<<     January 2008     >>

A good excuse to buy a new one

I want to be one of those women who goes around gushing (with the requisite rosy glow), "Oh, I just *love* being pregnant!" and I try, I really really do. But I think most people look at a pregnant woman, especailly one who is barely even showing yet, and assume that any whinging about nausea and the other fabulous side effects of literally growing another human person are easily enough dealt with. Well, let me fill you in on a little bit of reality.

Pregnancy is a gorgeous thing, and it's sincerely fun even with the gallons of hormones taking over every single bodily function, even with the terrifying thickening of my waist and the slowly rising bump on my previously very flat stomach. It's amazing and wonderful and it brings tears to my eyes when I think about what's going on in there but - and oh, this is a big, big qualifier....

Remember all the times you drank too much at a party and went home to sprawl on your bed (or the bathroom floor), sick as hell to your stomach, praying that you wouldn't toss it all, praying for sleep, praying for a sober morning? Well, that's how I feel pretty much 24 hours a day without the benefit of having been to a party. I do still manage to get things done and thank God daily that I work from home, always in awe of the pregnant women who must drag themselves out of bed and off to 40 hours a week of exhausted, nauseous pregnant working-for-someone-else hell. Some days, for me, are better than others. Some hours are better than others. Yesterday is an example of one of the worst days thus far.

As I approach the end of my first trimester (the second three months officially starts on January 29th!) things have started to, shall we say - intensify. In short, I feel like a percolator and am literally at the mercy of my stomach. Most days I spend all day exactly where I am right now - on the couch, working in my pajamas. But yesterday we went out to lunch. Now, I don't know if this baby just doesn't like stuffed mushrooms or what but ten minutes into the ride back home and I was panicked. I knew what was coming and was totally unprepared for it at all. I mean, I feel funky all the time but it rarely comes to fruition. But yesterday the nausea graduated into a desperate need to be rid of my lunch. I'll spare you the details other than to say that my very expensive purse doubled as a catchall (and finished it's short life all in the same breath).

The one good thing I will say is that the bag, a large hobo style, was big enough to allow me to fit my whole entire head inside during the ten minutes or so that I was um...busy...which at least spared me the humiliation of publicity. And actually, now that I think about it, there was one other fortuitous, relative, event. When I'd gotten in the car I'd dropped the housekey into one of the cup holders between the two front seats, rather than into the very deep bottom of my bag, as I usually would - saving me the trouble of having to...find it...once we got home.

Needless to say the bag has been laid to rest in our garbage can. I wonder if the nice people at Coach give anything in the way of 'hardship refunds'?

The loop

I am so far out of it when it comes to music these days, I don't have a clue...

However, I have just rediscovered an old favorite: Snow Patrol - and have since been listening to the track 'Run' for the past, oh, two hours. Yes, over and over again.
Anyone who has ever been in a car with me for an extended period of time can attest to my penchant for playing DJ in this worst possible way. Fortunately, most have indulged me. And equally lucky, Hamid loves the song as much as I do.

What else am I missing??

Distracted

I've been ogling myself lately...can't help it. Pregnancy does amazing things to the body.

Who'd have guessed

I was chatting on the phone the other day with a good friend who commented that it must all be kind of surreal to be back in the States all of a sudden, after so long, and wasn't it quite odd waking up in America...Arizona, no less. (She moved from Seattle to Texas a few years ago all of a sudden herself so knows something about this feeling of displacement.) I quickly denied any loss of equilibrium, and at the time really meant it. I didn't feel out of sorts of like I was in the 'wrong place'. But waking up today, somehow it's all very strange. I feel like we're on another planet. Is it a terrible thing to admit that I really do miss being 'elsewhere' and as anonymous as any westerner can ever be outside the borders of their own nation?

For all of my whinging about life in India or Nepal, or wherever - it somehow felt much less...boring...than the middle of nowhere Arizona. Sticking as best I can to my 'it's all for a reason' philosophy I'll keep my more negative observations to myself and just say that we are *so* much looking forward to cutting out of here in a few months. Still not sure where we'll plunk down next, I'm eyeing houses on the Washington coast as well as the eastern side of the state - nearer to my parents.

Hamid and my dad have bonded over my husband's new infatuation with gigantic RC airplanes. They're really beautiful, expensive toys and as they were all illegal in Iran have become a major focus of my beloved's spare time. My dad, ever so much cooler than he would appear to be, spends early Sunday mornings in the frigid desert air learning to navigate the Arizona skies with my husband.

They've just gone in together on an airplane with a pricetag that made me gasp. The joint purchase means we are, essentially, in league with my parents at least for the next couple of seasons. And, with the baby coming, that's just fine with me.