In honor of today's costume...

In honor of today's costume is a reflection on some of my past costumes which were, sadly, not as widely recognized as they should have been.

Today, 10/31/07, I was Rosemary from "Rosemary's Baby."
It's good, isn't it? Unfortunately, the costume suffers from referencing a film now more than 30 years old. Oh, and also I had a really hard time getting my hair blond, so it had an odd greenish-white cast.

One year just out of high school I was Alex from "A Clockwork Orange."

He's the gentleman in the front. Now if I do say so myself, this was an awesome costume. Unfortunately, it also suffered from being a bit of a cult film. And 20 years old. Oddly, that was the very same year that Bart Simpson dressed as Alex. My friends and I were sitting around watching the Simpson Halloween special and all eyes turned to me when Bart appeared on the screen.

Another year I was Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks. It was great -- I wore a nude leotard and tights under a plastic tarp. I had a long blond wig, a REAL toe tag, and blue lips with a little sand around them. As it turns out, not everyone admires David Lynch like I do.

On another occasion, I went as Mia Sara's character in "Legend" after Tim Curry Satan seduces her with a creepy black dress.
I even made the stand-up collar thing.

I once went as Kali the Destroyer. That one was really good, actually. Not many regular folks knew what I was, but I scared the piss out of the Hindi pizza delivery guy. For real. I think I took ten years off his life.

I went as Dale Evans one year. I can't complain too much, because at least people got that I was a cowgirl.

Anyway, I think I'm an incredibly cool person, and my rad costumes prove it. It's just the rest of the world who doesn't understand.

Yay, me and Duh, me

This morning I came into school and got my feedback from Friday's sub -- he said that my students were the best-behaved students he'd seen in the district! So the threats of tearing them limb from limb worked!

On Sunday, Mom and I went to Tres Hermanas. Feeling confident, I ordered my tamales with my best fake Spanish pronunciation. Apparently, I did pretty well, because then our favorite waiter asked about soup or salad en Espanol. But I answered in Spanish again! And then he asked me in Spanish what sort of dressing I wanted. I went with la casa. And then he asked me something else, and I was out. I tried to tap out gently, but after asking for clarification twice, I had to admit I don't speak any Spanish. Like, at all. I never took Spanish in high school, and the only reason I have a good fake Spanish accent is because I hang out with so many Spanish speakers. Silly me. I keep intending to learn Spanish someday, but haven't had the time.

Another first!

jack o'lantern
Originally uploaded by countmockula

I found my first gray hair the other night! I wasn't sure at first, because I haven't had my hair dyed in a while, and I'm getting a lot of blond mixed in with the dark hair. But I isolated it and found that it is, indeed, gray. I tried to find it again, but it appears to have gone into hiding.

I think it's interesting, but I don't care. I don't feel any older than I did before I found it. Now, before I was pregnant, it might have been different -- I was beginning to have some very scary feelings about being too old to have kids. But now that's kind of taken care of.

Also, for all the ways I take after my dad's side of the family, including my hair, I've been very lucky with the gray thing. I can remember sitting in the back seat of the car counting my dad's grays when my parents were still married, and I'm pretty sure he was only 34 when they divorced. He had a TON back then, so to be 31 and have just the one? Not too bad. My mom apparently got 4-6 when she was in high school and then never had any more until about her late 40s.

I'm just hoping that I get manageble grays, not those coarse, wiry ones. But unlike SOME PEOPLE, I don't feel the need to pluck them. I'm proud and happy to be growing older. I had a student tell me yesterday that she didn't want to get older, and I wished I could tell her how much better it really is.

That's my jack-o-lantern, by the way. I know I totally stole the idea, but I still like how it came out.

Oh, one more thing -- I now officially feel like I can look at baby clothes purposefully, so Mom and I went shopping on Sunday. Oh my gosh, the cute baby stuff! Oh, the greens and pinks and purples! Oh, the duckies and cherries! Oh, the fleecy softness! Oh, the little enclosed footies and mittens! Oh the hats and socks and bibs! Seriously, baby stuff rules. We wandered aimlessly around the baby section of Macy's for like an hour! And mom got a beautiful green fleece one that says "Sweet Pea" on it and has a little embroidered peapod. Sigh.

