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So I finally finished my last book project, which, due to the baby-fatigue and fairly persistent desire to narf*, was kind of a struggle. The money will be great, but I do not want to take on any more extensive writing projects for a good while. At the time, I kept thinking my inability to tough it out and finish it up was laziness and weakness in the face of what were, after all, fairly mild symptoms by a lot of women’s standards.

Then I read over one of the author bios that we put out at work, which mentioned that the author was very prolific, except when she was pregnant. She said she had trouble creating (though not functioning) while gestating. And that was it exactly. I function fine on day to day stuff, but right now, do not ask me to come up with a stunning work of literary originality. When I try to contact that part of my brain, I get a dial tone. Nobody home. I told Matt one day, completely frustrated with this, “I’m stupid with babies!” He thought this was funny for some reason.

So, Bob Saget. I hate Bob fucking Saget, for Full House and for smirking his way through America’s Funniest Crotch Shot Videos. I saw one of his standup shows on TV once. He sucked donkey ass. Still, last night, there he was, standing a few feet away. He knows people I know. People who are semi-famous.

You see, Matt has a cousin, who is a beautiful and talented actress. She’s had bit parts and been in indie films. One of those films** was showing at the Tribeca Film Festival last night, so we went, and after much confusion and consultation with various red-jacketed organizers, found the theater and went in. We had last heard from the cousin that she wasn’t going to be there and that the theater wouldn’t be very full. But it was packed, which, yay for cousin. The movie was good, she had the starring role as a beautiful woman who was possibly also a homicidal nymphomaniac (in good indie-movie style, you weren’t really sure what part was in her head and which part was actually happening).

Then the lights came up, and the director went down front for the Q&A. Then he called down the cast, and there was cousin! Also, Jason Silverman, her co-star, who I had actually seen before! Wow. So now, we thought, ok we’ll stay and say hi to her. While we waited, we noticed a bespectacled tall guy in the corner. Saget! We didn’t stare. After all, Matt’s shared an elevator with Cindy Crawford, and I’ve said hello to Al Franken on the street. So, whatever, Saget. Apparently he was a friend of the director, and knew cousin fairly well. And now I was having nightmares wherein Saget fell in love with cousin and came to all our future family gatherings and made lame jokes we would all feel obliged to laugh at.

But Saget left, and then cousin invited us to the afterparty! I was torn. I was not dressed for a gathering of the beautiful, or even semi-beautiful, people. I was raggedy looking, which I had thought was ok because I was going to be surrounded by film students. Matt looked more presentable, so I considered just letting him go without me. But then I thought, what the hell. If they shun me, I can always vamoose.

When we got there, everyone seemed rather desperately friendly even to two people as plebian as we were, and it struck me: they don’t know whether we’re Somebodies or not. After all, we’re hanging out and talking to the star of the movie. Maybe we’re just shabby-looking but successful! So I really got into my role. I grabbed some free food and a ginger ale, and plunked down at a table, and got out my notebook. I wrote…well, this entry, actually. But I was imagining myself the Shabby Writer, like some Dustin Hoffman-like character who wears sweaters with holes and scorns the pretty people while working on his greatest novel. I mean, I already had the sweater.

I could feel people’s glances sliding off me while I wrote at my table, wondering–is she Somebody, some weird influential screenwriter type? I’ve always assumed people knew I was a nobody just by looking at me. But how could they? Michael Moore and Steven Spielberg have wrought more than they knew, by making it acceptable for directors to dress like the homeless. Many people who lack fashion sense now have power in Hollywood, making it harder to tell who isimportant just by looking at them. It was like Triumph of the Trendless! The ultimate revenge on people who dissed me at age 14 for not having the right blue jeans! Ha ha ha ha ha! I restrained the urge to cackle to myself, but I was not able to suppress the occasional giggle.

This morning, dopey with lack of sleep and drunk on my sudden power of posing, I’m typing this into my computer and giggling still. I’m not going to start crashing parties or anything, but for this one night, I slipped under the radar. And it was good.

*nearly, but never quite, barf. This is all it ever was, but it was bad enough.
**title: Laura Smiles. Go see it! But don’t miss the first 10 minutes or you will miss a major plot point and be more confused than necessary.

WEATHER UPDATE
Spring is here! It’s warm and shirt-sleevey…no wait, it’s chilly, get your scarf…no wait, it’s too warm in the sun…no wait, it’s pouring rain. Spring, we are all your bitches, and you are cruel. Still, we cannot break away from your abusive love.

HASIDIC NEIGHBORHOOD UPDATE
Trees: blooming giant purple flowers. They look like magnolias, but purple.

Birds: LOUD and chirpy. Sparrows normally go “cheep.” Now they go “CHEEP, DAMMIT, COME HERE AND LET’S GET IT ON.” Lots of bird orgies on the sidewalk, the shameless little bastards.

Squirrels: fat, and getting fatter, because they’ve figured out how to break open our bird feeder.

