5.26.2006
Postscript
And wouldn't you know it—now that we've accepted an offer, three additional showings have already been scheduled. Last week we had a total of zero.

Mindfuckery!!!


5.25.2006
Things are falling into place
Months ago we were overwhelmed by all the changes we were facing and everything that needed to happen in a short period of time: selling a property, buying a property, moving, expecting a baby, finishing school, finding a new job, getting a second car, etc.

Doggedly, we pursued them all at once, and now we're in good shape. The only unfinished bit of business was the selling of the condo. Until very recently.

We received a modest offer. After countering twice, we weighed the pros and cons of their best and final and decided to accept it. The market is tanking. We could wait months for another offer. We don't want two mortgages. The buyer wants to close quickly.

Cross your fingers.


5.23.2006
Academically-challenged Simon met a pieman
The women in my family don’t kid around when it comes to baby showers, this I can tell you. Mine was on Sunday and it was awesome: a ginghamy, flowery, meatbally, nursery rhymey, pink lemonadey, oohy and aahy spectacle. 31 women representing four generations jammed into every downstairs room of my parents’ home. Friends and relatives mingling in weirdo combinations everywhere I looked. A room full of pastel-wrapped gifts. A hand-assembled four-tier diaper cake (non-edible). And six dozen pink cupcakes (edible!).

That kind of attention and love is overwhelming in a way that doesn’t really hit you until it’s over. While it’s going on you feel like you’re at any party, but then you realize it’s YOUR party, people have come from out of town to be there, and suddenly you’re flooded with attention that you can’t graciously handle and gratitude that you can’t adequately express. So you hug everybody and chat with as many people as you can, read every card and hold up every gift, and stuff piles up and you still can’t quite grasp that everyone there has chipped in to help cushion the next phase of your life.

So, I was extremely touched by people's generosity, and I’m very grateful to my mom, sister and aunts for their tireless planning and effort, and also to everybody who came, because I know showers are not usually people’s idea of a good time. You all who read this – thank you so much for being there and putting up with so many strangers and being stuffed into the family room like sardines for the 2-hour gift bonanza. I’ll remember it.

When the shower ended, men began arriving to eat leftover lasagna, meatballs, calzones, and sandwiches. We kept going into the family room and ogling at the volume of gifts. We sorted through everything and organized it into categories: clothes, blankets, keepsakes, bibs and burp cloths, bath accessories, socks, and functional items. We figured out how to collapse the stroller and lock and unlock the carseat. We opened the Boppy to feel how soft it was. Then we moved everything upstairs into my parents’ guest room, and we probably won’t see any of it again until we move…

…in three weeks. Moving at 36 weeks pregnant is a daunting thing, but we can pull it off with help. We’re going to start this weekend by throwing away junk, donating clothes and books, and filling the boxes we have from our last move. Fortunately we did a purge when we put the house on the market, so there isn’t a ton of excess crap, but we still own a lot of stuff. Should be fun. Be on the lookout for a packing party invite!


5.16.2006
A haiku to celebrate the nanosecond of sun
Bright light in the sky
Yellow burning through the gray
My retinas ache


5.15.2006
Where James at?!
While Saturday night has already been covered in high-larious detail by my dear friends, I’d like to make it known that the gathering was everything it promised to be. Sex in the 90s was resplendent with flannelly AIDS and bushy mullets and update segments featuring white satin wedding cowboy hats. Noshes and beverages ran the gamut from cabernet and crudités to ring pops and gummi worms. Conversation flowed freely and connections were made. We were well into our evening when Crazy Neighbor busted in all Kramer-like, sporting a trench over a blazer over a sweater topped by a neon orange baseball cap that said Jamaica on it. In his time with us, he wandered around marveling at the décor, recounted his dinner with a sketchy Sopranos-esque figure, told rambling tales about G. Gordon Liddy, reminded us several times that he oversees four mental health clinics and has 80 employees, tried to engage us in group therapy, told Red that each of us were people she would stay in touch with forever, and shared a green, leafy substance that turned my compatriots into zombies.

In depressing news, today marks our eighth consecutive day of rain. It’s nothing like the kind of records they set in Seattle, but it is annoying. Yesterday we were at my grandparents’ house for Mother’s Day and on the way home half the roads were closed. For fifteen minutes we drove around this random residential neighborhood, getting lost and encountering street lakes and DPW sawhorses at every turn. We had to backtrack into a town that has been on the news all weekend for the extent of its flooding just to get to the highway. And this morning Joe’s second interview had to be rescheduled (after he already trekked over there looking the picture of professionalism: wet trouser hems and a fleece jacket over his suit, toting a backpack full of schoolbooks) because the big shot he was supposed to meet with lives in the town on the news and was having flooding problems.

