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So maybe it is that bad after all; massive flooding showed up, a little late, but it showed. I’m glad I went there, heard the jazz, ate my beignets and po’boys, walked the funky streets, ate amazing seafood. I wonder if all that is gone for good.

You know, my first drink ever was a Hurricane…not one in N.O., but all the same, invented there.

Go donate to the Red Cross, kay? We’re going to have refugees needing help for a long time to come.

Looks like the worst-case hasn’t happened in NO. No million refugees (though enough of them, probably), no toxic soup bowl, though some levees have been overwhelmed. Danke Gott, and here’s hoping I’m not too soon in being relieved.

Still haven’t heard from my sister in Gulf Shores, AL which has been pounded; hopefully, I will soon.

I had a funny post to put up today, and more baby stuff. But I find my thoughts are with those in Louisiana. CNN kept showing this line of people outside the Superdome, the ones who couldn’t make it out. Mamas and babies, pregnant women, the elderly, the sick, the homeless. Almost all of them black, poor, desperate, and scared.

Even if there’s enough room to put them all, will there be enough room above the flood line? Will the stadium withstand the winds and water? No one knows. No one can help them now.

When I was in college, a student group went out to rural Louisiana to help with the damage from Andrew. I saw row after row of trailers turned over, ripped open like pinatas, clothes and belongings spilling out everywhere. Homes sliced in half. We were far inland, but Andrew spawned enough tornadoes that it made little difference. Debris was everywhere. One lady told us that she lived from the proceeds of her sugar cane fields…but the flooding would cut her money in half. As it was, she lived in a two-room shack, a skinny little woman who couldn’t afford the dental care she obviously needed. And now she had even less.

Most of us don’t know real poverty and desperation. We’re about to see more of it than we’re used to. New Orleans may never recover from this; the French Quarter, all that history, may be damaged beyond rescue before any water can get pumped out. And the loss of life I can’t even think about is worse than any of that.

And all we can do is wait.

The first time it happened I was maybe 5. We were visiting my dad in Taif, Saudi Arabia, where he was working as an electrician. It was hard on him to be away from us so much, but the money was very good. In the summers, my mom took off work (and I’m just now wondering: how did she afford that?) and took me and sometimes my brother to go stay with him.

On this day, we went to a church revival meeting with my dad, in a building that had little or no air conditioning. It was packed, and very hot, and we did a lot of standing and praying. After a while, I started to feel sleepy, yawning repeatedly. I was breathing rapidly, but it still seemed hard to catch my breath. My vision started to darken; my eyes started closing on their own. We were standing up at this point, in front of our folding chairs. There wasn’t enough room to lay down on just my chair, so I asked the lady next to me “Can I lay down across your chair?” “No!” she said to me, startled and angry. But the feeling got worse, and before she could stop me, I moved her Bible onto the floor and laid down across her chair and mine. I just wanted to go to sleep.

The next thing I remember is being in my parents’ truck being driven home, told to drink some water. “You passed out,” my mom said. “You look all green.” “You must have locked your knees, that’s what happened when I was in the Air Force, guys locked their knees and then passed out in the heat,” my dad told me. Confused, I promised not to lock my knees anymore. I felt a little guilty, but also glad to be out of that stuffy church.

It happened the next time during a trip to a water park when I was 10 or so; the yawning, the strange sleepiness, not getting enough air, the eyes shutting of their own accord. It was a hot day, I was probably sunburnt. My friend’s mom made me sit down, taught me how to put my head between my knees, breathe slowly and deeply, put my hands on top of my head, put ice behind my neck. She told me it was called hyperventilating, that it had nothing to do with locking your knees, and that I’d be ok, and I soon was.

Ever since, I’ve known to watch myself for those signs. Passing out is frightening, and being in a crowded, overheated place always holds that danger for me. If I exert myself too much in the heat, if I don’t drink enough water (but sometimes that doesn’t help either) if I start feeling trapped and claustrophobic, and especially if I start to yawn, I know I’m not far from it. Heat is my enemy but especially humidity, or any place without moving air. Unless it’s really cold, I can’t sleep well without some kind of breeze from a fan, some feeling that air is moving and that I won’t run out of it.

