Indulge me, dears

I know you could all see this shit coming. The dreaded "why-2008-sucked-profoundly" post.

So I'll reduce the suckitude to bullet points:

• Jan: Buried our good friend who died tragically in bizarre accident, then buried our beloved little cat who died from mysterious illness;
• Feb: Car died, rode Clomid dragon;
  
• March: Surgery!
  
• April: Learned dad had cancer;
• May: Covered in dreadful, painful, scarring welts thanks to allergy;
• June: Lymph Node of Doom attacks, causes suffering, retreats;
• July: Cycle of Woe starts. Feel bizarre, but otherwise, a banner month, comparatively speaking;
• August: Ectopic terror;
• September: Shinejil goes anemic and/or insane, dh gets crazy anxiety attacks and requires sedation;
• October: Hey! Nothing that terrible happened. Well, one out of 12 ain't bad.
  
• November: Sprained ankle right when work required heavy lifting and right before big trip east;
• December: Stepped on rusty nail!

Now, there are still 12 hours left of 2008. I'm planning to be very careful crossing the street, using cutlery, lighting matches, etc., but I think the bitch has done her best. And I'm still standing.

Oddly enough, I've been feeling very happy lately. Perhaps it's because my guy and I are going to start seriously looking for our farm. Perhaps it's because I've embraced this wacky little town as my home for life. Perhaps it's because my academic mojo is returning and I feel excited about writing and researching and teaching for the first time in months. Perhaps because no matter what, my relationship with my man has only deepened this past year, and my ability to find and appreciate joy has expanded. Perhaps it was the realization that all of this is truly outside my control, that I'm doing all I can and if that in the end winds up being insufficient, there's absolutely nothing I can do.

This is liberating. I used to think IF was my fault, and that if in some deep place I could untie the Gordian knot, I'd be free and fertile. I'm grateful I don't feel that way anymore.

Here's to a wonderful 2009!

The Best Birthday Ever

I hate my birthday usually. It comes the day after Christmas and always feels like an afterthought, or like the afterparty that drags on way too long after all the umph has gone out of the evening.

But every once in a rare while, the day surprises me. I expected to feel somewhat depressed--if only deep down in the depths of my soul--that I was turning 34, with all that means and in the context of all that's happened. One year closer to the fertility Styx of 35. One more year of failure and loss.

Fortunately, that's not what happened. It was unseasonably mild, so my husband and I went for a long walk down country roads near my folks' farm, up an old eroded lane that passes huge mossy boulders and (with the wet year they've had) rushing streams, up to a beautiful, cedar-lined road running along a high ridge. You can see for at least ten miles up there.

When we got home, we had Mexican-esque food. You know, the tortillas and beans and guac of the Midwest. Then I unwrapped my presents, to discover my folks had gotten us a night at this 150-year-old log cabin up the road, way back in the woods.

So my guy and I had a lovely night together, after the family came over to poke around the lovely little place, eat ice cream, drink champagne, and light hurricane lamps. There was a jacuzzi, and reading by candlelight, and a warm morning filled with the squawking of wild turkeys.

Here's to a better year ahead.

The Bear Strikes Back

As in my husband, the bear of a man, fighting for his festive rights and making his boss feel like shit for not accepting his solution (he found a co-worker willing to take his shifts). The boss didn't like it for some reason--oh, could it be he's a control freak with the emotional age of seven?--but agreed to it, to avoid being such a complete and utter ass that he would lose all employee respect.

So we get to spend the weekend after Christmas together after all.

Christmasjacked

Ah, 2008! Such a sack-o'-shit year! You just can't ease on out without one final burst of bad luck.

Our plan for the holiday was a modest, quiet one: Go visit my folks on the farm and spend a couple days relaxing in the country. Shoot some shotguns. Go on long walks. Eat yummy food. Have some fine bubbly. Celebrate my birthday.

But then, my sister-in-law--whom I like, don't get me wrong--decided she wanted to come visit for the holidays, and that also included a trip to the farm. Which meant my mom-in-law--whom I like, don't get me wrong--was also coming along. So our quiet Christmas turned into a family get-together.

After I got over that fact and readjusted my expectations, I was fine with that. I had my dear guy explain to them that they were now family, not guests, and that everyone would be free and obligated to do whatever they wanted. Everyone seems to be on the same page, and all seemed settled.

But now, my guy's stupid employer decides he's got to work, all alone, on the day after Christmas and then on the Saturday after that. That as a retailer the business must be open, though historically those days have been the slowest sale-wise of the entire year.

Now, if we were talking about a place that sold toys or clothes or whathaveyou, the boss might have a point. However, that's not the case: my guy works for a specialty instrument dealer catering to people at music school here (which will be closed) and to folks online. So he'd be driving five hours on Christmas night or at the crack of ass on my birthday to go sit around and play online chess, whilst drumming his fingers by the silent phones and gazing out over the empty showroom. While his sister and mom sit around on the farm 300 miles away and I pine for his company.

Stupid, stupid fucking 2008.

Seven Random Facts

Thanks for your sympathy, dears. The foot is no longer swollen and I'm ambling along as per usual.

For now. :)

Other than that, nothing much going on here. The town is all in a tizzy between holidays and finals week. Our refrigerator is finally back in its nook (we had to tile under it, and thus it was blocking both the stove and the sink in the kitchen for several days). I'm still so uninspired to do any academic work. Our house is a royal mess. My brain is sputtering today.

A good day to be tagged, say I. And behold: the brave, electricity-less Cassandra has indeed tagged me.

The rules are:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about you.

Weird Fact 1: I hate umbrellas and peppermint-flavored toothpaste. An umbrella smeared in Colgate? My worst nightmare.

WF2: I can't spell for shit and would likely never have gotten much past a BA without spell check.

WF3: I grew up in a house that was haunted by a noisy but basically friendly ghost. No really, the whole family heard and saw it. It was always a bit odd, but never scary.

WF4: My hair goes down to my butt. I often wear it in a variation on pigtails.

WF5: My husband and I sing "new grass" versions of classic hip hop songs together. Yes, weird and random!

WF6: I am currently wearing bright blue boots.

WF7: I used to be deathly afraid of slugs as a child, though not of any other creepy crawly critters. I read a story about giant slugs on some tropical island as a child, and it freaked me out so much that I would cross the street when I saw a slug on the sidewalk. Now I just hate them for their garden destruction.

Alas, I can't seem to muster the brain cells to complete Rule 3 (Tag 7 random people at the end, and include links to their blogs). Forgive me.

If it weren't for bad luck...

I'd have no luck at all.

Seriously, how did I spend a big chunk of yesterday?

Well, it all started when I was trying to hang up our modest attempt at Christmas lights. Though we are outgunned by the ginormous inflatable Santas stalking like yetis along the street, I still felt I should make a holiday statement with a string of star-shaped lights.

I hung them in a couple places, trying to make them look decent, and finally decided to string them up in our backyard.

While doing so, I stepped on a piece of construction debris. A nail poked through the entire sole of my shoe and into the ball of my foot.

Ow.

Rusty nail+garden soil=tetanus, so I proceeded to the walk-in clinic to get myself a tetanus booster. Then I got them to throw in a flu shot.

Because you know I've been missing the needles, folks.

My foot is fine: swollen and lumpy, but not too painful. I'm back to hobbling along like Quasimodo.

Sigh.

See you next year!

That's what I just told Nurse Sweetie. We had ourselves a little chinwag over the phone about what's next. It was very cold, and I was on my cell, and while I love shouting about my ladyparts whilst freezing, we kept the conversation short.

In sum: more injections can proceed as early the next time I am graced with Red Army maneuvers.

Naturally, this being my body, we're likely going to see that just a week or so before Christmas if I continue to have the same (psuedo?) cycle as the past two months. Which means we'd get to cut our holiday out on my parents' farm short to jingle around the block with the dildocam. No way, man!

On another, more obsessive-compulsive note, no one seems to know how it's possible to have regular, AF-like bleeding while chemically pregnant, and this is driving me crazy. Regardless, from what I read, your cycle is supposed to start when you sink below 5 and that the first cycle is often longer than usual. Anybody got any experience to share on this front? I'm somewhat frustrated that no one can come up with an explanation for my bizarreness, which means I now have no idea what to expect.

I don't want to get any delusional notions just because I'm a week late, you know?

And the latest blood test result is...

[drumroll]

4!

I'm unpregnant!

Time to do it all over again.

Solitude, or the Gilligan's Island hike

Sing it with me now, "A three-hour hike...a three-hour hike."

My guy had to work on Saturday, and I felt restless and a bit depressed about the whole barrenness thing. I had to get out of the house, and since our decadent week, I've been trying to break what my dad so aptly calls "the reward cycle" of sweets, booze, et cetera. This cycle, along with my previous IF cycle, has turned my thighs into large, pale Vienna sausages, which means it's time to break it.

So, instead of opening up some Shiraz or heading to the nearby (fabulous) pastry shop, I went on a long-dreamed of walk down the abandoned back roads that run through a cluster of state and national forests. I had a map, some water, some local apples and cheese and a crust of home-made bread.

It was beautiful: that turquoise and azure sky so bright it burns your eyes, the smell drifting off the reedy, mucky north end of our large local reservoir. The roads were mere muddy ruts running through the fields, marshes, and woods. Flickers and bluejays tussled in the bare branches. I got away from one of the main roads (read a tiny paved lane) and was surrounded by absolute silence, except when the wind blew.

I wandered in total peace, tramping through the muck, up hills, over creeks, down gravel roads. Then I got totally and utterly lost.

This is a rare occurance for me. One thing I know I have is a very good sense of direction, especially if I have a map on hand. But the map didn't show all sorts of roads and paths that branched off from my lane that ran around the lakeshore and into the hills. I got all discombobulated in the woods. And not once, but twice, I wound up back at the big hill, the one I've written about before, with all the eerie legends about it. It was like the Bermuda fucking Triangle, in the middle of rural Indiana, I swear.

So, as the sun set, I was finally able to backtrack and return to my car. I had spent seven hours walking. I'm still stiff from the experience.