Oh, and for those of you who have asked about names, we're leaning towards* Azadeh. It's pronounced Ah Zah Day, and means
"free of material things, dry ground." It's a Persian name. Sweetie will call her Ozy as a nickname, and I'll call her Zadie.

* If Sweetie were here, he would shout, "We're settled! 100% certain! Azadeh it is!"

Peapod's a SHEpod!

We went to the hospital today to get the ultrasound. I wasn't carefully watching the time, but I swear we were in the room for almost an hour! (Although in our valuable time in the waiting room, we discovered a 1989 Sacramento Magazine.) Our ultrasound tech was the "fake supervisor" that day, but she spent tons of time with us, looking at Peapod from all the angles. We saw tiny fists moving around, a healthy-looking spine, cute little feet, and kind of a creepy head. I mean, I've seen lots of ultrasounds of profiles, and I think I'd have preferred that to the brain-hemispheres-and-eye-sockets skull face we saw. Sweetie had a half-squinty half-horrified look on his face the whole time, and compared the ultrasound pics to the art of HR Geiger.

It was really cool, even though I didn't know half of what was going on. The tech would linger on the heart for a while, then the stomach, then the arms, the legs... She actually almost finished up before she was like "Oh, I didn't tell you!" She navigated back to the bootie area, and kept moving the wand around. It was taking so long I thought we might have a troublemaker who wouldn't show its bits, but then she said "I know what it is, I'm just trying to get a really good shot for the picture." Then she said "There you go." I looked at the screen and still just saw a boomerang-shaped-booty, but her arrow was pointing to the center of it. I was like "What? I don't know what I'm looking at." Then Sweetie pointed out that there was some text on the screen. It read "I'm a lady." We were seeing nothing because there was nothing there! Yay for internal genetalia!

Honestly, I'd be this happy if the news were that it was a boy, too, but I do feel really happy to have another inkling of who this child is, and to have seen her. It's so cool to know that even when I can't feel her, she's drumming her little fists.

Here's a cute little foot:


And here's the skull-face. F is forehead, C is chin, the Es are eyes.

Last night's class

fetus
Originally uploaded by royalhuntinglodge

I went to the "Healthy Beginnings" class last night. Just a couple highlights. Aparently, I still haven't mastered that "filter" thing that people are always talking about, because when my team performed well on the "developmental stages" card game, I stood up, pointed at the other groups, and said "In your face!"

Then when the instructor mentioned Kegels, I casually said "I'm doing them right now."

The coolest thing was when they handed around the fake baby. I'm 19 weeks today, and they handed around a 20-week plastic fetus that was the right weight and everything. It was so cool! I've been having a hard time figuring out how big Peapod is, because one web site says it's the size of a kiwi, another says it's the size of a softball, one says 4 1/2 inches from head to rump... I was having a hard time picturing it. But the fake baby was a perfect way to visualize. And Peapod was bigger than I thought. It had its legs and arms crossed like in that photo, but from the head to the butt fit almost perfectly in my hand -- it was just a tiny bit longer than my hand. And surprisingly heavy!

The only other thing about last night is this: I try not to be a prostelytizing vegetarian. I don't even think most people would know I'm a veggie unless they paid attention to my eating habits. But god almighty, it was hard not to feel superior last night! About an hour of the 2 hour class was devoted to the dangers of lunchmeats, hot dogs and turkey dogs, undercooked meats, certain kinds of fish, raw fish, too much tuna... I mean GEEZ! It's pretty nice to hear "WARNING, WARNING, SEVERE DANGER! (Does not apply to you)."

Oh yeah, and several of the women who were as far along as I am were way bigger than me! Plus, I felt really lucky when I started hearing about other people's morning sickness. Not smug, just lucky.

Go ahead,

new haircut
Originally uploaded by countmockula

tell me how cute my new haircut is.

Misconceptions

Pregnant Belly
Originally uploaded by Valdosta Dawn

(The airy, fuzzy, twee-ness of this photo cracked me up. It's not me, obviously.)

Yeah, so you know how pregnant women are always talking about how hard it is to shave their legs or tie their shoes? I always figured that was a bit of a crock. I mean, your arms don't get shorter, for goodness' sake! You can still reach anyplace you could reach before, right?