Nothing makes hyperventilation worse than panic, so at an early age, you learn to calm yourself down, to not let yourself think the panicky thoughts, to not freak out that you don’t see a way out of the crowd. To distract yourself so that you don’t trigger the rapid breathing that will doom you. You become skilled at finding the quiet spot, the place to sit, the bit of shade.

Many people have remarked on my calmness during a crisis from time to time; maybe having an overactive panic mechanism that I’m used to fighting against has taught me that. I don’t panic because I can’t afford to.

Still, however skilled I am at taking care of myself, days like today are my enemy; hot and still, damp, too little breeze. Long walks to get anywhere…the store, the subway. Climbing up long flights of stairs, waiting on hot platforms, sitting in inadequately air-conditioned cars (which are moving, anyway, giving me nausea as well). When I’m not pregnant, I can deal with the heat, by moving slower and drinking more water, but as I get bigger I find I’m always a little breathless and overheated anyway. I become more and more reluctant to risk the heat and the walk, even though I’m getting a little stir crazy. I planned to go out today, but then the sun came out, and I just couldn’t deal with the idea of the three long hot blocks to the train. I don’t trust my body like I usually do; I don’t trust my lungs to handle the stress. On the weekdays I manage because I leave in the morning and come home in the evening, when it’s cooler and less rushed, but even then, I have what feel like close calls.

I don’t like it, I don’t like this weakness. It’s kept me from doing much in the way of sports, it keeps me from running faster or working harder on hot days. It’s an excuse too, I’m sure, to not try sometimes. But no-one knows what causes it. It’s just something you have to learn to live with and work around. Most of the time, I do. But I’ll be glad when it’s colder and I’m not pregnant anymore, when I can take a deep breath again and do some good with it.

Over at The Leery Polyp, one of my new favorite parenting blogs, she is just about to pop with her baby, who is about 2 weeks overdue. She’s going through as many natural remedies as possible to bring labor on, and these include sex, castor oil doses, nipple stimulation, and long walks. So far, nothing, though we’re all pulling for her not to have to be induced, because she wants a homebirth.

Due dates are such weird things. Even ultrasounds don’t always accurately predict how far along a baby actually is. If a woman’s cycles aren’t exactly 28 days (and most aren’t) then pinpointing the conception date is nearly impossible, unless she only had sex once in a certain time period. A baby can actually be too late…not just growing solarge it’s hard to get him out, but the placenta also becomes less effective after 42 weeks. Assuming of course that the woman is actually at 42 weeks and not say 39. Which can be hard to know. It’s frustrating to realize that our medical knowledge of pregnancy and birth is really not that advanced even now.

I could be due anywhere from Oct 27 to Nov 1, depending on who you ask. My midwife has told me they’ll stick to Nov 1 so as not to accidentally rush me, which I appreciate. I would really hate to be induced, because I’m afraid it would mean the rest of birth might get rushed and off kilter and end up needing interventions. So technically I have till Nov 14. Which time I’m hoping I won’t need. I’ve said earlier that I think the baby will be close to his date, but I’ve got nothing but my “women’s intuition” to go by on that. Still, I knew I was pregnant almost before I could test for it, so I’m hoping I’m right about that.

Another pregnancy blog I’m reading and adding to my list is Mordant Conceit who is in Lewisville, TX and stuck in a horrible job and due a little later than me, so you see how I relate. At least I’m not stuck in a horrible job right now.

One thing I’m reading and also hating is Parenting magazine, because, among the hundreds of ads for probably-unnecessary baby product, there is some actual good content about kids and growth stages and behavior issues. But only for moms. The magazine motto remains “What Really Matters to Moms” never mind that hello DADS ARE ALSO PARENTS. Worse than that, there is a “Dad’s-Eye View” column that apparently is designed to reinforce this view. This month, columnist Fred Leebron waxed poetic about his lack of effectiveness as a parent:

…As the children got older, I found I wasn’t thinking about them with the same unerring focus and level of intensity as my wife was, and I didn’t have the we-are-one connection that she had. When the kids had a cut or a bruise, it was always Mommy they needed, even if I was first on the scene.

