Leery Polyp

We Gather Together

Let us take this moment to bow our heads and think upon the horror of the modern-day turkey-generating plant, the folly of using organic sugar to make the cranberry sauce for that factory turkey, the damage I'm going to do to my virus-ridden body by having all that (cough, hack) wine with (snorfle) dinner. Keep us mindful, as the prayer goes, of those who don't have enough to eat. (Although why does it not say anything about feeding them?) Of how much work there is yet to be done. Of our irredeemable history.

Let me now send out a little address to the universe, a request for gentleness to all these women waiting for their children, a reprieve from the weight of grief, especially during holidays when the fecund and their offspring descend upon us and unleash a tornado of conflicting emotions. It is good enough, I think, to pretend to be happy for someone even when you can't be.

Last night my own set of losses came back to me, for no reason I could discern; again I had to grieve, although now that grief is not for children who might have been, but for my own optimistic self, innocent of what was coming, not yet wry and sarcastic about things like blood clots and fallopian interlopers. To do that work I had to bifurcate myself, make external the previous version of me so that loss might be viewed at a distance, and comfort offered as though from one woman to another. Let me give that self a tender goodbye; let us leave behind what we have to in order to make room for the new, but not forget. That rawness becomes an old ache, and serves us well later, if we let go of the pain but retain its memory.

Let me also ask for an easing of the minds of those of us who have difficult decisions and difficult paths ahead: infertile women making the choice, over and over, about what comes next; pregnant women with unthinkable decisions to make for their children and themselves.

But there is so much to be thankful for! So many of us are finding our way to answers, finding our ways to happiness, to family, to life as fully realized adults with or without children. I am so grateful for every word of comfort, every thing someone has offered to teach me; I could not be where I am now without you.

There is my family, who is thrilled at the prospect of a new baby; Sean's family, who is helping us financially in a way I never could have expected. All our friends who find the right things to say. Each other.

And elsewhere in the blog world, babies are staying in place, so far so good; elsewhere, nothing bad has happened yet. I will never cease to be thankful for the blessing of possibility, this blessing of hope.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Less Dooty! More Booty!

I thought this was nice.

But this is even nicer. (Okay, so you have to view the ad. But it's worth it. Of course you could always shell out for Premium. I'm just saying.)

So, la la la, what else...some lists, perhaps?

People to Whom My Sister Has Compared Me Favorably

• Jack Black
• Jon Stewart (but hotter! I disagree. No fire burns brighter than that of Mr. S.)
• Joey Tribbiani

Patterns Apparent in Above

• none, far as I can tell

Stains I Am Wearing

• navy bean soup
• some other kind of soup
• toothpaste? lotion?

Things to Which Each Stain Compares Favorably

• spooge

On My To-Do List

• fix up blog looks
• add to blogroll
• Jude Law (also acceptable: the sexbot he played in A.I.)
• husband, aw yeah
• several of husband's coworkers
• that girl at the ice cream shop
• you

Patterns Apparent in Above

• dedication to blog

Things I Shouted Last Night Whilst Having Drinks with Colleagues

• "Penis! He looks like a giant walking penis!"
• "What the fucking fuck? I mean, fuck, man! Dude!"
• "Suck it! I mean, suck on it! No, suck it!"
• "Because the top of his head is so small, and his neck is so thick! And it has that roll!"
• "I dig chicks!"

Colleagues Who Will Be Seen in Public With Me Ever Again

•    

Things I Should Probably Get Back to Doing

• work.  See yas later.

But wait! There's more!

Claims Mobisyl Makes on Its Own Behalf in a 1972 Advertisement, But Which Could Also Be Said of a Quality Gentleman Caller

• penetrates quickly and surely
• is odorless. There is no after-scent
• is invisible on the skin
• is greaseless -- won't stain
• is non-irritating.  There's no burning sensation

I Am Hot Like Chili

Jo (kneeling, bent over, ass in air): Oh god. The gas. It's gas, isn't it? Gas.

Sean: Guess that cabbage dinner didn't agree with you.

Jo: Ooof.

Sean: And cauliflower.

Jo: And onions. And kale.  Uhhhgh.

Sean: And spices.  What did you have for lunch.

Jo: Um. Chili.

Sean: ...

Jo: Vegetarian chili.  And not all of the beans were cooked all the way.

Sean: "Vegetarian chili."  "Not all the beans were cooked all the way." Joey.

Jo: *poooooooooooht*

Jo: Oh god.

And then a pint of salt water ran out of my nose.*

*because I did this earlier, and all the saline must have wandered off into my clotted sinuses only to be dislodged by my bent-over de-gassing posture.

Stalled

We're at a point, early on in the adoption process, where we're doing a WHOLE LOT of thumb-twiddling.  We're waiting for our first educational seminar thingy, in which we get together with some other families and, you know, talk about stuff.  But blah blah holidays blah blah waiting for other people to enter the program, blah blah end result being that the class won't be happening until December.