And the funny thing? I would do it again today, if I didn't need to work and shit.

Much better, thanks

Nothing like a week of Belgian beers, fresh mussels, absolutely amazing old friends, and other delights to make you forget about it all. I'm truly grateful for my friends: It was just like old times, but somehow better because, well, I'm not as insane as I was when I was in my early 20s. My paper was over first thing, and I basically spent the week wandering around Philly and NYC with my guy, wining, dining, exploring--we even took a bizarre trip to coastal Jersey, to peruse the deserted boardwalks and gaze at the ocean. We drank hot chocolate under the Manhattan Bridge. We ate really good dim sum and croissants (not at the same time).

Then we came home, and were wonderfully grateful for our much improved and improving house, our goofy cats, the peace, quiet and darkness that prevails in our small college town. Thanksgiving was low-key and low-stress at my MIL's house, veggie fare followed by a walk down the country roads around her place.

The ankle basically got over itself after Wednesday, which was spent driving and by Thursday, I had no discernible limp.

So life is good.

That great joker, the Universe

Please, please, you're killing me with all these laughable foibles!

Last night, as my husband and I were walking home, I sprained my ankle.

Now, I get to load and haul about 100 lbs of equipment to prepare for an event in the Big City that my university is exhibiting at. Then I get to go east for our week-long jaunt, which will of course involve ample walking.

Ha ha ha.

See you next week! Americans out there, have a good turkey day, in case I don't get a chance to post!

"It's my party...

...and I'll bleed if I want to."

My body is convinced that it must absolutely not skip a month. So it's pretending to menstruate. If I weren't getting these confounded blood tests showing that ovulation would be a scientific oddity, I'd be sure I was having my cycle, as per normal.

Anyone ever heard of having an ectopic, the numbers falling sloooowly, but you still have to buy fucking tampons?!? Isn't that just the biggest injustice?

At least I can still drink.

I'm off to a week-long trip to the East Coast, to a conference where I'll give a paper while my guy samples the local brews, and then we're going for a few days to NYC, my old stomping grounds.

Smorgasbord

• Thanks for all the thoughts on that silly article. It seems that many of us have made a similar journey from sentiment to cold, harsh reality, even Eurydice, who did end up going the home birth route. As you put it, Eurydice, the really annoying thing about that article was its stupidity (i.e. the focus on fine home furnishings). That shallowness irritates, as the experience--whether innocent or haunted by loss--will never be shallow for us.
  
  
• I have been having the oddest dreams lately. In one, I was suddenly issued a roster of students for a class I only vaguely remembered agreeing to teach, on the history of funk, oddly enough (not my specialty; I'm as WASP as you get). The kids started filing in with all these weird craft projects to represent, say, Detroit's funk scene and its evolution, and I had no.idea.at.all. what I was supposed to do.
  
  Then, last night, I dreamed I was five or six months pregnant. This was not the focus of the dream, however, because I was kidnapped along with a bunch of Mongolian children by some sort of terrorists. They were somewhat lame terrorists, and I was oddly calm and collected, caring for the children, forgoing food to feed them (yeah, as if I would ever be so saintly when gestating), disputing the terrorists' assertions, etc. The oddest thing was how in my dream, it felt so natural to be pregnant and caring for children. Not my default state at all.
  
  
• Wish me luck and my last blood test today.
  
  
• ETA: AAAAAAHHH! hCG=13.5. Nurse Sweetie suspects I'm injecting microdoses on the sly (we laugh a lot together). So now I ask that you wish that I be completely unpregnant come Dec. 1 (my next b/t, may it be the last!).
  

Wherein she gets mean

[completely gratuitous rant about birthing practices. Feel free to skip if it will cause distress.]

Articles like this one used to make me nod, before we ever tried to conceive. Then, they used to make me cringe and rage, when I couldn't seem to get pregnant or even get any answers regarding said non-pregnantness. It seemed like a magical world where women had mind-blowing wonderful experiences and were profoundly changed in ways I would never get to know because I was somehow broken.

Now, they just make me laugh.

I mean, I'm all for people doing what they think is best for them. Want to give birth in an inflatable pool in the middle of your tiny Queens kitchen? Go ahead! Want to believe it makes you feel fantastic and empowered? Knock yourself out.

I just know that if I ever get that far, I'm not really going to give a shit. I no longer care if I wind up with a C-section. I don't care if I have a doula. While I think it's a shame that my state outlaws midwives, I don't think I'll ever need one.

Why? Because I doubt I will ever have the luxury of a low-risk pregnancy. Just judging by my fabulous track record so far. This used to make my heart ache. Now all I want is a living child and my health left more or less intact.

My mom always urged me to go to a hospital to give birth. Why? Because I was a complicated (though fast and nearly painless) birth: I had all sorts of stuff going on at birth that was resolved, only because I was right there with access to medical care. Otherwise, the docs said I might have had serious mental disabilities.

I always told her I preferred to plan for a home birth with a midwife, that it was my decision, or our decision. My husband was born at home, after all.

But no, that delusion has been shattered: If I ever get that far, I'm sure as hell going to be in the least risky place possible. Which apparently is our local hospital. I've had enough with taking risks and letting nature take its course. Nature's course for me is clearly not a very nice one.

Brain function normal

More or less. Or as normal as can be.

So, how have you been?

There's nothing to report on the, uh, lower front. No dramatic bleeds, fascinating test results (that's my bad--keep forgetting to find out what number in the low teens I'm at now), wild and woolly life decisions (llamas! I'll raise llamas!).

Just me, my sleeping ute, my good man, and a bunch of rain soaked leaves and heat-seeking kitties.

ETA: 14, people. As in hCG=14. Just laugh with me. Come on! Oh, and have some of this lovely microbrew...

In Brief

*Worked at polls. Had a good time. Was up for 22 hours, due to excitement after election was called.

*Went to RE, who has no idea why my hCG is dropping slower than a slug in molasses. No cycling before January, most likely. Oh well.

*Drove up to Big City for a conference. Worked a 10-hour day.

*Met the ever-awesome Io for a beer! Yeah!

*Stayed the night in Big City, then woke up and worked an 11-hour day.

*Came home, passed out.

*Woke up, drove an hour back to Big City, repeated.

*Came home, wrote press release.

*Scrapped brains off of floor.

Happy weekend!

WTF?

And TMI: hCG is now at 19. Only a 3 point drop in over a week? Come on, body! What in the world is up?

Oh, and what's with the bizarre flourish of a bit of randiness and EWCM? The science people say it's impossible for you to ovulate right now! Even if you did start bleeding about 2 weeks ago!

Never mind, you goofball reproductive organs. Just get me a beer.

ETA: But thanks, dears, for not bleeding anymore. I really appreciate it.

And now, with more teeth!

I not only have license to ill--road trip, road trip!--but I have a full mouth of teeth.

Both of these bits of news deserve some explaining.

1. I haven't had a license for years because I lived overseas, lived in NYC, lived in a little college town where I didn't really need a car to do basic errands and have fun. We've got a decent bus system here, plus I'm an avid, nay fanatical walker. Sort of an al Q@eda-grade pedestrian who would do anything to convert others to my steppin' cause. I've even considered a tee-shirt that reads "Real patriots hoof it" or something.

But I needed a license for my university job, which involves visiting bloggy buddy Io, uh, I mean attending important educators conferences.

However, I will not give up my radical two-legged ways! Give me sidewalks or give me death!

Ehem. Sorry.

2. I had a genetically malformed tooth toward the front that basically made my mouth erupt in a nasty, nasty infection for years. Yeah, I know, but you try going to the dentist when you're clearing 12 grand annually and have no insurance. Or even worse: going to a dentist in Eastern Europe (my skin crawls).

To finally solve this issue, I went a year ago to Hippy Dentist, who referred me for a root canal, but I wound up needing surgery and an implant. Now, the saga is over and I have a pricey but lovely tooth. For a year, I walked around all gappy toothed and hillybilly. Now, I can smile with bourgeois pride.

Hippy Dentist claims to admire me for my ability to set vanity aside. He said I had character. That's nice, but I'm much more happy to have a tooth.

Now all I need to do is give birth and finish my dis and I'll have cleared the to-do list. Ha.

A "Real" American

Despite my pinko tendencies and dangerously cosmopolitan outlook, I am now a real, card-carrying, gass-guzzling American...

I got my license!

Constant Craving

Nope, not another ode to the wonders of Burmese soup. But a very peculiar sensation I keep having when I'm around children whose company I enjoy.

I feel a physical longing to give birth to someone like them. Seriously, it's like my whole reproductive system howls with a craving to get to work.

Maybe this is what many women feel who long for a child, and I've never felt it so acutely before. Wanting to be pregnant and bear a child were so abstract to me when I began this blog, forget back when we started trying. Maybe this sensation is a kind of pregnancy withdrawal, when that high tide of hormones recedes and leaves you dull and grounded and hollow again. It's as if my ute has decided to do backflips or something.

It's hard to bear, really, and I feel oddly ashamed of it. It makes me feel vulnerable and exposed. I want to bear a child too much, my brain says, and it will be obvious, the scarlet IF on my chest.

An Offering

This is National Infertility Awareness Week and I have neglected to festoon my blog with any appropriately aware code. Not that I didn't try... (I had technical difficulties).

Instead I'd like to offer my fellow IFers a Lakota story that appears in Frances Densmore's classic book, Teton Sioux Music. Before I go any further, let me say that Frances was a women of that era when pursuing an intellectual dream or a professional career meant remaining (in?)voluntarily childless. Frances traveled all over the US in the early 20th century, conducting field research into Native American music among all sorts of different groups, including the Lakota (Sioux), assisted by her younger sister, who also chose never to marry and start a family.

Her work is filled with lengthy direct quotes from conversations with elders, and is thus really fun to read--especially if you're avoiding working on your dissertation. Here's a story, as told by Higheagle, that I'd like to share with you:

"There was an old couple living on the bank of a river. They had been married a long time, but did not have any children, though they had often asked Wakantanka to send them a child. This special request was always made when they were in the sweat-bath booth. On one of these occasions, while they were praying, they heard some one outside saying that their prayer had been heard and would be granted on the following morning. They were very much pleased and felt overanxious.