There are two things wrong with this; Mom sounds a bit overinvolved, and Dad doesn’t seem to realize why a sick kid might prefer the involved parent to the one who seemed to be losing interest in them altogether.

…I’ve become an expert at letting the imbalance grow even more imbalanced, so that it seems to appear as the natural state of things. Kathryn does all of the demanding and labor-intensive tucking in upstairs, while I have the serene task of dish duty downstairs.

Classic passive-aggressive behavior, this. Why can’t he tuck in his kids once in a while while Mom does dishes? This is hardly something that requires a uterus. Perhaps his kids are put off by the way he listens to the football game on his earphones while reading them bedtime stories in a rushed monotone. Perhaps the way he refuses to meet their eyes while giving them a cold goodnight kiss makes them cry. Who knows?

…(Kathryn) monitors the stores of baby food, diapers, kids’ lunch supplies, and kids’ clothes, while I pay the bills on time and manage the car maintenence and deal with the stockbroker.

At first this seems ok, if a bit traditional in terms of gender roles. Then you think about it. Food, laundry, diaper pails, and lunches are every day chores. How many times a month does one pay bills, call the stockbroker, or fix the car? Not every damn day, that’s for sure.

…She’s the one with the running inventory, not me and–as every father like me knows–I’m very lucky that she can’t let it go.

Yes, you sure are lucky to be married to someone who enables your lazy passive-aggressive ass. Maybe she can’t let it go because she has no confidence that you will pick it up?

…So I know I’m not doing enough, and she knows that I’m not doing enough, even though she and I know that I do more than many husbands. I feel guilty about this, which makes her feel suspicious of me. She knows I feel guilty, and thus it seems to her I must be guilty.

Yes, indeed, it’s her suspiciousness of you that is the problem, not the genuine guilt you feel at making her do most of the work, because your lame-ass justifications to yourself about women’s superior mystic child-rearing powers can’t always keep you from wondering if you are, in fact, being an ass.

Since nothing alleviates the guilt that I can never do enough, I’ve begun taking–perversely or conversely–what little scraps I can for myself in a way that underscores just how little it is that I do.

Seriously, this is fucked up. Look dude, if you think your wife is not letting you do enough, talk to her or get counseling. If you’re too lazy to do enough, deciding to take pride in your laziness isn’t exactly the most constructive method of dealing with it.

We wrap up with another guilt-alleviating paean to the selflessness of mothers and the ways Men Just Can’t Compete with it…so why even try?

Meanwhile, I know that I’m competing against a selflessness that–as far as I can tell–knows no end. Two weeks after giving birth to our youngest, my wife was standing in the doorway to the garage holding the baby and organizing the kids for a Sunday outing to the strip mall. “Are you coming?” she asked brightly. “I’ll fold the laundry,” I said. We both knew I’d do it while watching football….A problem with men, I understand, is that when our wives put the children on equal or nearly equal footing with us, we instinctively balk at the same accomodation or generosity or sacrifice of it all, and I think it’s because we’ve never had the experience of having those kids so fully inside us…There’s a sense of oneness between a mom and her baby that we men can’t share, and probably will never comprehend, either.

Um, ok. It sounds so very pretty, but what the fuck does all this have to do with being too lazy to help your 2-weeks-postpartum wife take the kids shoe shopping? You are in wonder at her selflessness; she, exhausted, hormone-ridden, and stressed, simply knows that her kids are going to go barefoot unless she takes them to get shoes, because your lazy ass sure as hell won’t. According to you, she should be grateful you can fold one basket of laundry in three hours.

This column is supposed to be funny, I think, in a haw-haw Men are From Mars, Home Improvement, women-are-unfathomable and men-are-hapless-slobs vein. It’s just sort of profoundly sad, and maddening, especially in a magazine that only gives fathers one page worth of representation anyway. One gets the feeling that women would be better off in lesbian collectives using men as sperm donors.

And if all men were like Leebron, we certainly fucking would.

Flickr rocks. I’m testing out this feature that lets me post from the pics I have on their website directly to my blog. It’s kewl.