In other news, our downstairs neighbors had themselves a baby boy last week. We haven't seen him yet but I'm sure he'll be making his presence known soon enough. She was six weeks ahead of me, and there is only one other person that I know of between us, and she's having a scheduled C-section this Friday. Then there will be nobody. Then we start counting down. Once my appointments go from every two weeks to every week, that's when it will get really interesting.

Today was long and gray and boring. I had an offsite 2-hour meeting where I sat and felt the baby wiggle and hiccup. If not for that I might have fallen asleep.


5.08.2006
Plan this
Water sucks. I drink it dutifully, an average of 64 oz. daily, and have for years. While I enjoy the positive effects on my complexion and general well-being, I never enjoy drinking it. I just do it. I try to drink a liter between breakfast and lunch and another between lunch and 5:00 p.m. Any more I drink at home is bonus. Some days it goes easily, other days not so much. I miss Diet Pepsi, mocha lattes, wine.

The baby shower is coming up in two weeks. It's hosted by my sister, three of my aunts, and my mother and being held at my parents' house. It's not a suprise, so I've seen the invitation, decorations and paper goods and I have an idea of the menu. They are honoring my one request: cupcakes. My mom is constructing a cupcake tower using 3 cake plates of descending size. I was happy to pass my gestational diabetes screen so that I can enjoy them.

I visited my registeries and was very surprised to see that practically everything has been bought. Last week there was a lot left, so obviously people went shopping over the weekend. I sort of can't believe that people are buying things for our child, because the concepts of her actually being born and coming home with us are still ungraspable.

It's pretty ridiculous how close it's getting. It's at the point where people who were due before me have either had their babies or will any time. And since there are also people who are due after me, eventually it's going to BE me. I'm going to have to go through labor if I want this baby out. Agghh, scary shit. People have asked me what my plans are for the birth. Um, to get it out? The only thing I'm planning on is an epidural. Beyond that, the circumstances will dictate: if I have to be induced or get an episiostomy or have an emergency C-section, there isn't much I can do to plan around it. But as for a plan-plan, like homebirth, no-drugs birth, giving birth in a pool with dolphins, or vanity c-section with tummy tuck--none of that shit.


5.05.2006
Leather and Kleenex
Last Saturday afternoon, Joe and I were driving down Main St. and we happened upon the aftermath of a terrible motorcycle accident. Traffic was backed up and being redirected down a side street. There were several police cars, fire trucks and ambulances blocking the area. The bike was on its side in the middle of the street with debris scattered around. Dozens of people had come out to rubberneck.

On Monday I passed by the area and saw that a cross had been set up on the corner of the road, with flowers all around it. The only word I could make out on the cross was presumably a name: Falco. "Shit," I thought. "He didn't make it."

On Tuesday it rained all day. I noticed someone had taken the time to put up a tent over the cross and the flowers to protect them.

This morning traffic was backed up in front of the funeral home. A cop was in the street letting one lane go at a time. As ours crept through, I saw that the parking lot was packed. At least 30 motorcycles were parked in a row out front, standing sentinel, including a few from the Watertown and Waltham police departments. Bearded guys in Harley-Davidson gear were milling around the sidewalk, giving each other manly hugs.

It was beautiful, all those biker guys gathering to mourn their friend. No dark suits, no solemn sedans. The guy was clearly someone who had touched a lot of lives within his circle. I would have liked to sit at the back of the service and listen to the eulogy. Hope you're at peace, Falco.


5.04.2006
Pilfered uselessness
What is your name spelled backwards?
JgniylF

Have you ever licked a 9 volt battery?
Not yet, but I’m intrigued. If you were offering a 9 volt in one hand and an ice cream cone in the other, my tongue would have quite a dilemma.

What is the type of music you dislike the most?
Generic bullshit like Nickelback. And James Blunt.

How do people misspell your name?
Two Ls, one S.

How do people mispronounce your name?
They don’t. Although sometimes people on the phone mishear it as Martha. I correct them immediately and indignantly, as I would fairly die if someone thought my parents named me Martha.

What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
Any restaurant where they let you sit is OK by me, but The Hardcover is outstanding.

When was the last time you swam in a pool?
I think it was last summer, on the Cape.

Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving?
Not anymore. A few years ago I totally would’ve, but now all I can think of is the baby and what a foolish risk it would be.

Have you ever run away from home?
I threatened to once, but I was missing the point.
Me: I hate you! I’m running away!
Mom & Dad: That’s too bad. Where are you going to go?
Me: Brian’s!

In your family, are you the oldest, younger, or middle child?
I'm the oldest.

Has a bird ever pooped on your head?
Not on my head, but one got me on the leg of my shorts the first time I went to Long Island to meet Joe’s extended family. That was great.