On the next morning the old man went out, and there, right in front of the door, peeped out of the ground a greenish opening of some seed—out of the ground. The old man was very much excited, and, not knowing what to do, they both went into the sweat-bath booth and asked what they should do. As before, they heard a voice saying: 'Fear not. This plant which you behold is going to grow into the most beautiful child you ever saw.'”

They had received the gift of corn, something new to the Lakota, and very precious. I offer this story in hopes that if you are suffering from infertility, you, too, will someday here that voice and discover the unexpected and unexpectedly beautiful response to your prayers, longing, and pain. It may be something you never imagined, but it may be just something unspeakably valuable that will bless the entire community.

You can read more here, as the book's now in public domain and on Google Books.

Good news

My dad got through his procedure to address his prostate cancer with flying colors. They found exactly what they thought they would, no more no less, and implanted these teensy bits of radioactive material to zap the cancer.

He was worried about the anesthesia and even gave me an envelope with instructions "just in case." I opened the envelope a tad and saw the words "scatter my ashes." I had to stash the thing in a drawer because it was too painful at that moment to read any further.

But he's doing great: still resting (watching lots of Battlestar G, apparently) and already back tackling various winter projects around the farm.

My husband's also recovered from his serious bout of anxiety-driven gut trouble, and both the gut and the mind are again at peace. He's back to playing Willie Nelson on the guitar and devouring pistachio gelato with characteristic abandon.

Our home repairs are progressing nicely. I'll be teaching in the spring. I've caught up on my academic work (sort of). I've started writing fiction again, just for fun.

Just thought it was time to share some good news, instead of my endless woeful lament of my still-pregnantitude.

As per usual, I spoke too soon

Turns out my hCG is still in the double digits, 22 as of Monday.

That's the bad news.

Good news: self indulgence and poor eating continues, and perhaps the math will straighten out a bit, so that we can get all the cycle shit over before Christmas, etc.

So I guess the bleeding is just more bleeding. And more bleeding. With a little more bleeding thrown in, for good measure. I wonder what my body thinks it's doing...

Nice to see you, Auntie!

So, it's official (at least in my mind): I'm having a full-on bleed, which I guess technically isn't menstruation, but marks the beginning of a new cycle. That's the good news.

The bad news: I did the math, and it says that if this cycle moves along as it normal does with me (i.e. about 29-30 days long), that means that if we wanted to hit the hard stuff again, I'd theoretically be stimming right when we'd planned a big week on the East Coast for a conference and meet up with old friends in NYC. The next month, of course, is holidayhell at the end of December.

Sigh. At least the leaves are really pretty this year.

OMG, honey, I'm unpregnant!

It's odd what can make you happy if you let it. Yesterday, I noticed some spotting. No real sign of it today, but I think I know what it means: I'm more or less unpregnant.

We'll see what the blood test says. But I'm hopeful. Maybe I can even get cracking in November...

ETA: Okay, so I'm still a bit preggo: hCG=36. But getting closer...

Anger Management

You know, there are no good ways open to American women to deal with anger. If you're angry, you're a bitter bitch and no one wants to hang around that, right? Who could hang with a harpie?

The funny thing about IF is you're angry at something intangible. It's not fair to blame your poor body, which really is struggling to do what it can. You can't blame your doctors, who are actually getting you closer to what you've wanted so powerfully. You can blame my cat, or society. And while that's amusing, it's somehow not quite right.

I will assign blame, though, to our culture, as nebulous as that may be. I mean, come on! What American fool came up with the notion that life would be good to us? I was talking to my Israeli friend, with whom I often have interesting conversations. She's a very straight-talking gal, though never unkind. I was telling her very honestly about the emotional cocktail I've been imbibing of late, and she was confused as to why I and her other American buddies seemed to have such a need to convince themselves that all would be well and turn out a-okay. That's just not part of her culture, and with the struggles and sorrows of her ancestors, that makes complete sense. From her perspective, there are absolutely no guarantees of happiness, so you have to enjoy the little things and take heart in all that's tolerable in your existence.

Her approach seems grim and unsatisfying at first glance, Sartre and Woody Allen commiserating on a particularly gloomy day. But then again, where do I get off expecting a rose garden? And who the hell are those idiots around me who can't deal with sorrow, loss, fear or even the slightest mention thereof, without leaping to advice, dismissal, denial?

So yeah, I'll blame society. And give thanks for the understanding and love that I have.

Ectopic Angst

God, this really has to be one of the nastiest outcomes. And now I'm all paranoid that it's going to happen again.

The odds are in my favor (theoretically) to have a normal uterine pregnancy next time (10-20% chance that I'll have a repeat ectopic). But if I do manage to lodge another embryo in my tube, the next time I get knocked up, it's fifty-fifty. That's when the docs get all agitated and move to remove your tubes.

I just can't bear the thought of being functionally sterile. But then I realized recently that from now on, even when I get my period, I won't rest until I pee on a stick a few days after AF appears. Because that's exactly what happened this time: I bled, but I was pregnant in the wrong place.

Great: so now I'm not only terrified I will never get pregnant again; I'm also frightened that I will get pregnant and not be able to figure out where the little tyke has grabbed on. There's no way I'll ever get to enjoy any of this process.

I'll be in the game room

So, I've gotten to that long, dull period (excuse the pun) when I'm sitting around, drumming my fingers on the desk and gazing distractedly at the calendar. My hCG came back at 100 last Friday, so it's declining adequately, but at the halving rate it's making, I'll still be "pregnant" biochemically until sometime in fucking November.

Oh, pardon my French. Me? Bitter? No!

Then I have to wait one natural cycle (I think) until they'll let me get cracking with my stims and needles. And who knows what confusion awaits my poor, poor ladybits once the hCG bottoms out. Sigh.

But here, my dears, is the silver lining. Being from the Midwest, I've been taught to find one at all costs (or if one cannot be found, to drink myself into oblivion). I can drink coffee if I please! Guzzle Bernaise! Eat buffalo tartare--and I do like my meat gamey and rare, savage that I am. I can bungy-jump, run, go to the sauna. I can't even entertain the thought that I might be pregnant, that I might be deluding myself into thinking I'm pregnant, that my delusions will simply serve to make me miserable. This is something of a respite from my mental labors of the past few years.

But I'm still pissed. Pissed I have to sit idle, enjoying all the negative aspects of pregnancy (with the exception of the food and drink and activity restrictions) and none of the potential benefits. Only to have to go through it all again, with both more hope and more despair written into the equation.

So, body, snap to it and sort all this crap out. Stop giving me cramps and yeast infections. You're not gestating!

I'll be in the game room until it's over.

Okay, so I am special! ... plus Home Improvement Hell

Aw, shucks. Eurydice over at Geeks in Rome gave me an award. It's in Italian (so that means it's Eurostylin') and it has a funky pyramid that would be the envy of any decent Wicca circle. That's so sweet, and I can use the sugar nowadays, especially from a gal as cool as Eurydice... former stone cutter? Expert pasta boiler? Thoughtful mom? I mean, her resume of coolness is a long one.

Of course, bloggy awards are meant to be shared. And I can't make up my mind. I love all of you that I read and bug with my silly philosophizing... Uh, otherwise, I wouldn't read you! Seriously. You all rule, and you've made me a saner, happier woman with your stories. You're all brilliante! It's been a rough ride lately, and there's no way in hell I would have gotten through all this relatively unscathed without your insights and cheers.

I wish I could invite you over to our place, make you a nice dinner, and crack open some champagne/sparkling cider and some silly, silly stories. And I'd get to show off our bathroom, which is done: "Hey everyone! Come wash your hands! And no more worries about Beezlebub popping out of the medicine chest!" Do I know how to throw an imaginary party or what?

My parents came back to town and we got a whole load of stuff done outside the bathroom. The fireplace has a thick primer coat of while masonry paint and new doors waiting to go in. I got some cool new light fixtures. The foyer is ready to tile. The holes in the floor are almost fixed...

Yes, I did say holes in the floor. No, we didn't know about them until we yanked the nasty-ass carpet. One of them is large enough to jump through (carefully)! My husband suggested spinning it in our future home listing as a "mushroom nook and fallout shelter."

We had to get a plumber to fix the leak that had caused it, and this seems to have encouraged all sorts of other leaks to form (the washing machine, toilet, etc.) and in general to have had an impact on our already shitty luck. Our computer, cell phone, bike tires, everything has gone kaplooey at once.

But I'm happy anyway. In a great mood, actually. Finally.

IF and the art of home renovation

Thanks for all your comments, insight, and support in reaction to my professional angst. Wait--does that mean I'm getting paid for being confused? I wish.

We've basically ripped up and out almost all the nasty remnants of decades of shoddy repairs and poor taste. These were projects we had delayed for months and months. What, I wonder, has sparked this sudden, new obsession with domestic search and destroy?

I hear from books and stuff that pregnant women and their partners get all nesty and start making their home ready for their new arrival. While I might technically still be pregnant, that clearly isn't it. We're taking control of the mess our lives have become, and discovering, unexpectedly, that the way out of the mess may take some time and energy to find and follow, but it's right there.

While taking a break from our fumey, grouty labors, I talked with my guy about my many jumbled thoughts and feelings regarding what I'd like to do for the next decade or two. During our discussion, I realized I want to stay here. It may not be an easy path, to forge my own, new approach to scholarship, but it will be the best fit and likely the most rewarding in the long run.

And just so you know, my plan doesn't include making a living from that work necessarily. Instead, I'll likely work elsewhere (I've got a mini-career as a pr writer already launched) hopefully as a telecommuter. Really, the only practical concern we have is health insurance, because, alas alack, once my guy quits his current job to become a full-time farmer, we'll be uninsured. But whatever. We've got time to solve that one.