Children: on bicycles, every damn one of them, the boys’ side curls flying in the breeze, the girls pedaling hard even in their long skirts. They circle you on the sidewalk like a miniature Jewish gang whose territory you’ve intruded on. You have to look them in the eye to let them know you’ll take a stick and spoke their Huffy wheels if they don’t back it up. Packs of children can smell weakness. You must never show fear around them.

Adults: still wearing their long coats, and in a warm and crowded subway car, you find out that does not include deodorant. Maybe it’s not considered kosher? If so, long summer ahead.

TODAY’S BUMPER STICKER WORDS OF WISDOM
On the back of a maintenance van: “Elevator repairmen always get it up!”

UNPLEASANT PREGNANCY SYMPTOMS UPDATE
I still can’t eat chocolate. And my toenails grow too fast.

FIRST RECOGNITION OF PREGNANCY BY A STRANGER
I’m not showing yet, just fat-looking. But today I got offered a seat! Ladies of New York, take note: if you read a book called “Baby Bargains” on a crowded train, people will assume you’re pregnant and give you their seat. Score!

That’s it for now. I am writing a book on barrel racing that’s taking up most of my time, and I would like to report that although it has been many years since I was a horse-obsessed little girl, I still know a piebald from a skewbald, and a poll from a fetlock.

These are bits and pieces I never got around to mailing before, like the crumbs in the bottom of the potato chip bag–they’re small but still tasty. Enjoy.

Art and Guilt

A while back the Gates were in town, and one of my coworkers said he didn’t like them. Not for artistic reasons, but because “I just kept thinking of all the money that could have been spent on better things.”

I thought, huh. What makes you think it would have been? The people who donated to the Gates–would they have donated the same cash to more worthy causes? Or maybe, they did–maybe they sent money to the Gates and to the spotted owls too (or whatever).

I think what bothered me about his statement was the Puritan sentiment behind it–the guilty idea that we must not spend money on anything frivolous like art so long as there are Real Problems in the world. But then I believe art has value–spiritual and emotional. It is part of creating that better world, just in a less tangible form. Nearly every human culture seems to have had art, no matter how grim and hard its peoples’ lives were. We apparently need to create art as much as we need to fight injustice or eat or sleep. So we must make room for it in our lives. If we are set on remaking the world in a better form, we mustn’t be humorless and grim about it. We must include our need for pleasure and beauty.

But then, I am a hedonist, in that I think pleasure and joy are good and virtuous in themselves. They can be wrong to pursue depending on the circumstances, but pleasure itself is not wrong. It’s a gift. If I didn’t feel that way, every good thing in life would be tinged with guilt, and I would never enjoy anything. I want to be able to see the bad things in the world and fight them, and also to enjoy the good things that come my way without doing penance because I don’t deserve them.

We need more pleasure, not less. My pleasure does not have to take away from that of others, and I have found, often it makes me more able to help others. It is not finite. It is related to love in that way, I think–it increases the more it is shared.

Stupid Food

If I had written “What to Eat When You’re Expecting” I would have subtitled it: “Everything You Can.” This apparently is the Prime Directive for my pregnancy: EAT. Feel queasy? eat something. Hate the sight and smell of food? eat something. Are dizzy and headachy? eat something. Are hurting and nauseous from accidentally eating too much? take an antacid, wait 10 minutes, and eat something again.

Ya’ll, this is my whole day. The only thing that works, except the occasional headache pill, is eating something. All the damn day long. I don’t even want to eat, most of the time; I have no appetite to speak of. But the only thing that makes my stomach stop hurting is to eat something.

All the pregnancy books say “eat healthy, and don’t overeat.” But you know, if the only thing that keeps me from barfing and passing out on the subway is food, then that’s what I’m going to do. It’s not up to me right now, sorry. I don’t have time to make a healthful barley soup with lentils, either; this kid loves protein and will take no substitutes. Grains and veggies last about 1-2 hours, that’s it. Meat, eggs, and cheese last a little longer. At least I have enough willpower not to feed it french fries, hotdogs, and milkshakes all day. Mmmmm, milkshakes. Man, that sounds good.

And while I won’t mind if the baby grows up big like its daddy, I would like for it to stay small enough while it’s in there so I can get it out in 7 months. Also, I am hoping it will not have Daddy’s giant head. Matt was normal sized at birth, I keep reminding myself.

(edited to update) I had a successful sonogram, and there he/she was, a little blob, just barely starting to be baby shaped. I wasn’t as far along as I initially thought; now it looks like Nov. 1 is the expected date, or perhaps I’ll get a little Halloween baby. Between that and the symptoms that roil my poor gut, I tend to think this critter’s going to hang around. And probably grow a gigantic head.

Coworker Trauma

Argh. ARGH. My cubicle-mate, while sparing me the flatulence and burping today, is having fits of random finger snaps and foot stomping. STOP. IT.

Otherwise, I’m in a good mood. Matt’s back home from Tejas, and I missed him, because I don’t feel right asking Dean to fetch me popsicles at 10pm. Also Matt brought back homemade cookies from my mother in law, which, yum.

