I am standing in a CVS in Boston with my brother buying junk food and pre-natal vitamins when a magazine cover catches my eye. It is a photo of the young actress Scarlett Johansen, who I like because she chooses good roles and plays them with depth. The headline says that Cameron Diaz’s boyfriend has left her and he has hooked up with Johansen instead. It describes Johansen as Diaz’s enemy, which certainly juices up the story. Since I do not follow Hollywood gossip, I have no idea if this is remotely true or has even been long-rumored. What catches me off guard is the idea of Johansen, whose character I imagine to be sweet and down to earth, with an enemy. It occurs to me that part of the reason I like Johansen is that I feel a kinship with her; I picture her as a beautiful, actress version of myself: smart, funny, buxom, unafraid to embrace her inner dork. This impression is based on flimsy information gathered mostly from the characters she’s played in movies, and yet it moves me to think: Scarlett Johansen has an enemy and I do, too.
This is the first time in my life I have had an enemy and I find it hard to get used to the idea. This is also the first time in my life I have ever disliked a person so much. I will not say I hate her, because hate is a word filled with a high level of anger I do not posses. Stunned would much better describe how I feel. I am both stunned by my feelings of dislike and by my own actions. The actions that lead this person to become my enemy were predicated not on my dislike, but almost wholly on my fear and a sense of survivalism. As in, if I didn’t act, I feared this person would hurt me far worse than I was hurting her. In the end, I may have been wrong about that, because we both ended up getting burned, but I do feel sure I was right to fear her, that she is a bad person, that she wanted my destruction far more than I wanted hers, that she would have stopped at nothing to get it, and that she had better means to do so than did I. All of these things are what make me dislike her so much. It is a ridiculous revelation for me each time I realize how much she must hate me back.
In my dream last night, my enemy tried to trick me, but I didn’t see the ruse until I woke up in the morning. Our devolution from friends to enemies was always predicated on her trying to help me. I am not a cynical person, and I always believe people are who they say they are, offer what they mean to offer, are as honest as me. It never occurs to me that people I trust - and I trust almost everyone - are out to hurt me, have ulterior motives, or mean anything other than the good they profess. My grandfather always says not to trust anyone an inch, but since he also focuses on bitter family feuds that took place more than half a century ago, I have always laughed at him. Now I wish I had listened.
Before I tell the dream, here is a case in point, a very small point, which, by its very smallness shows how endemic is this enemy’s insidiousness. Before I told this person I was pregnant, she was constantly showing me photos of her cousin, who was about to give birth. She asked me how big pregnant women were supposed to grow, since her cousin had gone from skinny to huge, and a number of other pregnancy-related questions, none of which I knew the answers to, because I was so newly pregnant myself. I was always afraid of answering her questions because I was afraid she would find out I was pregnant before I wanted to tell her, which could have had very bad consequences for me, but it never occurred to me that she actually suspected I was pregnant and was trying nearly every day to get me to admit it so that she could use that information against me. After the incidents that made me her enemy occurred, a friend pointed out that that had been exactly her intent all along. I felt so stupid for not having noticed or even suspected. I thought this person would be able to see beyond politics and be at least a little happy for me and the new family I was starting. I was so naïve.
In my dream, I was naïve again, and it felt like relief. My enemy was suddenly in the picture and was talking to me normally. She was going about work in her usual way, giving me too much information and extolling her accomplishments. She told me she had a job working for the business desk of the Philadelphia Inquirer and she’d brought a number of people from our old situation with her, mostly students and cloying underlings. She says she knows we’ve had our differences, but says I should talk to her new boss, explain that I’m with her, and he will give me writing assignments. I am glad for the openness, but not sure I want the assignments. In addition, her boyfriend is there and he is following me suspiciously. He is a nice guy and I hope that in real life he won’t be hurt by her. In the dream, my enemy is telling me how our new life together will go, the only detail of which I remember is that I am supposed to move in with her. I do not want to do that because her place is a mess, full of shoes and clothes, and because I do not like the way she is laying out the future. She is not order me around outright, but assumes I will do what she says. I begin to have the vague notion that if I do what she wants now, I will be doing what she wants forever. Then there is the impression of someone else, and I remember that I am married. Larry certainly can’t move here with me. I tell her quietly thanks but no thanks, that I have another writing assignment from another desk at the paper -- which is true in real life -- and that it was nice of her to think of me. Then I walk out of the room and out of the dream calmly, as she stares resentfully after me. I wake up feeling even more relieved.