This is the baby at 14 weeks…sadly, the only pics we’re likely to have of him till he’s born. Still, that was when we knew a) all was well and b) he was a boy. Unless the tech had a drinking problem or something.

Why? Why am I astonished at how much better I feel after eating lunch? “Wow, I don’t feel draggy and awful anymore!” my brain says. Clearly, my brain is an idiot. Because it has turned off whatever little switch that goes “You know, you’re hungry. Eating would be nice. Food tastes good.” Instead I just stay hungry, get droopy, then have to make myself go get some food. Then feel surprised all over again.

All my life, I’ve had the opposite problem, too, which is what makes it even more confusing.

I have to assume it’s hormones jamming the lines, because it happened first trimester, let up the second, and showed up again as soon as I started the third. I need a lot of food these days, and yet my appetite centers have hung up a “Gone Fishin’” sign and shut things down. Nothing actually seems appealing to me until the second I eat it; wave whatever delicacy you want in front of me, and I think “Nah. Too much trouble.” But then if I actually eat it, it tastes fine and I finish it all. What kind of fucked up evolutionary missing screw causes this? No idea. But it’s annoying.

Damn, that last post was long. And a bit shaggy, now that I re-read it. Such are the joys of the blogosphere. I’m still glad I got it down.

Anyway, I went to church today…

Heh. No really, I was a paid babysitter at the church of one of my acquaintances. As I told Matthew and Dean, I went to church for years and never got paid. Only seems fair to get some money this time. And I never had to leave the nursery.

I was a little worried that the church people would try to recruit me, but they didn’t seem to be the types, or maybe just didn’t have the time. Fine with me.

Besides being part of our Frugality: Wow! campaign pre-baby, this little odd job was also an opportunity to hang out with some people of the baby persuasion, to see how it felt. It’s been a while since I did any baby-wrangling. And I did just fine.

It occurs to me that I get along pretty well with most toddlers, because I am like one in many respects. I don’t like constant noise and stimulation, or people talking to me in high fakey voices. I get cranky about discomfort or disruptions in my routine. I like to eat what I like and play with what I choose. If I could still get away with it, I would definitely crawl under the dining room table to get away from people at boring social events. Left alone with a toddler, unless he’s having a truly bad day or is ill, we usually reach an understanding. I follow his lead, keep him from sticking forks in light sockets, and make sure he hasn’t pooped himself. We may or may not watch TV (I’m not a big fan of too much of it), we may nibble on some crackers, we may play Chase or Racecar Crash* if he’s got a lot of energy. And that usually works.

What made today not so hot is that the acquaintance who recruited me, who is much younger, was also a bit territorial; there were only two kids there, and she had a hard time letting me do much of anything to soothe or play with them. She also had the common adult belief that children need Constant Loud Stimulation, so we had The Wiggles on at full blast, every toy out and being proferred the moment a kid lost interest in one of them, and constant questions: Do you want to put on your shirt? Do you want a cookie? Do you want to watch something else? All asked before the kid had a chance to be bored, or hungry, or interested in what was already going on. I kept wanting to tell her, chill, girl. The child will tell you when he’s ready for a change, and then you can figure out what the change is. Maybe she was terrified that they would cry. Which is never fun, but there is with most kids a little lag time between “I’m getting bored with this” and “I’m going to scream my lungs out.”

Not that there aren’t children who will absolutely make you pull your hair out. I had one kid back at my old church nursery, where I volunteered, who had the amazing ability to cry for two solid hours till his mama came back. Nothing made him feel better; he just wasn’t ready for separation, I guess. But most kids like to play, like attention, and like to be physically comfortable, and if those things are there, and there isn’t some other problem, they’re ok.

I go back next week. We’ll see if disaster strikes and makes a liar of me.

*Racecar Crash goes like this: you sit on the floor with your legs out in front of you, the kid between them facing forward. Your arms are the seatbelts. Making various “vrooooooommmm….rrrrrrrrrrrrrr…” noises, you imitate a car driving faster and faster. You make “turns” by leaning left or right unexpectedly, or when the kid turns his imaginary steering wheel. At the crescendo, you “crash” which involves making car crash noises and rolling around on the floor with the kid, and go “Oh no! we crashed!” It was always a hit. The kid will make you do it until you’re exhausted.