I realized that my desire to become many things in my life--a mother, a professor or other professional, a wife--has been colored by certain, unhelpful patterns: I must be special, no matter what it costs me. This outward appearance of excellence makes life so hollow for me. I don't care what my car says about me. I like an attractive living space, but for my own pleasure. I'd like to raise a child, but IF has divorced that longing to love from the precious visions of enlightened modern parenting so many fertiles fall into, without realizing it.

Yes, I would have been one of those self-righteous biyoches telling you to relax and do some mediation or something while fishing for a wholewheat organic teething biscuit for little Arden Louise lolling in a hemp onesie or something. Though I've been subject to suffering, I've been spared that ignorance. And should we get our heart's desire, this kid will be showered with genuine love (and hopefully sheltered from the worst winds of our misplaced egos and expectations).

So, by ripping out the fireplace doors and dehazing the nice new white tile in the formerly Satanic bath, we're making a new home for ourselves, our relationship, our hopes. We're putting down some roots, opting for substance and the slow fix as opposed to myth and instant gratification.

Now that I don't feel like shit...

What am I going to do with the rest of my life?

I love researching and writing. Love it. I like teaching and interacting with young folks, even the ones who aren't all that into my subject. Then why does the thought of applying for an academic job make me want to hurl?

For those of you outside of the wacky world of higher ed, getting a prof job is truly stupid and grueling process. But so is IF treatment, and I seem to be able to handle that. In fact, I've spent a lot of time engaged in various stupid and grueling processes, so while the job search is a big turn off (it is for everyone), something else is at play here.

I've long had a love-hate relationship with academe. My entire educational career was devoted to studying hardcore, then fleeing the scene (usually to Eastern Europe) as fast as my credit card and passport could take me. I finished undergrad a semester early to leave the country. I split town the second I finished my PhD coursework. But then eventually, I decided I wanted to finish my degree, if only because I had already poured so much blood, sweat, and tears into it that it seemed a betrayal of self to just throw all that effort away. Plus, I love the Obscure Corner of the World, its languages, its history and culture.

What would I really want to do? Write books about OCOW, intelligent yet popular books about the people and history I've learned. Translate works on OCOW that are not available in English, or even in some other widely known European language. Do something creative, while helping out on The Farm.

But I'm scared. I'm terrified of failing. Of not being able to make a living. Of not being taken seriously because I don't have a prof position to fall back on as proof of my worthiness to tell these tales, and thus never being able to get my work out to potential readers.

(WARNING: potentially dull critique of academia ahead!)

Of turning into some version of Sarah Palin (just without the lipstick and political ambitions), the Crazy Cat Lady, or the sad, threadbare "independent scholar" trying to prove that Ataturk was actually a prophet predicting the eventual dominance of the Hungarians in the EU or that certain ruins in Western China point to Swedish-Uighur trade links and possible alien visitations of Urumchi in the 11th century. You know, one of those "scholars."

I'm scared because I feel that academia has the pursuit of knowledge in a kind of lock-down, unless you can call what you do "art." Yet so few academics reach out to the wider public and share, in clear and eloquent language, what (you'd think) they love so dearly. Most academics write in such obtuse language, referencing sources irrelevent to the lives of even excellently read and broadly engaged laypeople. Their accounts are technical, and frankly, just plain dead. I don't want to write that way.

More popular accounts are often shallow and/or inaccurate (especially as the narratives regarding my area of specialty are only poorly sketched out). I want to change that.

(End of academia rant)

So how do I proceed? Part of me wants desperately to stay here, in this community my guy and I love so well, where all the elements for a happy life can be found. And yet, by staying here, I basically wave goodbye to Prof. Shinejil. I'm equally afraid that if I give up on academia, I'll wind up with my brains turning to mush, living day to day without contributing my tiny little piece to the universe's puzzle. I'm afraid I'll never find the discipline and response from others I need to sustain the considerable efforts of researching and writings my books (by response, I mean money as well as praise, encouragement, etc.).

Sigh. What to do?

Alive!

I finally feel human. It's great to be me again, to see some hope and joy in things.

My meat treatment continued through the weekend, and was supplemented by a hearty dose of various fumes, mortors, and paint all over my feet. Satan has left the bathroom, and it's now a work in progress toward clean, white, attractive happiness. We also fixed some nasty problems with our subfloor in another room, repaired the fireplace mortor, and did a variety of other little odds and ends.

My poor guy is still having GI trouble, and has gone back to see his doc this morning. Please send him your good wishes for healing and peace. I've been trying to calm him down, help him relax a bit until he gets some answers as to why he's still not feeling right. Now that I'm not so sick, I have a lot more to give him, and I plan to do so.

ETA:
Guy not dying, per doctor. The worst has more or less been ruled out (again), but still no insight into the general crappy feeling. Good thing there's still lots of tiling to do. Hopefully I can keep my guy distracted...

Even better today!

My meaty regime has been doing me a lot of good. I also started drinking some Chinese herbs--apparently I have a "blood" deficiency in Chinese terms, too--and got some acupuncture. This morning, I feel better than I have in weeks. I'm not going to overdo it, but my dad is coming to help us redo the Satanic bathroom (he has experience with these things; we don't).

Off to rest a bit more before the great ripping out of the evil vanity commences...

In dreams

I have a guilty confession to make: I've become addicted to Babylon 5. I know, not quite 12-step material (yet) but still, somewhat challenging to my hardcore intellectual cred.

Now, in Babylon 5, for those of you who do not share my obsession, there are these ancient energy beings, the Shadows, who promote chaos and conflict as an engine of evolution. In other words, they get other beings to fight it out, with the winners emerging from the conflict stronger. The interests of these Shadows--whose real name is 10,000 letters long and thus unpronounceable to mere mortals--were promoted by a human dude who was an odd combination of menacing and endearing. Actually, he would have been, had I written the story, but whatever. This being television, he was mostly menacing, in a clean-cut sort of way.

Well, I dreamed this dude showed up at my house, a beautiful 1910s mansion, very well decorated, if I do say so myself. I knew, as did everyone, that the Shadows were coming to take us over and that we had to resist, though this was extremely risky. And they seemed to decide on my house as their first stop. I don't remember all the details, but they were just sort of milling around, trying to talk me into submission in sly and round-about ways. I evaded them, and contrived to call for help out the window to my frightened neighbors.

But then, I somehow came up with a plan: I'll get the dude out of the house and the 'hood, and somehow be rescued. I talked him into going to a park, and as we were driving along, I decided I should seduce him. I wasn't sure if this would save me, but I thought it would buy some time, and that it would be interesting. My overtures freaked him, the evil, menacing one, out. That's when I woke up.

It doesn't take a degree in Jungian psychology to see these shadows as my shadow, my subconscious, coming to take over in a way that frightens me, the conscious waking mind that is me. How did I manage to disarm them? By approaching them, by daring utmost intimacy.

There's something to be discovered in these depths, this terrifying place recent events have tossed me. And I need to be daring and curious to discover what it is.

Meat: The miracle food

I heart meat. I think it's saving my life at the moment. For that, I am thankful and want to express my profoundest gratitude to the bison who gave his/her life for my benefit.

I feel so much better today, thanks to the buffalo meatballs my husband made for dinner last night and the leftovers I had for breakfast. I've also got two nice ahi tuna steaks for tonight.

I'm also giving myself another day off because, hey, I'm so poorly paid and unmotivated, who really gives a shit? Let them fire me, I say!

My guy and I had a terrible fight last night, both of us being at the end of our ropes. He feels I haven't taken his anxiety and physical ailments seriously, which for him feels like disrespect. I feel that I've been totally abandoned and misunderstood in my physical and emotional pain. After some screaming (okay, I did the screaming), we found some common ground and wound up apologizing for not being as supportive as we'd actually wanted to. And this morning, everything's rosy again. I feel the deep connection with him again.

This whole struggle has just sucked.

Laughing way too hard

Maybe it was the roast-beef-and-bacon lunch affecting my brain, but I'm way too amused by this. As in, I'm laughing so hard it's quite painful and actually provoking some gentle nausea and fears that my work colleagues will finally decide I've cracked.

May you also enjoy, friends!

The vial that broke the camel's back

Not content to simply write off my intense, despair-inducing fatigue as Pepys's doing, I was in serious doubt of my sanity and health this morning. Why the fuck, I wondered, do I feel so very shitty?

Am I depressed? Like, clinically so? Am I ill? Am I just a lazy bum who doesn't want to get up and go to work? Am I just an idiot who's got herself trapped in a bunch of jobs and duties she hates?

After a tearful, unproductive discussion with my guy, who insisted I pull myself together and get to work since I had already had my weekly leeching to check my "progress," I stormed off on my bike--is that really possible? Well, okay I peddled off like a heartsick banchee on my bike. I felt bad when I got up this morning, despite a long afternoon of rest at home, and now I felt even worse after having yet another vial of blood drawn. I wanted to puke, pass out, weep, all at the same time.

When I got to work, I mentioned my symptoms to my very kind and caring boss. She noted that I sounded anemic.

Wait a second here, folks! You mean if I've been bleeding for ten days, eating no meat or leafy veggies, and avoiding vitamins, I could be mildly anemic? You've got to be kidding me!

Seriously, though: I'm tired, I'm sad, I'm panting when biking up hills or trudging up stairs, and last but not least I'm craving venison and mutton and rare steaks. And I'm a vegetarian. So I'm going to get me some flesh for lunch and discuss this idea with Nurse Sweetie.

Isn't it funny how a diagnosis can be comforting? I'm not irrationally insane! It's not all in my head that I can't seem to feel rested, no matter how much I relax or sleep! I may someday feel better! Very comforting.

ETA:
Just got my hCG results: down to the 400s. So no scary return to rising numbers. I'm going to see Dr. Spunk on Monday morning, but will work on getting more iron, calcium, and other good stuff until then.

Now you know

My cat. He's to blame.

I normally like to blame society. But as I mentioned in a recent comment, I think my cat--a mess of black fluff and mischief--is most certainly fair game in the blame game.

We all have had truly unfair disappointments on our journeys. They are completely and solely the responsibility of Mr. Pepys, who from the tip of his plumelike featherduster of a tail to his black little damp nose is completely lacking any sense of compunction or regret for his evildoing. And his work continues...