Two Men and a Preggo

One of the stranger parts of my life right now is that I’m local-girlfriend-free. All my female friends are scattered hither and yon, and while I’ve met some nice ladies up here, none of us have become close pals. Sometimes this depresses me a little, but then I don’t think it will always be like this. We’ve been such gypsies since we got married that making any new friendships has been hard to do. At some point our lives will be more settled, and I’ll have the luxury of building up my social life again.

So the two closest friends I have right now are Matt and our roommate Dean. Which means that I end up sharing my pregnancy experience with two people who will never, ever, really know what it’s like.

There are good things about living with two guys, the first being crudeness. You can tell them not to go in the bathroom for a while, or let out an impressive belch, without shame. And perhaps even with a bit of pride. They tend not to fuss over dust bunnies in the corner, or shoes under the coffee table. Their dirt-tolerance, in general, is much higher than most girls I know, leaving me feeling virtuous even if I only clean off the stove top every three weeks.

With Matt and Dean, I also have the advantage of having a Very Tall Person who can reach high shelves for me, and an In-House Computer Guy, who will also occasionally fetch me a Diet Coke when he goes out for cigs. We can all three geek out watching Star Wars, though Dean has had to adjust to my tendency to make editorial commentary during movies, Mystery Science Theater style. Overall, we get along like gangbusters.

But the pregnancy stuff–well, I end up sharing it here with the “internets” rather than expounding on it much at home. Because here, guys (or girls) who don’t want to hear about cramps, bloating, maternity pants, etc., can just scroll on past. Either way, I don’t share quite as many gruesome details as I might with a girlfriend–that’s a lot to ask of a person, and if that person is not also a girl, well, I feel weird about it. Do they really want to know? Probably not. Because part of the reason you can share that stuff with other women is because they might have experienced it already, or will someday. If you’re never going to know the joy of spectacular stretch marks and possible episiotomies, do you really want to hear about them in harrowing detail? Doubtful. Are you going to want to watch A Baby Story on the Learning Channel with me? Probably not. It’s just not your thing.

All this by way of explaining why I come here as much as I do to talk about what is, after all, not that unusual an event, except to me. I still talk about politics, and the strangeness of life in general, and I’m trying fairly hard to not make this All Preggin’ All the Time. Because even I can get bored with the topic.

So by way of variety, here are some things I saw this week that had nothing to do with being pregnant.

1.The apt building on the corner where my office is has a lot of dogs that need walking, and most of them wear both coats and muzzles. Remembering the wild dogs we used to have running through our yards, who could roll and poop where they pleased, it makes me sad. New Yorkers, dogs are great. Which is why they don’t deserve to be stuck in a concrete jungle with no place to roll and poop. Also, the sidewalk right in front of the apt. building has a heavy pee smell from all the dogs, which is pretty unpleasant. Poor dogs. Poor my nose.

2.There is also a music studio in a building close to my work, and I see a lot of rock n’ roll wannabees hanging around or going down to the bodega on their breaks. No one I recognize so far, which is why I assume they’re wannabees. They’re trying real hard though, with the artfully ripped jeans and fashion tragedy hair. A lot of them are very cool-looking, but I can’t help but think they’ll mostly all be teaching or selling insurance in ten years’ time. The music business is a real bitch, no matter how good you look.

3.Two guys walked in front of the deli I go to, real Moe Szilak types—kind of squished up faces, windbreakers, and newsboy hats, those guys. One guy stopped to read the sign aloud “Fresh donuts baked daily! Man!” The other guy grabbed him, “C’mon, you ate already, what’s wrong with you??” and they hurried off, the first guy looking back wistfully at the sign, his friend still holding his arm in a firm grip.

4.I subbed for Matt while he was in Texas, by running lights for the play he was working for. It was real basic stuff, basically flipping light switches. Anyway, before the play, the director and one of the female leads came out from the back stage. “I don’t know WHY you won’t just TRY the music I brought!” exclaimed the lead. “You’re being a DIVA, that’s why, why can’t you just calm down and take direction?” yelled the director. “I am NOT being a DIVA, dammit, you just talking to me like I’m an idiot. I don’t take that. I’m from BROOKLYN, we don’t TAKE being talked to like that!!” screamed the lead, and then stomped off stage. I had to look away and fiddle with the switches, because, damn. You tell her, Brooklyn!

Not much else going on. I’m finishing a book on barrel racing, since being a Texan, I’m born knowing all about rodeo sports. And I am the only person at my office who’s ever been to a rodeo, so there you go. In fact, my coworker who is going to manage the production of the rodeo books next season, asked me nervously “Is rodeo cruel?” And I said, “Well, maybe bull riding or bronc riding. Mostly the riding stuff just pisses the animals off. Everything else is about skill.” Hopefully this will assuage his vegan conscience. Thankfully, we aren’t doing a book on bulldogging, the “sport” where you leap from your running horse onto a steer’s neck, grab his horns, and flip him onto his back. Again, I’m not sure it really does much damage to the 2-ton steer—mostly I think it just confuses the hell out of him, and gives him incentive to try to stomp your ass once he gets up.

Off I go. More after my book is done.