At various places around the internet, I’ve run across discussions on the Duggar family. They had a documentary on the Discovery Channel, 14 Kids and Pregnant Again!, which had a sort of cheery, wondering tone to it. Basically, they are a fundamentally relgious family in Arkansas, part of the full quiver movement (Google this if you wish, I’m not linking to avoid referral trolling). In this family’s case it seems to involve a) having as many children as biologically possible (filling one’s quiver) and b) protecting them from the world by schooling them at home and interacting only with other families with similar beliefs.

Nothing really new in either belief, just in their combination; being anti birth-control has long been considered a more Catholic belief here, while separation from society at large for religious reasons is as old as the Amish, or if you like, the Puritans. Full-quiver idealists seem to be an outlier group in Christian religious fundamentalism at this stage; and I’m not one of those who worries about being “outbred” by fundamentalists, if only because I know so many fundy-raised kids who’ve rejected or tempered their parents’ teachings. I fully expect some of the Duggar children will leave their upbringing and choose a different life.

What fascinates me and saddens me about this family or others like them is what happens to those children before that day comes, and after. I can, in a less extreme way, understand their world. I had access to TV, secular books, and public schools, which they do not, but at the same time I was a kid who really believed what I was taught. I was taught to resist the world around me, and I did; I destroyed books, records, or tapes I bought if I decided they did not “further the glory of God.” I was very modest and unassuming; I worked hard to be humble, to do only what I thought God’s will was, and for a long time, let the church or religious writers tell me what that will was. My worldview was shaped by premillenialist Rapture-pushers like Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsey, and it was a long time before I understood how much larger the world of history and thought was than what they told me.

(Begin overextended metaphor):
It was as though I was raised inside a house with no windows and one door, and that door was marked “The World.” Just to stand too close to it was risky; it might open and tempt you out into the unknown. You were told that your ceiling was the sky and your floor was the earth, and that was all you needed or should need. But there were cracks in the walls and breezes got in, bringing smells and sounds you could not identify but couldn’t help wondering about. The stories you were told had strange gaps in them, or hinted at meanings that seemed to contradict what you were told.

And then one day, a sudden crisis rumbles through the house, and huge gaps appear, letting the outside world in. You have several choices now. You can try to repair or even expand your house, shutting out the dangerous things that the gaps reveal. You can stay on your porch, yelling at passers by to come into your house or they will be killed. Or you can go outside.

Most fundies do go outside eventually, I’m convinced. The beliefs they live under are just too confining..and contradictory…to stay inside of all the time. But sneaking out to enjoy the world’s pleasures brings guilt, and fear of what will happen if they renounce their beliefs. So they always come back, and they lie about leaving, disparaging the evil world they secretly need and love. (end overextended metaphor).

I found out about this in a rather odd way, growing up in the church. When I was 6 I began to notice that all the kids my age were getting baptized. I soon began to ask if I could be too. Adults around me were thrilled, for the most part, especially the church leaders and teachers. I had an interview with our pastor, which didn’t intimidate me at all for some reason. He asked me a lot of questions, but a few years of Sunday school had taught me all I needed to know about what to say. Yet even as I said things like “I want Jesus to live in my heart!” part of me knew that I didn’t really know what I was talking about. The pressure was all in the direction of baptism, though, so I never thought to back out. My pastor was apparently impressed with my maturity, and the baptism took place on my 7th birthday. It was fun, wearing the white robe and being dunked in the tank. I was fascinated by the jujitsu hold the assistant pastor used; he held out his left arm at a 90 degree angle, grabbing your nose to hold it closed. His right arm went behind your shoulders, and then he dunked you in one smooth motion, up-down. I remember I had to stand on a cinderblock in the tank to keep my head above water pre-dunk, and had to concentrate on bending my knees at the right time so I wouldn’t fall off of it and flail around.

Anyway, that was that. I was a little Christian now, and I was dried off and taken home.