Please, if you must blame someone, blame the true culprit: Mr. Pepys. Yes, he made sure you forgot to pay those bills. He made the waterheater croak. He made that coworker say those stupid things. He encouraged that idiot driver to cut you off this morning. He got the lunch place to thorough fuck up your sandwich order. He is behind a certain political party's policies and candidates. Oh, and failed cycle? Years of IF? Mr. Fluffystuff Pepys has struck again.

It's all stinky, fluffy Mr. Pepys. Blame away!

Bullet points

• Tomorrow, I get to go the dentist. I mean, one of my orifices needs to be poked and prodded at all times, and since the lower one's done hogging the spotlight, it's time for the teeth to get their due. I'm *this close* to having a shiny new implant to fix the genetically deformed tooth from hell. Soon I'll look sort of normal!
  
• Still bleeding, still tired, but feeling better.
• Mega-walk not scheduled until October. But we did go on a hike this weekend, which was lovely but now I'm covered in horrid chigger bites. I look like I've got the plague again, though only from the waist down.
• Finally, finally bought paint, tile, and so on to redo what we call our "Satanic bathroom." Satanic because it has scary Carlos-Casteneda-meets-Ozzy-Osborne bright red and black vinyl floors. This was formerly covered in musty brown shag carpet, which harmonized so nicely with the pink swan wallpaper and the red and white vanity. The wallpaper, peeling off the walls, and the carpet went immediately, so now we have mint green walls and hell-red floors... In short, puke. Soon, it will be white tile floors, off-white walls, tasteful new light fixtures, and so forth.
• My guy's not out of the woods yet with his anxiety, but Saturday we had a genuinely fun day together. So there's light emerging in the pit of despair.
  

see more stunning examples of human stupidity here.

Crazy times...

call for crazy measures.

Last night, I had the idea to plan a 40-mile walk out to an isolated restaurant/b&b and back. The restaurant: awesome food and great wine. The walk: down gravel roads through national forest. My guy loved the notion, so we're going to do it in about two-three weeks. This is about the best we can manage, vacation-wise due to finances and work demands. But a three-day weekend involving good food, wine, and a good, long walk sounds perfect.

We're also going to finally start redoing our bathrooms (which are firmly lodged in the 1970s) and install a new floor to replace the nasty-ass carpet that was in our kitchen.

Yes, kitchen carpet. Can you believe we've endured it two years already?

I continue to feel much better, though I'm still bitter and angry at the stupid half of the world.

to the complete and utter idiot in my department...

...who knew what I was going through, and yet felt completely comfortable telling me he and his wife plan to have another kid in the next year:

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Consider yourself lucky to have gotten out of the room without a gut punch. Also, be surprised if I ever speak to you again.

That fabulous sinking feeling

hCG=1000 and change! Though we're not out of the woods yet, I think we've reached the turning point.

Outer Space

Everything is great in outer space. Okay, you have to deal with the occasional nasty alien having a bad tenticle day or some major life support system malfunction and all that, but in general, life in space is pretty cool.

And somehow, outer space is saving my life. I've never been a fan of science fiction. But oddly enough, it's the only thing I've been really able to engage with (besides my heartache and pain), the only genre I currently find compelling. It doesn't even have to be all that good; it's the tendency toward moral engagement and big questions posed in fairly accessable, simple ways that I like. Yeoman's philosophy framed by dramatic narratives...

Perhaps I feel like I'm in outer space, cut off from the ins and outs of the world around me. Things seem inverted: people who were never warm to me are suddenly kind, and I feel a strange ability to be very open with people about my deepest feelings, while dreading superficial talk.

Okay, I won't beat that simile to death. But let me say that even here in orbit, I feel my humanity returning. Today, a beautiful early fall day, color returned to my surroundings. A cloud lifted. I'm still distracted and distinterested, but there's a crack where happiness can seep in. Or at least appreciation for natural beauty and human kindness.

I got my blood drawn this morning; it took two gals to squeeze anything out of this turnip of a patient. I'm still bleeding, uh, down there. Gently, reasonably. No pain or cramps. My guy insisted on a beer and fries last night, and seems to have recovered his sanity. He met his new psychologist today, and I have a feeling he's in for some good, solid growth from this experience.

So, in short, today's a good day. Even with all the madness of the last few weeks, it's a good day, thanks in part to outer space. What odd things have gotten you through the worst times?

The end, my friends...

With any luck at all, I'm miscarrying. I'm very happy about that. (Now, for those of you who've experienced losses, I know that sound like a horrible, awful thing to say, but with an ectopic, the sooner you m/c, the better.) I feel like shit, but slightly less terrible shit. I started spotting Sunday, and have had consistent but not overwhelming bleeding ever since. I spent Monday and Tuesday in bed, and that seems to have done me some good.

The farm? Well, better luck next time. The house certainly had its charm, but needed at least 30-40K of work right off the bat, a fact that didn't jive with the price they're asking or our resources (we can't imagine starting a farm AND taking on the responsibility of making a money pit into a decent house).

The main dealbreaker: no well, only a cistern that the current owners had been filling with a huge plastic tub strapped to the back of their pickup. The roof was also quite old, though metal, meaning it probably had a few more years of life left in it. There was rotten wood (on the outside), sagging plaster and beat-to-shit wooden floors, and the nastiest bathroom I'd seen in a long time (and I've seen some gross bathrooms in E. Europe and Asia). I mean, I don't care if you have three kids. Scrub your damn tub if someone is coming to look at the ramshackle farmhouse you've been neglecting for years. I peeked behind the shower curtain and nearly tossed my cookies (which they likely wouldn't have even noticed).

So, as with everything nowadays, the search continues.

And just in case anyone believed my life was calming down, getting easier and finally returning to "normal," my husband is again afflicted with serious anxiety attacks, which are interwoven with hypochondriac ideas that his stomach upset, say, means he has two weeks to live. Thanks, Dr. Google, for helping my man lose his mind. I talked him into going to the decent walk-in clinic our local hospital runs and they ran some tests to rule out the absolutely unlikely possibility that he had cancer. They prescribed milk of magnesia and Ativ@n. They gave him his very own butt shot. Regardless, he still woke me up in the middle of the night in a panic. He's going to see a psychologist who specializes in cognative behavioral therapy tomorrow morning. Thank the goddess. I'm at the end of my rope, and I have to take care of his crazy self, too.

Oh, and one more thing: my RE got in a car accident and broke four ribs.

As I said before, I was a real asshole in a former life.

Irony

Sorry, double-posting today. Blame it on the cocoa-loaded coffee, my last vice nowadays.

One thought that's been rumbling around in my head of late is the irony of my situation. My guy and I long to give life, yet we're forced to inflict death. To kill, or possibly allow both me and the poor, disoriented embryo to die in agony.

Isn't it ironic?

That I'm finally pregnant, something I've wished for for years upon years (even before I hooked up with my dearest man), and now I'm so excited for the moment I know I'm miscarrying. Because I will no longer be in danger, in limbo. That my breasts ache, my nose balks at all scented body products, but I'm essentially as childless as I was a month ago. That I get all the shitty symptoms of pregnancy, combined with some of the shitty symptoms of chemo and a whole other world of hurt from getting a sliver of what I want.

What a strange thing, this life. I think back to what I was like ten years ago, five years ago, and I can't believe the depth of feeling and thinking that this suffering and strangeness has given me. It's amazing, in that I appreciate with every fiber of my being any joy, laughter, and love I encounter. But it sucks because I can no longer live like everyone else.

Once you've known deep pain, the pain that nearly stops your heart (whatever its source), you can never regain that shallow glide that carried you along life's surface. You get lonely because so few people want to deal with the depths. Yet they are the only place truly worth knowing.

Random rantings

Yes, I got my butt shots and, yes, I feel crappy. But somehow, I think they'll work this time. I'm resting this weekend, and I spent yesterday and will spend today in bed watching stupid sci-fi. My body feels like it could sleep forever and a day, so clearly some horizontal time is needed. Despite all this, my mood is strangely better. I've got another meeting with Dr. Spunk on Tuesday, to discuss our game plan, should the meth not do its job this round. I don't know what I feel about surgery. I'm reassured that Dr. S helped develop the meth protocols for ectopics, and he is an excellent surgeon (I mean, you can barely see that I've had a lap, unless you're really looking hard).

Meanwhile, on the farm front, we're going to see the place tomorrow. I'm going to take lots of pictures, and I may even go nuts and post some, if they look good. Guest rooms will be provided, and we even had the idea to do some gormet meals for visitors in collaboration with an aspiring chef friend who works at our local hippy-foody store. Can you imagine a nice meal prepared from the cream of the winter veggie crop (oh yes, friends, winter even in the southern Midwest is a prime growing season with the right set-up) with wood-fired oven baked bread and local cheese (there's a great dairy down the road that does lovely, classic raw milk cheeses)?

And to distract ourselves, we've been watching the Republican convention over the last few days. My observations:
1. Cindy McCain is most definitely a Cylon. Why can't women just look their age, beautifully? She's a lovely woman, and doesn't need all the scary synthetics, dye, surgery, Botox, whatever.
2. The cameras seemed to have sought out at least 30% of the 36 African-American delegates at the convention (out of 2,400 or so in attendence). Compare with the Dem convention, where the audiene looked like America not the Lockjaw Country Club board meeting.
3. No mention of any concrete policy initiatives or directions, just vague platitudes. We need details, peeps. It isn't about character; it's about ideas and plans.
4. The protesters, especially considering the treatment of many activists and esteemed progressive journalists like Amy Goodman, were brave people.

I have nothing against John McCain as a person. I think I'd like him if I met him and would enjoy hearing more about his life. But he must not be our leader. I wish he'd go home (which house is home is up to him), kick back, and enjoy the rest of his life.

I have everything against Sarah Palin. Any person who believes the earth is 3,000 years old and that rape victims do not deserve to be delivered from the mass of cells their assailants deposited in them is clearly opposed to reason, logic, and the intellectual accomplishments of hundreds of generations of hard-thinking human beings. I am not going to throw Thomas Paine, Susan B. Anthony, Charles Darwin, and a gazillion other brilliant men and women onto the trash heap of history for some smirking, mean-spirited shrew. Stoneagers out of government!

