than I’m already freaked. I think I just need a while to get used to things.
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Have you ever made an assumption about a pregnant person?

Roland Burris is going to Washington today. Sure, neither Jessie White (Illinois Secretary of State) nor Nancy Erickson (Secretary of Senate) ever confirmed the appointment, but why should that stop Burris? He believes that he’s been divinely appointed. That’s right. His appointment has nothing to do with the $15,296 he’s given to the Blagojevich machine since 2002; his appointment has nothing to do with obvious racial politicking. Burris will be a senator because God wants him to be.

As frightening as I find people (politicians especially) who claim that God tells them what to do, it’s not just Burris’ ego mania that makes this whole situation infuriating. (Did you know he’s named both of his children after himself? Rolanda and Roland II. He also likes to refer to himself in the third person.) What makes this truly horrifying is that Blago has created a situation in which a black man will be barred from the glaringly white senate today. Blagojevich has made this situation into a racial one to take himself out of the spotlight. Like we’ll all somehow forget that he tried to sell Barack’s senate seat. Like we’re all somehow so stupid that we won’t notice that this is nothing more than an insulting minstrel show. (Dance, Jim Crow, dance!) Blago is using Burris. Worse, he’s almost exclusively using his skin.

I loathe the fact that the senate is 99% white, but this is not the way to make things better. There are plenty of people deserving of that senate seat, people of all colors and people who are able to acheive it legitimatly. And that legitimacy is everything.
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Ever met an ego maniac?

EDIT: I just wanted to mention that this reminds me of the introduction of Sarah Palin once Hillary Clinton’s candidacy had waned. It’s that hideous notion that one vagina can replace another, just like one black man can replace another. We’re all the same when we’re getting used by The Man.

Holly shit. Holly shit. Holly shit.

So, you know how I wrote a few blogs about how I don’t ovulate because of a thyroid issue? I’ve been treating this holistically and have been pleased with the results. My lady cycles are longer (38 days), but they are present (this summer I went a whopping 93 days without a period).

Anyhow, I’m approaching day 48 and I mentioned to my friend (who is also having lady issues) how pissed I was that the holistic treatment seems to have stopped working its magic. Then she said, “are you sure you’re not pregnant?” I laughed, especially because we were sipping away at a bottle of chardonnay.

I didn’t think pregnancy was in the realm of possibility. I’ve been told–point blank–that I’ve not been ovulating. And yet something about the shitty way that I feel the past few mornings made me buy a test today.

I took it at work, thinking I would just be able to shut the question down in my mind and focus. But holly shit. It’s a plus sign. A blue plus sign popped onto the screen straight away. Bold.

I took another one (there’s two in a pack). And there it is again. Plus. Plus. Plus.

I am horrified. I am happy. I am sweating. Horrified. Happy. Sweaty. In September, its possible that a howling squirmy human will pry her way out of my body cavity. Horrified. Happy.

I am also suddenly really hungry, but then again it’s almost lunch time.
 
The day that Shaun proposed we get married,  I knew he was going to do so from the moment I woke up in the morning. I was covered in a cold sweat. I called him and said: “you’d better not ask me anything horrifiying today.” I just knew. And although I’ll take another test tonight, just to triple check, and make a doctor’s appointment first thing Monday morning: I just sort of know. It’s sort of cool. Regardless of if this bundle of cells lives and thrives, it’s weird to think that right now I’m a willing host to something that is chomping away at my caloric intake.

I’m trying to keep in mind that its just cells right now. I don’t want it to be more because loads of fetuses abandon ship prior to three months. And I’m not the healthiest cat in the litter, so I won’t be offended if the little cell bundle decides my body is a crap environment to morph into a human in. So I’m not gonnae tell anyone (aside from the doctor and Shaun) until a few months pass. So please, pretty please: don’t mention the plus sign on any public comments.
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Ever had another person attach themselves to your uterus?

Edit: I forgot to mention–this wasn’t exactly planned, although it was (like most cases of preggers, I presume), not rigorously prevented. I’m actually sort of surprised this is the only “oops.” We’ve been together since we were teenagers. I’m laughing to think of how freaking freaked I would be if this happened at virtually any other time. Even though the money situation sucks at present, at least we’re not still in school!

2/16 Edit: The morning before I dished with my friend over wine, I was at the computer, Googling all the gross symptoms that I’d been having. Since I thought that pregancy was impossible, I’d diagnosed myself with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or an Autoimmune disease. When Shaun came home from writing, he found me crying at the kichen table. “I’m seriously sick, Shaun. It’s not the flu. It’s not a cold. It is something really serious, I can tell.” He soothed me and encouraged me to make a doctor’s appointment, which I did. How hilarious is it that I thought I had some horrible illness, when really it was just a little fetus? Ha!

I woke up today and decided to mop the floor. To celebrate this momentous occasion, I decided to throw an Impromptu Pizza Party. Invited lots of folks, but funny thing is: most of those who were able to attend on such random and short notice are those that I graduated high school with and are living in the area. I hang with these peeps separate from one another (I was a part of a few different groups in HS–wait, is that true? I was open to it, anyhow). Regardless, tonight is going to be a mini-reunion.