If this situation doesn’t represent plotwise what happened between us in real life, it certainly represents it symbolically. I trusted her instead of myself and when I finally realized how dangerous she is, I was honest to a fault and left. In life, the situation was much more dramatic and full of gray areas, but it felt the same. I beat myself up daily for the real life situation, like a soldier who survived war but had to kill men. In both the dream and real life, ridding my enemy from my life is still the source of my greatest relief. I am so thankful, even as I sort through the emotional, financial, and bureaucratic debris of the fallout, that I do not have to deliver my baby with the black cloud of my enemy in my life. The fact that the pale memory of her will always be with me is like a battle wound. Luckily, having wounds means you’ve survived the battle.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Wordsmith
To grow up Jewish is to grow up in awe of words. Had I grown up Catholic, I believe I would have become a painter, a mosaicist, or a jewelry maker. I remember seeing the Vatican in Rome and the Sisteen Chapel and thinking, Oh, I get it, this is what makes people believe in God. I did not grow up Catholic, nor did I grow up to believe in God in any traditional sense. I grew up to believe in words.
I remember in college, I would dream in typewriter. That is, as I thought the thoughts that lead me into sleep or those that woke me from it, I often saw them typed out, each letter hit on an imaginary keyboard in my head.
Now I make my living with words, weaving them into stories and eliciting them from people whose stories are locked deep within them. One of my greatest feelings of accomplishment at my present job came after I finished interviewing a man who has lived for decades with full blown AIDS. This man is a motivational speaker for a local AIDS group, so he's comfortable talking about hard subjects, including the details of his own disease, but usually he speaks as an educator, divulging his status simply to make a point. During our interview, we talked about his life, his lovers, his drugs (his prescription drugs, that is), and his struggles. We went into deep detail and the detail was fascinating to me (and hopefully later to the website's listeners, as well). Afterwards, the man thanked me for my questions and I felt wonderful. He was so happy to tell this much more personal story and we both agreed it would make a difference to whoever heard it.
Though I no longer dream in typewriter, I do often still dream in words. Sometimes, I wake up and can barely describe the colors and voices and smells of my dreams. The plot is completely tangled. But often there is one word or a feeling of a word that sticks with me, makes me see the waking world differently.
My writing guru, Mary, has explained that in stories dialogue is action. That words can be considered action is so revolutionary to me. Recently, I heard a lawyer who is also a novelist interviewed on a radio show. He related how his law school professor told the class that the law, after all, is only a collection of words. This stunned the man, because in his mind, the law is so powerful. But, of course, these are words that describe actions, and, more to the point, words are powerful. So, words = law = power or law = words = power.
As Chanukah approaches, I think of the story of the Maccabees, their war, their miraculous oil, the lesson that we are all vessels, empty oil jugs, and that God - however we conceive him - is here to fill us, to light our flames. As a kid, I used to wonder how much of these fairy tales could be true (I was a rather cynical kid). Now I realize it doesn't matter. It is the words that fill us with light against these short days and long, dark nights.
I remember in college, I would dream in typewriter. That is, as I thought the thoughts that lead me into sleep or those that woke me from it, I often saw them typed out, each letter hit on an imaginary keyboard in my head.