Which is okay, actually.  There's all this stuff I've been meaning to do, and it extends beyond addressing the mat of cat hair that is accumulating under the stereo. That's more of a fiber art project, a rich tapestry involving the cat, the dog, and my terminally shedding head, along with a matrix of various and sundry household particles.

So tops on the to-do list, while we're waiting: regular attendance at the bar of our choosing. Parties will also be acceptable. I missed out on a lot of this while in the throes of infertility misery, and then I slept through more of it thanks to hCG trigger shots, and I really don't anticipate a lot of rowdy hootenannies once we've got, you know, a kid.

So there's that.

There's also this: I want to go to li-berry school. One in particular, in the city we'll be moving to this summer. (Nice planning, yes? Setting myself up to be a graduate school dropout? With the distinct possibility of a baby on the way? I should do this for a living.) That means GREs. And, like, applying.

So. Yes. Much to do.

Oh, What the Fucking Fuck?

No!

and,

Why?

and,

Jesus. At least Barack Obama won. And Ken Salazar.

Mollie says it better than I ever could.

What now, folks? What the hell do we do now?

Best Birthday Ever

Thank you, thank you everyone! You really know how to make a gal feel special, you know that? I feel touched. As though by an angel. In my bathing-suit area.

But Akeeyu takes the molten chocolate cake:

"You know, maybe if you weren't TRYING so hard to have trolls, it would just happen. You just need to RELAX, and then you'll have trolls. That's how it happened for my best friend. She just needed to relax.

Or maybe if you adopted some trolls. See, my sister, she adopted trolls, and then like, right after they brought the trolls home, bam, she had her very own REAL troll.

My pastor says Artificial Recruitment of Trolls is wrong. He says it's unnatural. Some people just weren't MEANT to have trolls. It's part of God's Plan.

And why are you, like, so BITTER about not having trolls, huh?"

Now why didn't I think of all that before?

Asking for Trouble (For My Birthday)

This morning I turned a very respectable twenty-eight. Yes! Look at me, approaching thirty with gusto and a newly resurfaced face! And an archives' worth of papers relating to adoption! No baby yet! But that's okay! Getting a little impatient maybe, but whatever!

You know what I want for my birthday? A troll. I've never had one of my own. No thoughtful stranger has ever materialized from the ether to leave some asshole comment on my blog! Not once! I have never been told to "just adopt" (and yet I've managed to come to that decision without such helpful advice), and no one has ever insisted that I be grateful for what I have in the way of Chihuahuas instead of expending all that energy grieving miscarriages and what-all. Nobody tells me my ectopic pregnancy was meant to be! I even proclaimed my bisexual heathen-ness to the world at large, and all for naught!

Is it my wide-eyed Midwesternness insufficiently tempered by wry East Coast-ness? My nonthreatening pink and blue color scheme? My sexy red lips? Christ, what do they want from me? I'm flamingly pro-choice! Pro-Kerry and extremely anti-Bush! Pro-the-voting-rights-of-expatriate-Americans! I want gay people to have the right to marry! I honestly think it's okay to smoke a little marijuana when you're pregnant, and won't have a problem with birthmothers who do! Pesticide should be illegal! Libertarians are wack! Encoded Archival Description is the wave of the future! WIRED magazine is full of really bad writing! Those sexy red lips are somewhat Photoshopped! Monsanto is the devil!

I THINK WE SHOULD HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, AND THAT IT SHOULD INCLUDE HOMEBIRTH MIDWIVES! ANYBODY WHO VOTES FOR BUSH IS EITHER BOTH VERY RICH AND EVIL OR WILLFULLY IGNORANT! I AM INSULIN-RESISTANT BUT I JUST ATE THREE FUN-SIZE KIT-KATS! JESUS IS JUST ALL RIGHT WITH ME! NOT, YOU KNOW, SUPER! JUST ALL RIGHT!

Whoooooo.

Nobody hates me.

*sniffle*

And They Named Her Johnny Damon.

Ha. Kidding.

(Usually I avoid this sort of disclaimer, but: I will be talking about pregnancy and babies and whatnot, below.)

So. Wednesday night.

The moon went copper red in the sky during the total lunar eclipse.

The Red Sox won the World Series for the first time since (all together now:) 1918.

And my sister gave birth to a beautiful daughter, eight pounds nine ounces, a little bit after midnight. Both are now recuperating in the hospital, on antibiotics for fevers that have since come down. Lord willing and the temps don't rise, both of them ought to be home within a week. I sure hope they are.

Natalia Rose, as the newest member of the Leery clan and the first grandchild, will, according to custom, sacrifice her dried umbilical cord stump to the insatiable hunger of some relative's black-and-white Chihuahua -- ours, in this case. This tradition began with me and a snappish piglet of a dog named Tiny, and it has brought me nothing but good fortune.