One! More! Time!

Yep, hCG's up to 3000 and change, so it's one more round of the evil yellow demon for my sorry ass.

I think I must have been a bona fide shit in a former life.

When does it end?

...the feeling shitty, I mean. Oh, I know the sorrow and anger goes on and on. I can deal with that (you forget, I've lived in Eastern Europe, where wrestling with such emotions is a high art). But my body. It's just cached, dude. I'm exhausted, weepy, nauseous, exhausted, irritable, and did I mention--exhausted.

I took the day off yesterday and slept. Today, I could have easily done the same, except my mind would have begun to mutiny. This is far, far more depressing to me than the pregnancy disaster, for which I never had much hope.

I had my follow-up blood test today. Pray that I don't have to get another butt shot. And that I begin to feel human again soon.

Still Alive

I may blabber a bit more later today. I'm back home, I'm alive, I'm even feeling a little better.

Just to show you how funny it all can be, I also seem to have a yeast infection. I know, hilarious, right?

I went to see the farm with my guy. It's awesome. We're going to go take a look as soon as the listing agent can meet us out there. Lovely 1880s house, five or six outbuildings, nice open land, middle of nowhere. Some issues (cistern system instead of a well, 100 amp box) but very intriguing and the right price.

No matter what happens with this place, we've decided we're going to invite our realtor out to tell us what we need to do to sell our house. We're going to start a farm, folks.

Academia be damned.

My, what fun we're having

I can say I haven't felt this bad since I had alcohol poisoning from some bum moonshine in the Obscure Part of the World many years ago.

My husband and I had a delightful morning of weeping on our 1.5 hour jaunt up to Dr. Spunk's, where dear Nurse Sweetie, who is an angel among nurses, stuck me in both asslobes with a liquid that shone an eerie, near fluorescent yellow. I mean, if you wanted to convey the visual notion of "poison" and "nasty," that's the color you'd choose.

Now, everything is super sharp and somehow painful to look at. I can't move very quickly. I can't think very straight. Everything smells like shit. I feel like I could sleep for years, yet can't settle down. I've got odd (phantom?) pains all over the place. In short, I'm at my best!

I'm really looking forward to the unspecified moment when the rivers of blood burst their dams and start flowing. Isn't it cool that it could strike at any time, any place in the next, oh, two weeks or so? I mean, my life will just be that much more exciting, knowing I could be about to bleed all over the place any second now... Whoohoo. Hey folks, watch out! Don't let me bleed on you!

And the final two insults added to the injury: I have poison ivy (again!) and my fucking insurance doesn't cover meth. It wasn't expensive ($25) but still: it's the principle. I have to pay for all of the medicine that will keep my abdomen from exploding myself. This isn't botox, peeps; this is lifesaving poison.

Let me shake the all-fixing invisible hand of the damn open market. And then kick it squarely in the balls.

Well, hopefully I'll be less ill and bitter and ranty once we get back from my parents' farm on Monday.

Just shoot me...

...in the butt with chemo drugs! Oh boy.

hCG rose to 1100 something, making the doctor declare this debacle an official ectopic and putting Shinejil in line for a wham bam no thank you, man with some methotrexate tomorrow.

A very happy Labor Day Weekend to you, too!

Fuckity fuck fuck

Nothing to be seen on the u/s except a thin lining (4 mm), which suggested an ectopic to Dr. Spunk. They did more blood work, but looks like my worst fears are reality.

Well, not quite. I haven't started bleeding or experienced excruciating pain--or at least not yet. Something to be thankful for (she said sarcastically).

If my hCG is still rising, they'll do the meth shot tomorrow. Another day, another 70-mile drive to be tortured.

So I'm drinking porter and Spanish wine (not mixed--yikes!), eating espresso ice cream, and watching the stupidest DVDs imaginable. I called in to work to avoid the inevitable meltdowns and hysteria being around normal people would invoke in me at the moment.

I'm in such a bad mood, I can't even feel it anymore.

We interupt this regularly scheduled crisis...

...to talk to you about two wonderful things that are probably not of much interest, but hey. This is my blog, I'm temporarily pregnant, and you're going to have to indulge me.

The first wonderful thing is my man. Yesterday, after he heard the wacky news, he did some research online, and did it well. He came home understanding with perfect clarity what our situation might mean. He held me while I wept out of irrational, gut-grabbing fear of losing my tube to an ectopic. Then, he took me downtown, bought some of the world's best ice cream.

Upon returning, we watched the Muppet Movie and cuddled. We sang along to the songs. He did the dishes. He's the best, I tell you!

Other wonderful thing: our garden. This year's been a bit rough, but we've managed to grow some excellent cukes, sweet and succulent and prolific. We've also finally mastered the art of growing eggplants from seed, a tricky venture due to their so-so germination and the lusty flea beetles that attack young plants. We've got the loveliest violet globes hanging so gracefully from tall, flourishing (only somewhat flea beetle-attacked) plants. The 8-ft tall red sunflowers are drawing some of my favorite birds, goldfinches, while the trumpet vine, butterfly bush, and fuschia are visited by a small army of hummingbirds.

Despite a hard time, our Brandywines have done pretty well (they got a case of fusarium wilt but still managed to produce a decent crop). We had some okay beets and yummy salad turnips (Hakurai: a cinch to grow and so delicious sliced thin!). Our peas sucked due to the cold wet spring, but all in all, it's been pretty good. We even got our first crop of cherries, a good amount of strawberries, and mysteriously, several volunteer melons, one of which we can't identify but it smells like honey and sunlight.

In short, I love being able to wander out, grab some herbs, and come up with something tasty from our produce. I'm really looking forward to doing this on a larger scale.

BAHHHHHAAHAH!

That incoherent cry of anguish is the sound of my brain, trying to process the fact that my hCG just shot up to the 400s.

Ectopic? Slow starter? Freak of nature?

Anybody got any insight/hopeful tales/delusional rantings that might distract me until Thursday morning's date with the wand?

A Sonnet

To you, who could not seem to grow,
Engend'ring only sighing, sobbing,
how pitiful to struggle so,
With pulseless pulse, with pointless throbbing!

To you, so far from breath or light,
So far from true birth or becoming,
To you, who knew but fruitless fight,
A moment's being, a second's humming,

To you, my love, I give my heart,
My grief I could not bear you fairer
Than weakest weaves, soon rent apart:
A garment that betrays the wearer.

Return to me, I beg of you:
Next time, the knots will prove more true.

My first attempt at stricter poetry in... uh... well, in forever. But it seemed like the only way to say it...

Keep away from my veins!

It turns out Dr. Spunk wanted me to get re-poked this morning, not Thursday. My guy announced this--though he says he told me and he very likely did--as I got up this morning. Gee, what a lovely way to start my day!

So in we went, and again, I faced the struggle to subdue my errant blood vessels which seem to be becoming more and more reluctant to draws. After several attempts, we finally got a sample and I was free to go.

Now I feel like crap: sad, wiped out, exhausted, hungry yet without real appetite for food. I just want to go home and sleep and read and watch the Muppet Movie or something, but instead I'm doing low-paid pointless university work. Bummer.

Much better

Somehow, my energy and appetite have returned. I spent the whole weekend reading novels and watching DVDs, when not going for hikes (though it was way too hot and muggy) and doing a few household chores. My dis? Well, it's on hold for the next week or so, as I adjust to my two jobs and all that. Hopefully, soon I'll be down to one job + dis + freelancing.

My guy and I have been talking a lot about what staying here would mean. So far, we think it would mean lots of good things. We both love it here, and we both feel that living close to nature, having a good day-to-day life is more important than the psuedo-glory of successful professional careers. That's just our choice; for those of you with careers, know that you'll never be afflicted with the money shortages we're bracing for. Life will be frugal, but green and creative.

We've got lots of ideas for cash crops and other money makers, as well as some employment prospects that would allow me to telecommute and write. We need to run some numbers and such, but we both are more excited about this idea than we've been about anything in a long time. We could start looking for a farm as soon as we finish some repairs and updates on our poor bedraggled ranch house (tiling some floors, redoing some aspects of the bathrooms, putting in built-ins, painting, etc.). Lots of little tasks, but all doable with sweat equity and some help from our handy fathers. I still plan on defending in May and getting my degree. Because I've so earned it and I want to be Dr. Shinejil, even if only the rutabegas refer to me by my academic title.

As for my beta watch, I'm hoping it will be over and done with this Thursday. I've been asking my body to let go of the little cell wad and let things move on. I've stopped bleeding. I feel strangely confident that my body's figured something out. I have lots of questions for Dr. Spunk and am actually looking forward to our WTF in a few weeks.

A Picture that Says a Thousand Words

Out of the darkness like an animated cloud... that's it!
Source: Pop Sensation

Since there's no hope...

...might as well indulge. I think I broke all the preggorules last night: I ate very rare (excellent) tuna prepared by our gormet friend, a classical saxophonist from Puerto Rico. I ate fresh mozzarella and our juicy garden tomatoes. I drank a digestif made with juniper from the south of France. I had coffee. With the exception of changing the litterbox and chomping on poorly refrigerated deli meats or something, I broke 'em all.

Because there's no way with a non-doubling beta and on-going, insistent bleeding that I'm getting to motherhood from this poor little barely-there runtlet. This makes me sad: I feel sorry for this tiny mass of cells that is trying to grow, but is doomed to fail. What a pathetic, pitiful struggle life is sometimes. Poor thing.

Thanks for all your kind comments and support through all this. It really, really means a lot.

I heading to my acupuncturist today, because I feel like crap physically. I have no appetite for anything but sweets today, and I'm weak and drained. I'm back to the poking ground for a blood draw next Thursday, with hopes that my levels will have dropped. Once I have a normal cycle, we can try again. Nurse Sweetie thinks it's not an ectopic, and that it's most likely a fluke, though we'll be meeting with Dr. Spunk in Sept. 9 to see if there are any tests or other things (preferably those covered by insurance) we can run to get more info.