Now I make my living with words, weaving them into stories and eliciting them from people whose stories are locked deep within them. One of my greatest feelings of accomplishment at my present job came after I finished interviewing a man who has lived for decades with full blown AIDS. This man is a motivational speaker for a local AIDS group, so he's comfortable talking about hard subjects, including the details of his own disease, but usually he speaks as an educator, divulging his status simply to make a point. During our interview, we talked about his life, his lovers, his drugs (his prescription drugs, that is), and his struggles. We went into deep detail and the detail was fascinating to me (and hopefully later to the website's listeners, as well). Afterwards, the man thanked me for my questions and I felt wonderful. He was so happy to tell this much more personal story and we both agreed it would make a difference to whoever heard it.
Though I no longer dream in typewriter, I do often still dream in words. Sometimes, I wake up and can barely describe the colors and voices and smells of my dreams. The plot is completely tangled. But often there is one word or a feeling of a word that sticks with me, makes me see the waking world differently.
My writing guru, Mary, has explained that in stories dialogue is action. That words can be considered action is so revolutionary to me. Recently, I heard a lawyer who is also a novelist interviewed on a radio show. He related how his law school professor told the class that the law, after all, is only a collection of words. This stunned the man, because in his mind, the law is so powerful. But, of course, these are words that describe actions, and, more to the point, words are powerful. So, words = law = power or law = words = power.
As Chanukah approaches, I think of the story of the Maccabees, their war, their miraculous oil, the lesson that we are all vessels, empty oil jugs, and that God - however we conceive him - is here to fill us, to light our flames. As a kid, I used to wonder how much of these fairy tales could be true (I was a rather cynical kid). Now I realize it doesn't matter. It is the words that fill us with light against these short days and long, dark nights.
Poor Nutrition
Today I ate French fries and shared an ice-cream topped blondie. My poor baby is going to come out a junk food junkie. And I will be fat fat fat.
Rainy Winter Dreams
Since this is a dream blog, let's interpret loosely. Larry's dream is to own his own cafe. On rainy nights like these, when I picture this family that's coming and he's sick and sleeping in sweat and my heart just goes out to him and i can't stop hugging him, my solace is this vision in my mind of me and him in this cozy winter scene. We're behind the counter and the cafe is filled with people and a dog (our dog, the one we'll have someday) is lying in front of the fireplace on the frayed oriental rug. Larry hands me the baby as I ring someone up. He's busy making one of his signature sandwiches and cutting the cucumbers for the side salad just so - he's such a perfectionist. The Old 97s play low in the background. Everyone is reading or typing or chatting and sipping tea and lattes and eating yummy baked goods and everyone is happy to be in our safe little nest.
Dylan Sawyer Howe
Dylan: D for David after Larry's dad, who passed away when he was in college. It's controversial in his family because one of his sisters has major issues with their dad. I think it will mean a lot to his mom, brother, and other sister's though, even though they, as all children and widows, have their own issues with him.
This is what I know about Larry's father. He took cake decorating classes. He was absent minded. He lost his job with the state when he blew the whistle on corrupt managers. He lived his life in the shadow of his father - a grad of the University of Pennsylvania who started his own accounting firm and made lots of money. He loved sports. He had a desk job in the army, which he left with honors. He loved to sing while he did the dishes and would wear an apron. He had six kids, one of whom died as a little boy, one of whom suffered from childhood diabetes, and one of whom was so badly burnt as a little girl that she never really recovered. He was not open about his emotions. He was super-involved with his church and helped to start a vibrant community in their brand new parish. He suffered from depression. His widow never has one bad thing to say about him. He worked two jobs most of his life, including a candy store that never really made it. Larry's favorite memory of him is staying overnight with him in a state barracks on Penn's Landing. They had the whole place to themselves and they played the most amazing, echoing game of catch with a rubber Spalding ball.
I want Dylan to have David's senses of play, of generosity, of honesty, of accepting loss, of community, of pitching in, and of morality. I also want him to have David's legendary sweetness and good looks.