Have you ever pulled an all nighter?
Once, yeah. Fall semester freshman year I had a paper due in my Sociological Statistics class. The whole thing was totally confusing to me – a paper? In math? I stayed up all night struggling to use this ridiculous software that came with the book, and I generated some bullshit tables, and wrote 5 pages of crap to support them, and I finished at 7:30 and my class was at 9:40 and I probably should have showered and gone to breakfast, but instead I lay in bed with a pounding headache and barely dragged myself to class. I got a D on the paper.

What's your favorite comic strip?
Foxtrot. Them’s funny.

Have you ever been in a beauty pageant?
Noooooooooooo.

Orange juice or apple?
Orange juice primarily. But cloudy apple juice is yummy when you’re in the mood.

Do you enjoy Nascar...watching cars go around and around a big track?
No. And while we’re being specific, NASCAR is an acronym.

Did you have braces, and were you self-conscious?
I never had braces, but I was self-conscious. They are mutually exclusive conditions.

Last time you ate a homegrown tomato?
Last summer. My friend grew cherry tomatoes in her yard and gave us some. Delish.

Favorite arcade game?
For me, there is only skee-ball.

Ever ordered from an infomercial?
I ordered the Pure Moods CD that way. I believe I was visiting friends at Northeastern, and that I was drunk. I’m glad I have it, though. It has “The Promise” by Michael Nyman, which I first heard on the Real World San Francisco (I didn’t find out until years later that it featured prominently in The Piano, kind of like Harvey Keitel’s penis) and have always thought was beautiful.

Have you ever had to wear a uniform to school/work?
Never a full uniform with polyester pants and a funny hat, but I did have to wear a teal blue vest when I worked at Walgreens, a black jacket with STAFF on the back when I worked at Bob’s Stores, and a red and white checked apron when I worked at Bath & Body Works.

Ever thrown up in public?
I horked at Canobie Lake Park once when I was a kid. Even in my drunkiest days, I don’t think I ever puked in front of people* or in a public place. Unless you guys remember something I don’t.
*Even on that horrible ride home from New Hampshire I had my head buried in a Hannaford bag.

Have you broken any bones?
Nope.

What message is on your voice mail?
Nothing fun. My best message was in college. Lionel Richie crooning, “Hello? Is it me you’re looking for? Beep.”

Would you change your last name if you became famous?
Unlikely.

Would you change your last name if you got married?
Yes. I thought it would be nice to go from an 11-letter last name that nobody could pronounce to a 5-letter one… which it turns out people still don’t know how to pronounce.

Do you consider yourself tolerant of others?
Yes, but not in all circumstances. I have all the sympathy in the world when something unexpectedly bad comes into the life of a person who makes smart choices and does the right thing, but when people willingly or consciously put themselves in situations that are avoidable or stupid, I don’t.

Do you consider love a mistake?
Not at all.

What kind of backpack do you have, and what's in it?
I don’t. I haven’t had a backpack since high school.

Do you have an alias?
Nope. FlyingJ 5-Letter Last Name is on my driver’s license.

Do you have a recurring dream?
I used to have tons of dreams about trains and train tunnels. Not so much anymore.

Are you easygoing or overbearing?
I am either, depending on what you are.

Are you disciplined or lazy?
I can be disciplined in spurts or about certain things, but lazy is the norm.

Are you generally happy or sad?
Generally happy... but those pregnancy hormones love to fuck with you.

What were you like as a kid? Are you still like that now?
I was a smarty-pants know-it-all tomboy with no use for a girly little sister. I’m no longer a tomboy and I love my sister, but I’m still a smarty-pants know-it-all.

Would you rather have guys or girls as friends?
I have mostly girls as friends, and the guys I’m friends with are either Joe’s friends or my friends’ significant others. So, both, but I seem to only be good at befriending girls.

What movie will you defend to the death, despite its unpopularity?
Star Wars. Just give it a chance!

What movie does everyone love but you hated?
The Matrix

Have you ever had to fuck stuff up for no good reason?
Sometimes you have no alternative.

Anything else to say?
Since the transportation industry is never going to give us more leg room, I’d just prefer that airplane and bus seats not recline. I like to cross my legs. I don’t need to sit at an obtuse angle. I don’t enjoy a random guy’s dandruffy head in my lap. That is all.


5.01.2006
Cat Ballou
My sister brought home her new kitten, Baloo, on Friday. 8 weeks old, black with white mittens, blue eyes, totally adorable. He plays rambunctiously for hours and then falls asleep in your arms, giving a single meow whenever you shift or disturb him. He play-bites hands and fingers when he wakes up. He climbs the couch, the recliner, the curtains. He steps all over the laptop keyboard. He's fascinated by the ceiling fan in her kitchen.

I LOVE him. We all do, even my dad, who doesn't care for animals and always balked at pets larger or more involved than a guinea pig. We keep track of where he is at every second, are amused by each of his movements and expressions, and take turns holding him.

It definiitely feels like practice for when the baby comes. Just ten more weeks.


footer