For fuck's sake

...please, stop rising. 21.6 was the result today. Not encouraging. Very annoying.

Just go away, whatever you are. If you aren't going to turn into a child, just go ahead and stop this stupidity.

No wonder I feel so off: I'm still sort of pregnant, yet I'm also menstrual. What a great combo! Who wouldn't be confused?

You know, this week has just sucked, in a hundred little ways. Kind of like that Manchu execution method, death by a thousand cuts.

Today, I woke up at the crack of ass, simply awake and technically rested though blue as all hell. I lost all my energy yesterday afternoon and felt terrible: weak, dizzy, absolutely exhausted. I was able to move this morning, but the weight of a new, unexpected sadness was on me. So I drank a whole shitload of cocoa.

Then we headed for the poking range, where the poor tech struggled to find a usable vein. After several painful attempts, she had to use my hand, which hurt like a mofo. All the while, I've got little seed tears in my eyes.

We got home, and I was just listless and upset. Finally, I lay down in bed and wept from all the hormonal madness and exhaustion. My guy held me and we talked. You see, this experience has some how sharpened the other aspects of my life that aren't working. I love some aspects of what I do, but the prospects for doing them in the context of the normal career paths--college professorship--are somewhat grim. For every posting in my field there are literally hundreds of applicants. The jobs I've seen this year so far--academia hires cyclically following the school year--aren't jobs I want. I don't want to live in Baltimore or Philly (though I'm sure they're lovely in their own right). I don't want to teach at a religious school. I want to live here and have a farm with my man, while still doing something intellectual.

My guy suggested the idea that I finish my degree and try farming, popular history writing, and translating. I really like this idea, though it scares me. I'm afraid of the financial insecurity. Yet many of people with less education and fewer skills, frankly, piece together decent livings in this area by doing a bit of this, a bit of that.

To make matters stranger, I'm obsessed with 100+ year old farmhouse I saw online. I really don't like our house very much; we bought it because it was the best thing available that we could afford at a time when we were sleeping on the nasty shag carpet at my MIL's place. We were desperate. I keep begging my guy to drive out to see it though I know it may simply add to the torture.

I'm sick of worrying and agonizing over all these things I can't control. I want to do the one thing that my guy and I both know will make us happy: a small farm. I want to set aside my vainglorious egotism, my pointless fears. I want to be happy sooner rather than later (or never).

You'll really think I'm crazy now

I have no hope that this pregnancy will miraculously morph into a wunderkind (in the most literal of senses). But I do suddenly and inexplicably have hope. I was pregnant. I felt I was pregnant, as I've never felt it before. Most of this tricky process worked. We just had a bum egg and bum luck this time around.

But this could, possibly, if the stars align properly, turn into a child one day. Meaning our parts can meet, begin the process. We just don't know if this was a fluke fuck-up, or the indication of a more serious problem of some cryptic sort. Yet my intuition was not wrong. That little voice inside me whispering, "You're pregnant" (along with the other wretched symptoms) spoke the truth and wasn't just blowing sunshine up my wishful thinking ass. I can't tell you what that means to me. It's as if a part of myself, one that had always served me so eerily well in the past, one I had come to detest because it never seemed to jive with reality has suddenly been proven accurate. My old friend is back and not a liar. And the voice says that all will be well in the end.

I spoke with Nurse Sweetie today. She had her own IF hell she went through, which explains why she's so amazingly nice and appropriate. We agree that my chances of having a baby from this are basically null, but I had already resigned myself to that Monday when Red Army attacked (and boy did it ever!). So the low beta was not a terrible disappointment, more an odd twist in the plot.

Again, for those of you playing Fantasy Fertility at home, I've got another blood draw tomorrow AM, which will likely show a plummeting beta. If it doesn't, I'll be so flabbergasted that I'll likely start to believe that pigs can fly, snowballs can easily weather the flames of hell, and that kind of thing. I'll also be nervous that something's done implanted where it shouldn't, and that I'll soon be ushered into a new circle of the inferno.

Let's hope not.

WTF indeed

I just got a message on our home machine from Nurse Sweetie (she's the nicest, most patient of women who's very sympathetic) at the RE's. I'm a little pregnant. I think it's likely a chemical. Beta=15 for those of you playing at home. Meanwhile, in coochie land, the Red Army continues its maneuvers.

Back to get poked again on Thursday. Ah, IF land! Just when you think you know your way around...

Sluggish RE

Dr. Spunk's office refuses to let me start shooting up again until next month, and insists I have a WTF meeting with the doc himself on Sept. 9.

Gee, I know what happened! I got the shit end of the stick and didn't get pregnant, though all went well. And this was indeed the more likely scenario, with IUI + Follistim's fabulous 20-30% success rate per cycle. So why the footdragging, people? I want to get this crap over with! You think I want to live in this hell forever?

Sure, it means I'll feel good, be able to get work done and exercise, and perhaps even get some insurance contribution to our growing IF bill, not have to jab needles into my gut... but it also means I most likely won't get pregnant and will be sitting on my hands yet another month. Which means, like everything else in my life at this point, all is and will remain unsettled. No clear academic path, no farm to start working on, no ability to try for a baby except the old fashioned way.

Limbo lower now.

Whatever

I can't sleep, which is no surprise because I drank one of those little half bottles of an excellent Australian shiraz. I used to live on that stuff--the much, much cheaper kind--for so many years that I was surprised how good it tasted. Since I'm such a lightweight these days, I got fairly tipsy and insomnia has kicked in.

My guy is fine: He pulled himself together once he understood the magnitude of the situation and switched on the love. Also, I bought him some nice local porter and some of those hippy tofu ice cream sandwiches.

Of course, Disc 4 of BSG was checked out at the video store. Of course. So I made do with a stupid Will Ferrell movie (my guy finds him extremely funny, and some stupidity was right up my alley). It was just one of those days.

I'm finding the thought of moving on to another cycle a bit daunting. I mean, injections would theoretically start tomorrow. I thought, as I prepared myself for a likely let down, that this fact would comfort me. But somehow it doesn't. Part of me just says, oh boy. More feeling like shit ahead. What fun. The thrill is gone.

It's all just so fucking pointless, folks. I mean, even if I get what I really want, who cares?

I'm very tempted to throw in the towel on multiple fronts because all I've been doing this past year is soldiering bravely on through the useless dis, all sorts of other dead-end projects, the seemingly relentless bad luck. Maybe it's time to move to my parents' farm and raise veggies for Whole Foods. Why do I need to be some scholar or writer or whatever? Clearly, I'm not meant to be a mother, either.

Several hours later...

The voice of my inner coach speaks: "Come on, Shinejil! Pull it together! You're going to get through this, you're going to find your little corner of bliss replete with poison ivy and ticks, and soon you'll be flying high on that estrogen buzz and will think you're invincible, like someone on angeldust. Rah rah rah! Now go back to bed."

The bright side...

I'm really craving a beer. And I'm going to go get one after work.

And the next disc of Season 3, Battlestar Galactica. Nothing like a post-nuclear chase across the stars to make me forget why I feel so fracking sorry for myself. :)

***
Edited to add (since I feel like a psycho posting a gazillion times today): You know what really pisses me off? No, it's not that other gals get knocked up by having a penis waved in their general direction. No, it's not that we have to bleed ourselves dry to pay for this because no one thinks it's an actual, bone fide medical problem I'm having.

It's that I felt like shit physically for a week and have nothing but a big ol' bloat belly and gut-wrenching pain to show for it. Nothing but gobs of gook that could be used effectively in a horror movie pouring out of me.

I'm also pissed that I still have to go in early tomorrow morning, have someone puncture my mofo vein, bruise me, cause me discomfort, and pay for it so that they can call me and tell me that, yes, indeed, that is your uterine lining flopping out of your hooha.

I mean, why bother with any of this?

I'm also pissed because my guy's having an existential freak out, and thus can't support me. I went over and spent an hour with him at work, holding him while he wept as he wrestled with hypochondriac fears of cancer related to his birthmark and was overwhelmed by the harsh beauty of existence. He's amazing for having such a rich, deep inner life and sharing it with me. It's just shit timing. No one's fault, but I'm still pissed.

He's got a dermatologist appointment for early September, just to help him relax.

Fuck all this. I'm going to go home, drink a beer, and refuse to move from in front of the laptop. Admiral Adama, jump me into some other galaxy.

Did I mention I'm pissed?

Better luck next time

My period has appeared, it seems, in a disgustingly painful and clumpy mess. Why aren't I more disappointed?

I actually feel strangely okay, though I'm pissed that I felt like shit all those days for naught.

Back to the drawing board! Wish me luck (which now means no cysts and a green light to shoot up again).

Feeling better

I had a good weekend relaxing, gardening, hiking in my favorite spot after my favorite breakfast, and in general just taking it easy. The headache faded quickly the moment I got out of that office and got a really wonderful ice cream cone.

I'm going to keep this short, as tomorrow morning's my beta and I'm feeling the urge to start speculating, etc. Wish me luck.

In which her head explodes

...and her stomach churns. I feel just awful today: nauseous, dizzy, with a raging headache. I rarely get them, but it's so bad I just begged two baby aspirin off our department secretary.

Help!

Aaah! (the sound of the sun emerging)

So things are better today. I worked things out somehow with my bureaucrat buddies at the DMV: I got my damned lerner's permit and even drove us home! I can still drive, it seems, though the first few moments were slightly shaky. My guy, at first somewhat on edge, soon relaxed and gave me supportive, helpful directions as we tooled around town. What a good man he is.

I also ate fish soup (again) last night. Is there some 12-step program I should be contemplating? I mean, the sweet, funny folks who run the restaurant, clearly family members (including one cute little toddler with a great giggle), are starting to teach me Burmese terms for cooking and food and urging me to order off the menu and get the really, really stinky, fishy dishes. But I love learning from them. If you find me blogging from their kitchen, though, stage an intervention.