Dylan is also Bob Dylan, Dylan Thomas, cowboy boot wearing, dust-trudging, poetry reading, quietly singing, a little bit shy with a very sweet smile. A guy who makes all the girls crazy without having to try, who loves rivers and mountains and dogs and fires and mission furniture and wrapping gifts and keeps all his crayons in order by color and intensity.
Sawyer: S is for Sarah, my grandmother, who lived well into a tortured old age and was known as a difficult woman until the end. My grandmother was not a pretty woman, with a big nose and a sallow complexion, but then again, I don't think she ever cared very much for looks. She was known to be slightly off in her hometown, a little shtetl in Poland. The details of her life are fuzzy because she wanted them that way, but the timeline goes something like this:
She came to America, to Chicago, as a teenager on her grandmother's dime in hopes of going to school and making lots of money. Her grandmother, though, wanted her to help keep house, and so Sarah left, went to business school (I would guess an associates degree) and married a man. That's all I know about him, that he was some man somewhere in the mid-west. That didn't last (something about a mother-in-law?) and she left him and went to nursing school (another associates degree? She only ever worked as a nurse's aid). Somehow she ended up in New York and when the Holocaust ended, she found out most of the people in her town had died. My grandfather was on the list of survivors. Thinking he was in fact his older brother, she contacted him in Palestine and said, hey, we're from the same town and we're both alive, let's get married. He agreed and they were married in New York with no pomp and little circumstance. He wanted to live in Israel and she said, as soon as the baby's born, but then my mother was born and she wanted to stay in New York and make money. They owned a nursing home and real estate and she worked as an aid in people's homes. My grandfather never called her anything but Mrs. Strenger and she had several boyfriends on the side. They made a lot of money and moved to New Jersey.
So what could I want my child to inherit from such a cold, calculating woman? Her strength, of course, and her shrewdness, her sense of entitlement and the ethic of hard work she coupled with thriftiness. In her own way, too, she was loving. She never stole or cheated or shortchanged to make her money, but she was exacting, demanding, and stood her ground always. She knew who she was and she made her dreams come true.
This is what I remember of my grandmother. She never gave us presents but put all her money into trust accounts for me, my brother, and sister. She ate directly out of pots kept in the refrigerator. She drank borcht out of jelly glasses. She had the smoothest skin of anyone I've ever touched because she used Nivea cream obsessively. She gave me a jar of anti-wrinkle cream the day I turned 21. She wanted my mother and then me to be a lawyer. Once, when she was very old, I came to her house unannounced. She was wearing a horrible green sweater, a turban, a nightgown wrapped around her neck - as was her custom - and nothing on her lower half. She was dusting something and singing in Polish. She was very happy to see me. When we were kids, my mother used to take us to her house deep in the Pine Barrens - or so it seemed to us then - to swim in our underwear in the kiddie pool and swing on the hammock she kept in her sandy backyard through which deer foraged and which always smelled of pine. Once, we pulled up and she was standing by the side of the house completely naked, bent over a garden hose, which she was using to wash her enormous, hanging breasts. She waved to us, smiling. She used to call us Shenkshicks, Shinebudgela, Shinechuchela and kiss us with her sunken in mouth, staring out at us from beneath her thick, rose-tinted, cat's eye glasses. She loved turqoise. She always watched her weight. She had terrible arthritis. She called things a "dois" when she couldn't remember the right name. She once told me her kindly neighbor, a farmer who raised hounds and cranberries, was rooting through her trash and calling her on the phone to harrass her - sexually. She told my mother that's why she was continually changing her phone number. The phone company told my mother they would cut her off if she tried to change her phone number one more time. Once, on a New York subway in the dangerous early 80's, en route to visit an accountant and carrying a paper bag full of cash, she loudly said to my father, There sure are a lot of Hispaniolas on this train. Another time, apropos of nothing, she asked my mother - who she once accused of being a member of a girl gang in her mid-30's - How 'bout that Gorby? Her favorite store was Clover because they made the softest nightgowns to wrap around her neck. She loved a sitz bath.