Oh. I have figured it out. It's not about the arms being able to reach around the belly; it's about being able to bend at the hips/waist. Go ahead -- put a soccer ball in your lap, smoosh it in there tightly so it's right up against your pubic bone, and THEN try to bend over. I get it now. I think I also thought the belly was smooshier than it actually is. Nope, it's plenty firm enough to push into my bladder and cause discomfort if I bend over or lift my legs up. In fact, this lends some credence to Monkeygirl's theory that I won't be able to drive right up to the end: if I can't lift my clutch leg, I can't shift!

I'm not actually uncomfortable or unable to do stuff yet. This is more a realization than a bitch. But it is funny how wrong I was! I thought it was like being fat, when I was still plenty flexible. But no, there's a person in there!

Screw you, Chris Baty!

Chris Baty is the guy who organizes NaNoWriMo, and since I've done it three years in a row and am registered for their site, I keep getting e-mail reminders that it's almost time again.

Which would be helpful, except that I'd pretty much decided I wasn't going to do it this year. I've been tired, and going to bed early has been good for me. I never go to bed early when I'm NaNoWriMo-ing. Plus, I'll be five months pregnant at the beginning of November, and six months at the end. It cannot be a good idea to sit hunched over a computer for hours at a time.

Of course, there's an evil little voice in my head that says "Sure, but last year you didn't plan to do it, either. You didn't even have an inkling of a story. But you did it. You've won for three years in a row! And you certainly won't be able to do it next year, with a baby. This could be your last chance!"

And it doesn't help that they've sucker punched me with promises of "pep talks" from authors like Neil Gaiman and Tom Robbins. The other side of me reminds me that although I've written three 50,000 word novellas, I pretty much haven't so much as opened the files since December 1st each year. Not to edit, not to re-read, not to share... So what good does it do me to participate? *Sigh* The answer is, of course, that it gets me in the habit of writing, and that I DO feel a sense of accomplishment each time I finish one.

At this point, I'm still saying no. But that could change up to about November 2nd.

Books thing.

My husband sent me this forward from his friend Michael a few weeks ago, and I kept meaning to do it. Then Des posted the same thing, and I meant to do it then, too. And now I finally have some free time.

The top 106 unread books in LibraryThing. Bold are ones I've read. There are a few that I think I've read, but it was so long ago I can't remember (the Iliad, the Odyssey, and some of those horrid social dramas fall under that category). There are also a few I started and didn't finish, like Crime and Punishment.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A Novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian: A Novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendelum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the dog in the Night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Cake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

I love getting kicked in the pelvis

And I'm not being sarcastic.

Peapod didn't move for the last two days, and it had me a little freaked out. Now, sometimes those movements are subtle and I don't notice if I'm distracted, and I have been busy the last few days. It could be that Peapod was moving and I didn't notice or mistook it for something else (like my bass thumping). Nevertheless, I did not notice any baby movement for two days. And I was freaking out.

Well, I was okay day one. Because it's gone one day before. At the end of day 2, I was thinking about it, but not freaking out, but this morning, the morning of day 3, I was having a decent freakout. And then this morning at about 8 am, I got whacked from the inside. Not a subtle turn, not a bubble-like "bloop." A punch or kick. And all day I've been feeling movements very strongly. So I guess Peapod was just saving up his or her energy for today's capoeira session.

By the way, we find out the sex next Friday. Wanna get your guesses in before then? I'll do any of those silly old wives' tales for you if you ask, or answer things like whether my nose is getting fat (it isn't).

Like, totally 80s day, weird dreams again

IMG_0873
Originally uploaded by countmockula

Ohmigod, yesterday was totally 80s day at school for spirit week. Everyone else wore neon off-the-shoulder tops and pegged jeans or legwarmers, but I decided to give a different perspective. When I saw my friend, he said "You're so mod!"

Today is much lamer -- professional day. So I'm wearing a blazer, skirt, and heels. How fun is that? I'm going to talk smack to the leadership teacher later.