So, Natalia Rose, may you enjoy a reasonably idyllic childhood of mess and tadpoles and dress-up clothes, hours of uninterrupted play, a jumble of siblings and cousins in filthy Daddy t-shirts; may you be allowed to eat the batter with the raw eggs in it; may your diary remain inviolate. May you play oblivious on the floor while your mother and aunts tell appalling jokes; may you launch a projectile bowel movement at an unsuspecting parent and giggle irresistibly; may you never take up smoking. May you be surrounded, always, by the warm and raucous laughter of your entire family, who have loved you beyond all reason since before you were born.

Fishing for Religion

The thing to bear in mind, here, is that whatever hastily-put-together Frankenstein's monster of spirituality I might practice now, I was brought up a Presbyterian in Kansas, heir to a long line of same.

Now, granted, by the time I came along, the Kansas branch had started to skid uncontrollably down a mucky slope of fundamentalism, such that in my high-school Sunday school class, a man came to explain to this wide-eyed, accepting assemblage of cherubs that the PROOF, people, that EVOLUTION was IMPOSSIBLE was that DINOSAUR FOOTPRINTS and HUMAN FOOTPRINTS had been found in the SAME ROCK. Yeeeap. You heard me, kids. Tell your biology teachers.

It was about that time that I, junior paleontologist and well-schooled in your fundamentals of geology, started to suspect that these grown-ups, they might have another agenda besides spreading love via the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Remnants of an older Presbyterian-ness still cling to me, and they are indistinguishable from the general Scots-Irish Kansas milieu of my mother's side of the family: a certain reserve in matters emotional (though poontang talk seems to flow freely enough, in my case), an inability to satisfactorily express -- or even admit to experiencing -- anger, an unmitigated horror at the idea of holding hands with other people while praying. I mean, why don't we just strip naked and press our doughy bodies together right there over the Sunday pot roast, brethren? Amen! They don't call us the Frozen Chosen for nothing, and we like it that way.

Well, not "us." I am, how you say, not so much with the Christian these days.

Sunday is Catch-As-Catch-Can Day

So make yourselves to home, now, and I'll see what I can rustle up in the kitchen.

It Begins!

Hairdresser: So how long have you been married?
Me: Four and a half years.
H: So do you have any kids yet?
M: Not yet.
H: (sympathetically) Hmm.
M: (obviously thrilled) Actually we've just signed up with an adoption agency. We're adopting a baby!
H: (as though someone has just sunk a letter opener between her fifth and sixth ribs) But don't you want one of your own?!
M: Well, any children we adopt will be our own.
H: But...
M: We are physically unable to make children.
H: Well, then that's a really great thing you're doing! That child will have someone to love it and care for it and...
M: *sigh*

And then I presented her with a tidy informational pamphlet on adoption theory.

Okay, no, I did not. But back in the day, when I was sure a homebirth was just around the corner for me, I worked up an educational brochure on the subject for dubious relatives so that I wouldn't have to spout data interminably, like some kind of hellish (but informative!) fountain. Yes, it's safe. Blah blah studies show blah blah Henci Goer bling bling blah.

What amazes me isn't that people have misconceptions about adoption. No, the astonishing thing is that people, regardless of their differences, will ALWAYS PHRASE THESE THINGS THE SAME WAY. Always.

It's not that I'm offended. I'm just bored.

I Went Shopping

And bought not a damn thing. I hate malls, I hate our mall in particular, and by the time I left I hated America.

And yet I require pants for work. And I require them to conform to certain internal standards of hotness, comfort, ease of care, and let us not forget the hotness. What's a girl to do?

Also I Made Soup

This is my only recipe that doesn't start with "You take a stick of butter...." I am a culinary Kansan, underneath all that extra-virgin olive oil. I am also very slippery. And more virginal than I've been in years.

Take a pumpkin. Cheese pumpkins work well for this. If you can get one from your local organic farm, so much the better, and then you can act all Mother Earth News about it. Cut it in half, or quarters, however you can best fit it in your oven. Remove the seeds and stringy stuff. Place it cut side down in a shallow pan with a little water. Bake at 375 for however long it takes to start looking like a basketball that spent a winter outdoors -- an hour or two. When it's done, scoop out the pulp and attendant liquids into a bowl.

Meanwhile, cook five or six slices of bacon in the bottom of a soup pot. (I use Applegate Farms, because not only is it lacking in antibiotics and such, but it just renders so nicely, and the fat is extra smoky and tasty.) While the bacon's cooking, chop up a good-sized onion. Remove the cooked bacon and devour at will. Throw the onion into the rendered bacon fat and cook until soft. (If you're not a bacon fiend, just use the oil of your choice.)

Put some cooked pumpkin and some of the grease and onion mixture into a blender or food processor, and puree until baby-foodish. Thin with apple cider. Keep doing that in batches until you have a whole lot of puree. Put it back in the pot and add some maple syrup and more cider until it's a good consistency. Season with salt, black pepper, cayenne, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, and curry powder until it tastes awesome. If you are so inclined, pour in some heavy cream.