Sawyer means woodcutter. I love the idea of my child having a name connected to nature and the outdoors. I want him to be healthy and wild and filled with the language and scent and sound and solitude of the forest. Very zen, no? Strength and gentleness, genrosity and self-reliance, survivalism and drive. He has a very big name to grow into.
And Howe: Howe is Larry's name and I love him for too many reasonson to list. And that is enough.
posted by Fictionchick @ 10:43 AM 0 comments links to this post
Gray morning, bloodshot eyes, mushroom hair. Sometimes the routines of the day seem like such a hassle. Every time I floss my teeth, they bleed - pregnancy. Instead, I dream of Cuba, Brazil, Naples. I have always believed I was meant for a hotter climate, for hot blood, for tiny bathing suits, a life of fresh fruit, salty air, crisply fried fish, lemons all around me. Philadelphia is so even, so calculated, as is my life within in, doled out like the city blocks, each a tenth of a mile, separated by squares. My life is bills, work, exercise, television, dinner, regimented social activity.
I need to dance more, to throw my hips toward the walls, to unscrew all the clenched inside parts of me. Does passion die at 29? Do I live inside my library books? Is it because I read the newspaper and the New Yorker instead of poetry now?
The other day I dreamed I was Vincent D'Onofrio, saving a little girl given the evil eye by a Santaria, who appeared in scratchy black and white (the rest of the dream was in color) covered by a cowl, a henchwoman of Darth Vadar. I can't tell my own life from TV anymore.
The sky is my favorite this morning, a blanket of clouds cut in regular patterns by the sun, small pillows of bluish gray, each surrounded by a mystical gold. I have to go and take the trash out.
This is what I know about Larry's father. He took cake decorating classes. He was absent minded. He lost his job with the state when he blew the whistle on corrupt managers. He lived his life in the shadow of his father - a grad of the University of Pennsylvania who started his own accounting firm and made lots of money. He loved sports. He had a desk job in the army, which he left with honors. He loved to sing while he did the dishes and would wear an apron. He had six kids, one of whom died as a little boy, one of whom suffered from childhood diabetes, and one of whom was so badly burnt as a little girl that she never really recovered. He was not open about his emotions. He was super-involved with his church and helped to start a vibrant community in their brand new parish. He suffered from depression. His widow never has one bad thing to say about him. He worked two jobs most of his life, including a candy store that never really made it. Larry's favorite memory of him is staying overnight with him in a state barracks on Penn's Landing. They had the whole place to themselves and they played the most amazing, echoing game of catch with a rubber Spalding ball.
I want Dylan to have David's senses of play, of generosity, of honesty, of accepting loss, of community, of pitching in, and of morality. I also want him to have David's legendary sweetness and good looks.
Dylan is also Bob Dylan, Dylan Thomas, cowboy boot wearing, dust-trudging, poetry reading, quietly singing, a little bit shy with a very sweet smile. A guy who makes all the girls crazy without having to try, who loves rivers and mountains and dogs and fires and mission furniture and wrapping gifts and keeps all his crayons in order by color and intensity.
Sawyer: S is for Sarah, my grandmother, who lived well into a tortured old age and was known as a difficult woman until the end. My grandmother was not a pretty woman, with a big nose and a sallow complexion, but then again, I don't think she ever cared very much for looks. She was known to be slightly off in her hometown, a little shtetl in Poland. The details of her life are fuzzy because she wanted them that way, but the timeline goes something like this:
She came to America, to Chicago, as a teenager on her grandmother's dime in hopes of going to school and making lots of money. Her grandmother, though, wanted her to help keep house, and so Sarah left, went to business school (I would guess an associates degree) and married a man. That's all I know about him, that he was some man somewhere in the mid-west. That didn't last (something about a mother-in-law?) and she left him and went to nursing school (another associates degree? She only ever worked as a nurse's aid). Somehow she ended up in New York and when the Holocaust ended, she found out most of the people in her town had died. My grandfather was on the list of survivors. Thinking he was in fact his older brother, she contacted him in Palestine and said, hey, we're from the same town and we're both alive, let's get married. He agreed and they were married in New York with no pomp and little circumstance. He wanted to live in Israel and she said, as soon as the baby's born, but then my mother was born and she wanted to stay in New York and make money. They owned a nursing home and real estate and she worked as an aid in people's homes. My grandfather never called her anything but Mrs. Strenger and she had several boyfriends on the side. They made a lot of money and moved to New Jersey.