I had two odd dreams last night. In one, Sweetie and I went to some sort of spa for relaxation, and we went into separate rooms. They arranged me on a table that moved around rhythmically, and I realized I was REALLY relaxed as the woman in the lab coat spoke softly to me. I found that I was being hypnotized, and I asked "Wait, are you going to do anything bad while I'm under?" "Actually," she replied, "Yes. We're going to show you some images and train you to find them distasteful." "Like 'A Clockwork Orange'? No!" I yelled. "I must have free will!"
I ran out of my room and into the room where Sweetie was. He was already hypnotized, so I gently touched him, reminded him how much I loved him, and asked if he trusted me. He said yes. Then I asked him if he wanted to come out of it. He said yes. We both bolted.

In a later part of the same dream, he had to have knee surgery, and my mom and I went to see some historical sites in Iowa, and we were going to walk over to her childhood home, too.

The other one is pretty transparent: I was writing down sheet music to try to help Jeff the arrythmic drummer, and next to all the lyrics, I was writing down in the margins what the drums sounded like. I was transcribing things like "tikka tikka tikka." Yeah, band practice is tonight.

Guns, guitars, balls, and gender roles

I consider myself lucky to work at a high school. You forget what it was like, to an extent, and it's such a weird place, really. Yesterday after school I saw the NJROTC rifle team heading in one direction passing the guitar class going the other way. All had their instruments of choice, of course. A handful of volleyball team girls went in yet another direction in preparation for their game.

The gender roles part of the headline is not actually related to the above. Yesterday was "Dress like the opposite sex" day (it's spirit week again), and I noticed a TON of young ladies dressed as boys (including one who'd gone to great lengths to darken her facial hair and was quite convincing!*), but only a handful of boys who were up to the challenge. I understand, of course, but I still find it sad that a girl who dresses as a boy is just having fun and showing her school spirit, but a boy who dresses as a girl is strange, possibly gay. The other interesting thing is that we have SO many tomboys at our school that it's rather difficult to tell who was dressed up and who wasn't. A girl in athletic apparel and a baseball cap isn't an unusual sight any day of the week.

*The principal actually came up to her from behind and asked "Do you still go here?" apparently thinking she was a troublesome male student from a previous year. I even did a double take.

Huge

So, as blissfully happy as I have been, I would be lying if I did not admit that I am having some body image issues with this whole pregnancy thing. As an ex-fat person, it is alarming to see my weight and dress size going up, even though I know logically that there is a darn good reason for it.

On Sunday, I was telling Mom that I had seen myself sideways in the mirror in yoga (doing "Warrior 2") and momentarily freaked out, and her response was the sympathetic "Yeah, I'm surprised at how much you're showing already. I wasn't even in maternity clothes at this stage." Now, I know she had no intention of hurting my feelings, and was in fact, just validating what I had said. (And I know you read this, Mom. Please don't feel bad -- I'm over it.) But it did make me wonder -- after all this time wanting so badly to be pregnant, now that I had achieved it, was I doing it wrong? My first task as a Mom, and I was already screwing it up!

I spent the evening comparing myself to Mom, and thinking that I would never live up to her (which is probably true in its way -- she's amazing). I wondered how I could possibly be showing so much when I hadn't even gained that much tonnage. My face, arms, butt, hips... none of them have changed. I just have a big belly! And my mom is, well, my MOM! We're genetically linked! Why wouldn't I be having the same kind of pregnancy she did? Must be something I was doing wrong, right?

And then my grandma called. My dad's mom. My grandma whom I resemble both in face and body. I once saw a picture of her in a bathing suit in her early twenties, and was struck by how much alike we were (although I am taller, our build is very similar). Right after she asked "What's new?" I had an idea. "Grandma, when did you start showing?" She responded vehemently "Well before 4 1/2 months, I can tell you that! I think I was showing at three!" I smiled a little. "And at 4 1/2 months, how much were you showing? A lot?" "Oh heavens yes. I think I was as big then as some people ever get." I laughed. She went on to tell me about all my aunts, including one she swears wore her regular jeans to the hospital to deliver, but I was just thinking "Oh, thank god." It's such a stupid thing to feel bad about, since I know every person is different and every pregnancy is different, but it made me feel better to think that there might be some genetic reason for it all.

Here's my grandma.
(I added this picture of me on MY wedding day for comparison.)

Pleasant and busy weekend

On Friday evening, Sweetie and I went to dinner at Maalouf's, then later I had to go to Target for baby shower presents.

Saturday I made butterfly casserole (essentially a baked pasta) and took some to a friend who just had a baby. We visited for a bit and I got to hold the baby. Newborns are rad. Then I went to Jo-An's Fabrics, thinking I might get something good, but nothing appealed to me.