I realized that I am making myself suffer by forcing myself to live up to my own, misguided expectations about productivity in this period of my life. I mean, it's pretty rough to start treatments and just keep rolling along, churning out pages of turgid prose on esoteric historical topics while losing your ever-loving mind, exercising enthusiastically when your belly's swollen as an overripe persimmon, resisting food temptations when your body screams eat! Now! I may gain weight. I may lose some momentum on the dis. I may not be the sharpest. I may be sleepy and touchy and always hungry. But I must stay somewhat sane and somewhat happy. Even if that means indulging in the occasional teary meltdown.

Somehow, finding the will to just let myself be has eased the hormonal pressure.

Meltdown!

Yes, the meltdowns we've all been waiting for have arrived! I've lost my ever-loving mind (and not just when someone tried to take my fish soup bowl away before I was finished) and my poor husband is paying to price.

It began last night. You see, I'm married to a charming, intelligent, sexually astute, musically talented funny, earthy but alas somewhat grumpy man. He's a big bear of a guy, so when he's ready to eat, he gets grumbly. We got home from the grocery store (I had done the shopping, he picked me up), and I was exhaustedly putting the groceries away while he desperately wrestled up some dinner. He grouched at me in his hunger, and I felt very hurt and ran away into the study, where I shut the door and started crying softly. We eventually worked things out, but I realized that the hormones were finally getting to me. That and everything else this year has brought. I was exhausted and my resources depleted.

Then this morning, things got even worse. You see, I went to the BMV to try and finally get my driver's license. Do NOT EVER go to the BMV during the 2ww, if it can at all be avoided. My situation, as always, was a little odd. For some reason known only to the idiot state bureaucrats, you need to show your SS card, your passport or original birth certificate, and several other forms of id and proof that you are who you say you are. This, even after they have already issued you a state id with your date of birth, which requires proof of social security number (a nice post-9/11 addition to the process). So whatever you did to get that id means JACK if you now what to get your license.

Yikes. So I storm home, really, really pissed, after I pass the written exam but can't even get a lousy learner's permit. In a blind rage of tears, I scream to my husband that I hate my life and everything about the way it's going, that I hate that nothing ever seems to go right for me lately, and that I'm a complete and utter fuck up. Poor guy moves through begging, cajoling, reasoning, raging, but he can't calm me down. I tear through the house, ripping into untouched nooks and crannies, vainly searching for my long-missing passport, sniffling and weeping.

Just when I am about to give up, I take down this old dusty box of cassettes of bad pop music from Obscure Corner of the World. Suddenly, I see the PeptoBismal pink leather cover I used to keep my passport in flutter to the floor. Thinking that it was empty, I open it, and there's my passport.

But that's not the end of my brutal saga of banality. We go back to the BMV (conveniently located where you can only reach it BY CAR) and I triumphantly show my passport. But then, oh woe is me! They notice that my first name is off by one letter.

I have a very unusual first name, and it's almost always misspelled by people who aren't paying close attention. However, I have a very unusual last name, so any reasonable moron can see that the person missing that second consonant in her first on the passport is the same as the person with the social security card, university ID, mofo'in STATE ID they just renewed, the credit cards, etc. etc. No, I need to get them my birth certificate from Texas.

So I spent most of the morning raging and crying. My guy and I made up, I told him all he needs to do is show me as much physical affection and kindness as possible in those situations, and we resolved to have a relaxing evening at home with the first disc from Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica (my second obsession after mahonga).

Well, at least I found my passport and can flee the country if I can't take it anymore.

Fish Soup

This is the weirdest side effect ever of the drugs I've been on. I've been obsessed, and I mean OBSESSED, with Burmese fish soup with rice noodles. I could eat it by the bucket, every day, every meal and still want more. Seriously.

All day yesterday, all I could think about was this first soup, known as mohinga, which is a breakfast staple in Burma. Here's a recipe. It's the best, most rocking meal in the universe to my progesterone-addled mind: a clear, salty, flavorful broth with little bits of fish, a mound of slurpable noodles, a sliced hard-boiled egg, fresh cilantro, raw red or green onions, little dal crunchies (that cool Indian touch that sets Burmese cooking apart from Thai, for instance)... Ah, heaven. I always loved this dish and usually order it at our local Burmese spot, but... this isn't love. It's something darker, less wholesome. It's obsession.

When I say that this soup was all I could think about, I'm totally serious. I woke up thinking about fish soup. It's all I wanted to eat. I literally had to force myself to eat something else for breakfast. I decided I would go get it for lunch. I schemed and planned about when my fish soup hour would come. I walked downtown, ready, tasting the fish soup on my tongue.

But the Burmese place is closed on Mondays, I suddenly recalled. Drat! So instead I tried to assuage my fish soup lust with some hippy food, but I failed. I ate so much hippy food I thought I would burst, but my brain raged on, unconcerned. I mean, I even spent half of my 1.5 hour hatha yoga class thinking about fish soup. After class, I was meeting my husband downtown to walk home with him but I took an extra four-block walk just so I could double check when the fish soup dispensary opened. 11:30 was my answer.

Though I was still obsessively longing for and sensing the fish soup, my heart was put at ease. I knew the hour of my fishy redemption, my cilantro-topped joy. I just had to make it through the night.

I did, somehow, and woke up, just like on Monday, craving fish soup with every fiber of my being. But the end was in sight: my guy and I walked to his work, and then I hightailed it to the Burmese place. Desperate, I sat out front, reading a book for the last ten minutes before they opened their door for business.

It tasted so damn good. I could eat some now, actually.

I didn't see anything about "possible pathological mohinga cravings" in my patient's info! Why didn't the RE's office warn me? I'm in hell here, people!

What have you all been craving lately?

Stupid things I have done, Part VII

Yes, I must, must lighten up the 2ww with a bit of my own stupidity, which always makes me laugh.

I've spent way, way too much time in a certain large E. European city, one that has its charms but also suffers from a quasi-police state mentality. That said, it also has a strangely small-town, down-home vibe at times, and people despite their busy lives take lots of time to hang out with friends.

One summer ritual in this city is the arrival of the watermelons. At little intersections and major crossroads, you'll see families from the Caucasus with a huge pile of the sometimes extraordinary fruits, stacked in what amounts to a melon playpen. They live beside their hoard, staying in small plastic tents and selling their melons. People have various methods for selecting the perfect watermelon, though none in the city were ever as astounding as the ones I encountered further south, where the melons were so sweet that they formed what looked like hunks of amber where scratched and made bees swoon.

One fine evening, I was with a gang of my buddies, some old friends who happened, oddly enough to also know my first husband, and we chose our melon. It was a very warm night, so we decided to sit out in the courtyard of my friends' apartment building (they lived in the same building) and enjoy our melon. We also had a little beer, and we sat on the curb by some bushes, drinking, laughing, and preparing to enjoy the watermelon. Our friend's baby slept peaceful next to us in a giant, old-fashioned baby carriage.

Suddenly, our little group was flooded with light from some car's headlights. My ex-husband brilliantly lifted up the large knife, turning it in the shafts of light so that it glittered menacingly. We were then greeted by several policemen, who asked us if we were planning to carve up the baby with a grim laugh.

When we said that we weren't, they asked for our documents. This is standard procedure in this city, something all foreigners fear. Though at the time, things were more relaxed there then they are today, cops could still get all in your face if they wanted to, and often claimed you had something wrong with your visa, registration, or other paperwork, and therefore had to pay a fine. Of course, that fine could be "taken care of right here." Nudge nudge wink wink.

I always carried my passport with me in the city, but at that moment, I had left it in my friends' apartment, thinking I wouldn't need it to go sit in the courtyard and eat watermelon. Needless to say, as the police went around the circle looking at everyone's passports, I began to freak out.

When they turned to me and asked, "Documents, young lady?" I stood for half a second with my mouth half open and then began spitting out a nearly incoherent string of phrases in the language I could normally speak quite fluently: "My documents... they are in purse... Purse, well, purse in apartments of, of friends! You see, friends. We can go and get it, if you'd like. Then I'll show documents to you, okay?"

The police officer interrupted me abruptly, "Young lady, cut it out. Speak normally!"

"I can't speak normally!" I replied, desperate. "I'm an American!"

At that, the cops laughed, and my friends laughed. Everyone had a good chuckle. Except me.

The cops let us go, telling us not to make so much noise and to go back inside. Which we did. My friends explained that the police thought I was so high or drunk that I couldn't put a sentence together. When they realized I was a foreigner--my accent in this language is pretty good--they thought I was hilarious.

When has your own goofiness gotten you out of a jam?

I hate progesterone / I love garage sales

I'd like to extend my sympathy to any and every woman who has had to inject or ingest progesterone. That wasn't my fate this cycle, but I surmise my poor ovaries are cranking out plenty of the evil stuff--yeah I know it's important for the big p, but whatever--and it's making me into a female monster. Think Grendel.

I don't know if this is the typical reaction for folks, but I have had the oddest, most vivid dreams. I keep falling asleep, even in the middle of the day. It's an irresistible sensation. It's accompanied by the worst combo of massive appetite and abdominal bloat ever. I'm not speculating about what any of this means, except that it means that I'm totally overdosing on progesterone.

***

On a completely different note, my mom and I went to part of the World's Longest Garage Sale on Highway 127 yesterday. It was overwhelming: endless trash, old clothes, toys, etc. with the occasional gem thrown in (Mom has an antique store, so she has a professional interest in this type of thing).

One item that stuck in my mind was a christening gown--I know, how odd that I have babies on the brain at the moment! I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that.

It was clearly old, but in perfect shape, carefully preserved by some woman for decades, perhaps in a trunk in the attic. As I fingered its hem, I thought about all the children who might have used that gown, children who might be old by now or long dead. There was something very touching about its flawless condition, the care that went into making it, the suggestion of loss that hung around it. Someone was selling it, its source forgotten, the long line of women's hands and thoughts broken.

I didn't buy it, but I did get an awesome hand scythe perfect for whacking weeds the old fashioned way. The curved blade was perfectly balanced in the hand, making for a powerful, steady stroke. When we got home, I went to work on the weeds that have flourished in the past few wet, warm weeks, loping through them. The grim weeder.