So what could I want my child to inherit from such a cold, calculating woman? Her strength, of course, and her shrewdness, her sense of entitlement and the ethic of hard work she coupled with thriftiness. In her own way, too, she was loving. She never stole or cheated or shortchanged to make her money, but she was exacting, demanding, and stood her ground always. She knew who she was and she made her dreams come true.
This is what I remember of my grandmother. She never gave us presents but put all her money into trust accounts for me, my brother, and sister. She ate directly out of pots kept in the refrigerator. She drank borcht out of jelly glasses. She had the smoothest skin of anyone I've ever touched because she used Nivea cream obsessively. She gave me a jar of anti-wrinkle cream the day I turned 21. She wanted my mother and then me to be a lawyer. Once, when she was very old, I came to her house unannounced. She was wearing a horrible green sweater, a turban, a nightgown wrapped around her neck - as was her custom - and nothing on her lower half. She was dusting something and singing in Polish. She was very happy to see me. When we were kids, my mother used to take us to her house deep in the Pine Barrens - or so it seemed to us then - to swim in our underwear in the kiddie pool and swing on the hammock she kept in her sandy backyard through which deer foraged and which always smelled of pine. Once, we pulled up and she was standing by the side of the house completely naked, bent over a garden hose, which she was using to wash her enormous, hanging breasts. She waved to us, smiling. She used to call us Shenkshicks, Shinebudgela, Shinechuchela and kiss us with her sunken in mouth, staring out at us from beneath her thick, rose-tinted, cat's eye glasses. She loved turqoise. She always watched her weight. She had terrible arthritis. She called things a "dois" when she couldn't remember the right name. She once told me her kindly neighbor, a farmer who raised hounds and cranberries, was rooting through her trash and calling her on the phone to harrass her - sexually. She told my mother that's why she was continually changing her phone number. The phone company told my mother they would cut her off if she tried to change her phone number one more time. Once, on a New York subway in the dangerous early 80's, en route to visit an accountant and carrying a paper bag full of cash, she loudly said to my father, There sure are a lot of Hispaniolas on this train. Another time, apropos of nothing, she asked my mother - who she once accused of being a member of a girl gang in her mid-30's - How 'bout that Gorby? Her favorite store was Clover because they made the softest nightgowns to wrap around her neck. She loved a sitz bath.
Sawyer means woodcutter. I love the idea of my child having a name connected to nature and the outdoors. I want him to be healthy and wild and filled with the language and scent and sound and solitude of the forest. Very zen, no? Strength and gentleness, genrosity and self-reliance, survivalism and drive. He has a very big name to grow into.
And Howe: Howe is Larry's name and I love him for too many reasonson to list. And that is enough.
posted by Fictionchick @ 10:43 AM 0 comments links to this post
Gray morning, bloodshot eyes, mushroom hair. Sometimes the routines of the day seem like such a hassle. Every time I floss my teeth, they bleed - pregnancy. Instead, I dream of Cuba, Brazil, Naples. I have always believed I was meant for a hotter climate, for hot blood, for tiny bathing suits, a life of fresh fruit, salty air, crisply fried fish, lemons all around me. Philadelphia is so even, so calculated, as is my life within in, doled out like the city blocks, each a tenth of a mile, separated by squares. My life is bills, work, exercise, television, dinner, regimented social activity.