I went to my ballet class afterwards, then came home and did a few things before calling Monkeygirl. I went to see her house (she's made a bunch of improvements), then we came back to my place and ate butterfly casserole (if you're making one, might as well make two, right?). We had considered going to a movie, but ended up going to Second Saturday instead. I really had a good time. It seems like every time we go there are more and more places showing art, more live bands in the streets, more vendors selling handmade jewelry and soaps and lotions, etc. We stopped in Miss Kitty's coffee house for a cocoa/latte/biscotti treat after we had seen most of the places we wanted to, and we got to just shoot the shit.


I noticed that this time, there was a lot more photography on display, including some really cool photos of SF architecture -- not the big fancy painted ladies, just small homes. But they were charming. We also walked very delicately around a $22,000 sculpture and made fun of several sculptures that looked like testicles but were called things like "Road Trip" and "Kansas City sunset." Oh, and one of the best discoveries? Luigi's pizza, which is a little dive in South Sac but has the best pizza in town, has a by-the-slice outlet in midtown now!

Today I read the paper, went to the farmer's market, then went to yoga. There are bits of yoga that are becoming quite difficult or impossible, like anything lying on my stomach. But I can still do most of it and get a benefit from it. Then I rushed home, ate lunch, and got ready to go. Mom picked me up and dropped me off at my aesthetician's baby shower, where I stayed for 25 minutes or so, then we both went to my cousin's shower in Howe Park. I don't remember having been there before, but Mom says her softball team used to practice there, so I definitely have. It was a really nice setting, with bridges over a little creek that ran through everything. The shower was very nice, too. The best part, I think (besides kicking ASS at one of the shower games*) was the paper Mom put on Cousin's gift: she wrapped it in plain white paper and covered it in photos of Cousin, Cousin's first son (who is 16 now, and was one of the cutest babies EVER), and the rest of the family. There were several photos of me holding my second cousin, who I always had a real bond with, and the photos were really sweet. My step-dad didn't even recognize one, apparently, because he didn't remember that I once had really long hair!

I also enjoyed seeing some of Cousin's close friends and their families whom I hadn't seen in years.

Then Mom and I did a little shopping, ate dinner, and stopped briefly at her house to see some new cabinets she had installed (works of art, I tell you).

Now I'm going to retire for the evening and read The Stuff of Thought, which has me totally fascinated, and I find myself telling other people about it until their ears fall off.

* The game was "write down all the baby accoutrements you can think of in three minutes." I got 33, even though some of my answers were things like "Nose bulb sucky thing."

Special Ed, Back to School, and a record broken

IMG_0865
Originally uploaded by countmockula

Last week, I covered a class for another teacher who had a meeting. He clearly hadn't prepared well to have a sub, because the "plan" for this class was to have them read and listen to a story on the web. The story? "Three or four chapters" of Huck Finn. Yep, the N-word-laden beginning of Mark Twain's masterpiece. In a special-ed class. With no preparation for the kids. That was great. I'm still harboring resentment toward this teacher. I saw him in the hall tihs morning and said "Good morning" (because I always do) and he looked away. I surprised myself by thinking "Don't look away from me, bitch!" Yikes. Hostile much?

Back to school night is tonight. I'm sure it will be fine, although our parent turnout is usually less than 20 (and of course, not all those are mine). What I wish is that I could actually leave, like, go home between school and Back to School night. It starts at 5:30, and the drive home is only 15 minutes, so you'd think I could go home and eat dinner, or pick up my CSA veggies, as I planned, but the problem is the drive back. See, my school is on the way out of the part of town with the jobs and halfway to the suburb with no jobs but a billion houses. So as you might imagine, traffic heading that way at rush hour is the worst. The drive back, the last time I attempted it, was about 45 minutes. So instead, I'll probably eat dinner at La Mision, the Mexican place down the street, and not see my house until after the big event.

And finally, when I got through the dreaded 1st trimester, I thought I was in the clear, and that I'd be able to say I made it through my whole pregnancy without puking once. Alas, no. I don't think I'm actually sick -- I aspirated a piece of fake chicken (carnivores may be thinking I got what I deserved), and then I choked and coughed so hard I triggered my gag reflex. My stomach is still a little unsettled because of the, er, upheaval.