The main point is: why waste a very clean house on just yourself? Might as well invite people over to mess it up again. Otherwise, it just taunts you to spill things all over it yourself.

I hope to take lots of pictures. One of the guys who is coming mentioned that there are literally about 3 photos of him over the course of the past 10 years. I will amend this. We will have a photo shoot. Also, my bff Squee is coming and she hates having her picture done, but honestly she is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. Don’t know why the shy. That said: I’ve been told I’m not exactly hard to look at and I HATE the camera. It’s becuase most people don’t know how to use it and I just want to get behind it and work the damn thing properly and give a lecture on composition. HA! (Inner control freak emerges!)

Well, as you can probably tell, I’ve been sipping wine while prepping these pizza pies. And I must say: they look amazing. I made a honey-wheat dough from scratch and I’ve done it enough now that I’m an expert at tossing. Actually, I think this is the first time I did it expertly. Secret: wine.
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What are you doing tonight?

My favorite years to ring in were 2006 and 2008.

For 2006, we went to California with our friends Beth and Jay to visit friends Ally and Jessie. For 2008, we went to Baltimore with Ally and Jessie to visit Beth and Jay. While I’ve got many pals on this earth that I love, there’s something about this particular group that strikes a perfect balance. Perhaps it’s because both Shaun and I share an equal friendship with them; it’s not like I’m hanging out with his friends or vice versa. Or perhaps its just a good chemistry. There’s few compromises–we all seem to enjoy the same things. Makes traveling fun. On New Years Eve, we stay in and play games.

Anyhow, none of us had enough money to travel this year, so we all stayed in our respective cities. As such, Shaun and I sort of kept forgetting that a new year was on the horizon. We just worked Wednesday. After work, I had tea with a recent college grad who wanted an informational interview with me to learn more about not-for-profit museum work. I can’t tell you how weird it was for me to help this person; it was just a few years ago that I was begging for informational interviews myself. After the interview, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some New Years Eve mimosa supplies ($6 champagne and OJ from concentrate to mask the taste). I also got some fortune cookies and oven egg rolls to make things more festive. At home, we cooked dinner (salmon patties with broccoli) and ate our egg-rolls and mimosas while watching the last two episodes of LOST on DVD. After, we spent the last hour of 2008 on a freezing cold walk around the neighborhood. The moon was a pretty sliver.

I’ve never really made resolutions. Or rather, I am a constant goal-setter, so those that I happen to be working on or thinking about as a New Year rolls around are nothing out of the ordinary. Nonetheless, they exist and are as follows:

Task: Start Volunteering again
Status:  I usually make sure to volunteer at least once a month, but I’ve not done a damn thing for society since moving back to Chicago. I’ve been getting settled, but I’m settled now and really have to start contributing again.

Task: Find a way to keep in shape during the winter that doesn’t upset Downstairs Neighbor.
Status: Found a satisfactory Park District gym, only a 15 minute walk away. Price is very right at $15 a month, no joiner fee. Our Family Membership starts Jan 2. I also signed up for an 11-session park district yoga class that starts on the 9th (it’s only $2.73 per class!).

Task: Find a way to better connect my department with other departments at work.
Status: I’ve been actively pursuing information and communicating visitor needs instead of relying on others to consider my department. With the support of the curatorial department, I’ve started meeting with artists during installation to talk to them directly about their work. I’ve been writing weekly memos with my findings to share with my staff and others in the museum who work directly with the public–security, restaurant folks, store staff, receptionists. I want everyone to be able to give visitors (and potential visitors) the inside scoop on our programming.

Task: Pay lunch it’s due.
Status: I’ve been eating a variation of the same spinach lunch salad for about 5 years now. Five days a week. I dread the lunch. I’m bored of lunch. The lunch is not filling. The lunch is not warm. The only redeeming quality about the lunch is that it’s healthy. But other things can be healthy, too. But I’ve been too lazy and cheap to think of a new lunch. About once a week, I can’t face the lunch and I end up spending $5 on a nice soup or a wrap. Then I beat myself up for spending money. It’s really a vicious cycle that needs to end. I need to make time for lunch. I can make a soup or a wrap at home, for pete’s sake!

Hesitant Goals
I’m hesitant to set financial or health goals. I’m doing my best with these as it is and its just not enough. But most of this is out of my control. So I guess the best goal I can set for myself in these arenas is to keep my chin up, keep doing what I’m doing, and trying not to let things get to me. I need to have faith that things will get better, that Shaun will get a job, that I will heal. I need to having faith in time. I need to keep my optimism alive; hope has always been a part of me and I need to keep that now more than ever.

2008 was a turbulent year. I crawled out of the black hole of NYC, re-settled in Chicago. My endocrine system got sick. Our nation was yanked by its hair into a financial melt-down and Shaun and I, like everyone else, felt it big time. We were privy to the most fascinating presidential race in history. So much was at stake. And we won.

I’m looking forward to finding footing in 2009. While we’re starting the year off on an all-time financial low, my heart is lighter somehow. I’m happy here. I like my job. I have great friends the world-over. I have a partner I love and better yet, like. I regret nothing. I’m in a place, emotionally and geographically, where building can happen. I’m looking forward to a calmer year. To a year of quiet diligence. To a year of healing.
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What are you looking forward to in 2009?