But that wasn’t that. I started to feel uncomfortable. I knew that at least some of what I’d said was a sham, that I didn’t really feel any different or that Jesus was in my heart now. I felt bad about misleading people, and afraid God was mad at me. I’m not sure how long this went on…maybe it took a whole year. But at some point, I was in church on a Sunday and the pastor was making the invitation to give your life to Jesus. I was fidgeting as I kept my head down with the rest of the congregation, “Just As I Am” being sung by the choir. The pastor kept pleading, in heartfelt tones he always used, for anyone with any doubts to come down. It seemed to last forever. Finally, I darted out of my pew before my mom could stop me and went to the front. The deacons gathered round, and I sobbed out that I wanted to put Jesus in my heart, for real. There was consternation and whispered conversations when a deacon realized I was already baptized and shouldn’t be there.

My mom appeared to take me off into a separate room. I was still sobbing uncontrollably, and she scolded me for going to the front. I tried to explain what had happened (but I’m not sure I could have), but she didn’t understand. Finally in exasperation, she told me that I was already saved and I shouldn’t let myself get so emotional. And then we went home. No one ever talked to me about what happened, just seemed more embarrassed at my fervor.

After that there was always a disconnect between whatever religious feelings I had and what my church actually expected of me–which was mostly to show up and say the right phrases. At the time, I didn’t feel superior so much as confused. And even now, I don’t blame them. Fundamentalism asks us to do what is not possible–it tangles itself up in contradictions that don’t allow anyone to live an ordinary life. It tries to regulate and restrict all the tiny things that make up living until there is no way to act correctly and still live at all.

I lingered in the church for a few years, even after I’d left home and no longer had to obey my parents. I tried different churches, here and there. None of them really felt any different than the one I grew up in. There was still a man at the front, preaching and leading. There were still rows of silent, mostly bored parishoners thinking about the football game, and their restless children. There was still very little life in any of it, except the occasional musical interlude. The preacher was there to do his job; our job was to listen politely, give the church some money, and go home.

I had been to livelier churches; Assembly of God, and a charismatic church, where speaking in tongues occured, and occasionally, being slain in the Spirit (i.e., fainting) but I had never felt any extra spiritual presence there either. Just confusion at the commotion, not sure if it was a put-on or not. And definitely repulsed by the politics, the fear and hatred that were encouraged, the mistrust of reason and knowledge, the ignorant nostalgia for a nonexistent past.

So in the end, I drifted away. Church didn’t want my passion, and it certainly didn’t want my questions. It wanted my warm body, hours of my time, and my money, but not me, myself. There was no room for the person I was there. There wasn’t any room, I came to realize, for the kind of God I was likely to believe in, one that didn’t insist on male supremacy, one that prized conscience over dogma. One that didn’t demand spiritual maturity from 7-year-olds, or threaten to send anyone over age 13 (considered the “age of discernment” at my church) to hell for not getting baptized and declaring that Jesus lived in their hearts.

To revist my metaphor, I realized at one point that I was permanently outside of the house of religion in which I was raised. It wasn’t that I needed a new house, it was that no house would ever be big enough. I had to be outside, in the elements, under the naked sky, if I wanted to know anything at all, if I wanted enough room to think real thoughts. I was afraid, for a little while. Warnings about how unchurched believers inevitably sank into sin and went to hell did have some power over me. I did wonder, in bad moments, whether I had angered God. But to go back into the prison I had left was impossible, and so I finally decided that if there was Hell to pay for the freedom I couldn’t live without, then something was seriously wrong with the universe and I would just have to risk it. If God was going to punish me for acting on my deepest, purest need for freedom, the need which he evidently gave me, then he was evil and I didn’t owe him obedience. I decided that obedience from fear, which had been taught to me as the highest form of devotion, was really the lowest. I was not going to believe that I’d been brought into this world to grovel before a celestial bully. And of course, what I really hoped is that if there is a God, that he or she is nothing like what I was taught anyway; that he or she was someone who made us to be thinking and choosing adults, not children, and not slaves. That Hell is a sadistic dream of power-hungry men, not a fate that awaits the unworthy.

And sometime after that, the fear left, and it has never come back. Things are much more complicated now, but in their own way, so much clearer. I don’t know any of the answers I used to know, but I’m no longer required to pretend that I do.