I need to dance more, to throw my hips toward the walls, to unscrew all the clenched inside parts of me. Does passion die at 29? Do I live inside my library books? Is it because I read the newspaper and the New Yorker instead of poetry now?
The other day I dreamed I was Vincent D'Onofrio, saving a little girl given the evil eye by a Santaria, who appeared in scratchy black and white (the rest of the dream was in color) covered by a cowl, a henchwoman of Darth Vadar. I can't tell my own life from TV anymore.
The sky is my favorite this morning, a blanket of clouds cut in regular patterns by the sun, small pillows of bluish gray, each surrounded by a mystical gold. I have to go and take the trash out.
List Mani
So, to continue with the dream theme, I don't know what I dreamed last night, but I know I woke up feeling amazingly positive once again. Even got to work on time - major accomplishment: I was the first one in. I spent the weekend writing (new story, almost done) and also spray painting a crib for the little octopus swimming ungainily inside me. Aside from the bruise on my trigger finger (yo! Spray painting is hard work.) I think it's coming along really well.
It's really amazing how great I feel when I get things crossed off my to do list. Larry thinks I'm nuts (actually, Larry generally thinks I'm nuts) because I feel so releived when it's all done, but come on, we just this weekend went to pick out a door for Marley's bedroom. The kid hasn't had a door on his room for over a year now. He's 10 and very shy. When we were in Home Depot, he wanted to know if he could have a lock on the door. I think he's really looking forward to being able to change his underwear without having to worry who's on their way up the steps to use the bathroom (which is right next to his room and gives a great view all the way in).
Of course, I also feel really good right now, I think, because of the second trimester euphoria. All those books and predictors are so accurate that I sometimes feel like a case study. Pregnancy brain, check. Humungo boobs (that just keep growing!), check. Unreasonable happiness, check. I didn't think I was depressed during my first trimester, just a little emotional (double check!), but now I realize I must have been. Now I see the world in a totally different light and all the things that seemed impossible 6 weeks ago now seem imminently do-able. Like getting an MFA even though we're just about to have a baby and it would definily mean not being able to work full time. In fact, not working full time suddenly seems possible, too, even though my credit card bill takes up my ENTIRE monthly salary right now (of course, it the credit card I share with Larry, so it's like it takes half my salary - ok, no justification is going to work here, so I'll just stop). Anyway, eating well, budgeting, planning for a happy future - I think it might work out. Now, just add those to my refrigerator list ...
It's really amazing how great I feel when I get things crossed off my to do list. Larry thinks I'm nuts (actually, Larry generally thinks I'm nuts) because I feel so releived when it's all done, but come on, we just this weekend went to pick out a door for Marley's bedroom. The kid hasn't had a door on his room for over a year now. He's 10 and very shy. When we were in Home Depot, he wanted to know if he could have a lock on the door. I think he's really looking forward to being able to change his underwear without having to worry who's on their way up the steps to use the bathroom (which is right next to his room and gives a great view all the way in).
Of course, I also feel really good right now, I think, because of the second trimester euphoria. All those books and predictors are so accurate that I sometimes feel like a case study. Pregnancy brain, check. Humungo boobs (that just keep growing!), check. Unreasonable happiness, check. I didn't think I was depressed during my first trimester, just a little emotional (double check!), but now I realize I must have been. Now I see the world in a totally different light and all the things that seemed impossible 6 weeks ago now seem imminently do-able. Like getting an MFA even though we're just about to have a baby and it would definily mean not being able to work full time. In fact, not working full time suddenly seems possible, too, even though my credit card bill takes up my ENTIRE monthly salary right now (of course, it the credit card I share with Larry, so it's like it takes half my salary - ok, no justification is going to work here, so I'll just stop). Anyway, eating well, budgeting, planning for a happy future - I think it might work out. Now, just add those to my refrigerator list ...
Swimming with Dolphins
Ok, I finally got a blog. Whoo hoo, about time. So what's with the dolphins? Reminds me of some lady on Clean House who won't give up her collection of glass marine figurines. But actually, it comes from a dream I had a few nights ago.
Actually, last night, I had - yes Larry - one of my usual, horrible dreams. I dreamed we barbequed our cats. God, don't even ask why, but I suddenly realized what was going on and I ran back to rescue them - they looked so peaceful curled up on the grill, like they were near a big, cozy fire - but it was too late. Some annoying man was eating Magic's tail and said it tasted like a cheese doodle. So I took a bite and then threw up.
That would be a typical dream, the kind that leaves me shaking with dread for the day when I wake up, the kind that brings me to a sea of wakefullness frought with half-solutions to impossible problems. This morning, I woke up kicking the covers and contemplating how to bring Larry's sister Nancy back into our lives. I keep thinking I can show up to her house with my big belly and tell her all about the little neice or nephew she should be expecting in March and she'll come back to us. But I know I won't go through with it and even if I did, she probably wouldn't come running back to the family fold.
But Sunday night, I dreamed I was working for the Philadelphia Inquirer as a lowly copyeditor. In real life, they're all about to go on strike and in my dream that lead to huge layoffs. I was somehow elevated to a full reporter and asked if I would take on the now vacant Paris beat, to go live there for a year just as soon as I felt comfortable travelling with my new baby. Larry, who loves Paris, was ecstatic and so I went for a short trial visit, to find an aprartment, meet colleagues, etc.
Except when I got there - this is a dream after all - Paris wasn't just beautiful buildings and romantic rivers, it was also like Tahiti, on a tropical beach and Sarah was out swimming with the dolphins. She was riding one and the others were swmming all around her and she wanted me to come out with her. I was walking toward the water and that's the last thing I remember, except this feeling of absolute freedom, of safety and and of soft, calming, crystalline beauty. It was the smell of turkey cooking for a holiday, of Larry's arms around me, of laughing so hard my belly hurts. And I woke up and carried that sense of hope throughout the day.
Actually, last night, I had - yes Larry - one of my usual, horrible dreams. I dreamed we barbequed our cats. God, don't even ask why, but I suddenly realized what was going on and I ran back to rescue them - they looked so peaceful curled up on the grill, like they were near a big, cozy fire - but it was too late. Some annoying man was eating Magic's tail and said it tasted like a cheese doodle. So I took a bite and then threw up.
That would be a typical dream, the kind that leaves me shaking with dread for the day when I wake up, the kind that brings me to a sea of wakefullness frought with half-solutions to impossible problems. This morning, I woke up kicking the covers and contemplating how to bring Larry's sister Nancy back into our lives. I keep thinking I can show up to her house with my big belly and tell her all about the little neice or nephew she should be expecting in March and she'll come back to us. But I know I won't go through with it and even if I did, she probably wouldn't come running back to the family fold.
But Sunday night, I dreamed I was working for the Philadelphia Inquirer as a lowly copyeditor. In real life, they're all about to go on strike and in my dream that lead to huge layoffs. I was somehow elevated to a full reporter and asked if I would take on the now vacant Paris beat, to go live there for a year just as soon as I felt comfortable travelling with my new baby. Larry, who loves Paris, was ecstatic and so I went for a short trial visit, to find an aprartment, meet colleagues, etc.
Except when I got there - this is a dream after all - Paris wasn't just beautiful buildings and romantic rivers, it was also like Tahiti, on a tropical beach and Sarah was out swimming with the dolphins. She was riding one and the others were swmming all around her and she wanted me to come out with her. I was walking toward the water and that's the last thing I remember, except this feeling of absolute freedom, of safety and and of soft, calming, crystalline beauty. It was the smell of turkey cooking for a holiday, of Larry's arms around me, of laughing so hard my belly hurts. And I woke up and carried that sense of hope throughout the day.
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