What's the oldest magazine you've ever found at a doctor's office?

Seriously, give it some thought. 5 years? 10 years?

I win. I had to wait for my blood test the other day (by the way, results are normal), and I picked up a Sunset magazine with a colorful cover. As soon as I flipped it open, I knew something was off. The font looked odd. The layout looked odd. The color was even strange. I flipped to another page, and this one had ads. The ads were REALLY odd. I flipped to the cover again, and discovered that this Sunset magazine was from 1985. Twenty-two years. That is one old magazine.

It was fun to look through, actually, like a little time capsule in magazine form. I seriously thought about stealing it, but I can't steal. I'd have loved to have more time to browse through it, though. There was one ad that showed two healthy-looking, tan men, one blond and tall, the other Hispanic. The blond was holding a huge fish, and the other guy was clapping him proudly on the back. What do *I* assume about this photo? Two friends have gone fishing and caught a big fish. What does the text under the ad say? Something like "Jeannie and I had a great time on our trip to Mexico. I caught this 60 pound Marlin. That's Manuel, the fishing boat's captain, with me." Oh, of course! Manuel! How could I not have known?

I had another literary revelation (heh) in the bathroom. No, really! I haven't gotten a Jack Chick tract in YEARS, and there was one on the back of the toilet tank! It was called "Heart Trouble." I was so excited! I used to collect these things. My Sweetie was not impressed. "You can get them on the web now," he said dismissively. I still think it's different. For reference, "Hi There" is my favorite. And I also like many of the parodies.

Here's the heartbeat

It took me over two hours to figure out how to make this audio file available, and it included me downloading some freeware, learning to use iMovie, and delving deep into the YouTube help files, so even though it contains some really horrible, fuzzy pictures of my belly, you have to watch it.

It's kind of surreal, actually.

Here it is! Clicky clicky!

Unlimited space?

To inifnity and beyond
Originally uploaded by raghav

Fuck you, Geocities! Our e-mail is through Yahoo/SBC/AT&T/Gigantic conglomorate. Sweetie's account is the main one, and I'm one of the freebie e-mails attached to his account. Well, I get web space with that freebie account, but not much, and very little "disk transfer" (which means if people actually want to LOOK at the page, they can't do it very much). I ran into this problem recently when I hit a big wall of "YOU CAN'T DO THAT," but the message below was "but if you want to, you can upgrade to Geocities Plus."

Okay, so I try, but it won't let me unless I'm using the main account. I make sure it's okay with Sweetie, get his account info, and upgrade.

And when I go to update my site with my brand-new extra space, I can't. Sweetie has extra space, but I don't. I attempt to resolve it through the chat help thingie, but the representatives blow me off (one gives me a phone number for Yahoo Personals and signs off our session). One suggests that perhaps I can't get the upgrade to a sub-account, but is pretty vague about it and I can't get confirmation.

As of right now, my site is actually shut down because of the "disk transfer" issue (i.e., because people tried to look at it).

I asked around and found out I could get a web page through the school (it's all for my school page). This morning, the web page dude said that we have UNLIMITED space. Aw, yeah. I am going to take advantage of that! I can't wait to get access. We had to both sign a form with some legal stuff, and he's going to send it in today.

So Geocities? Screw you, your customer service representatives, your false advertising ("Upgrade here!" "Thanks for the money -- you can't have that extra space we promised you."), your corporate partners, and once more for good measure, AT&T, who I once swore I would NEVER be a customer of again, but then they up and BOUGHT everyone I WAS a customer of. I shake my tiny fist at you!

Dr. appointment yesterday

Listen to ur Heart
Originally uploaded by VIPQTR™ [ Never Stop ]

Yesterday was a super-fast checkup day. All they did was ask if I had any questions (I had a couple), listen to the heartbeat, have me fill out some papers for a blood test (for Down's Syndrome, which is kind of scary), and then send me on my merry way (well, as merry as one can be while getting blood drawn).

But the fun part was the listening to the heartbeat part. I actually managed to get my old iPod to work long enough to record it. The person doing the sonogram, Lori, was some kind of trainee, but my real doctor was right there paying close attention. I think I might be able to figure out the technology of letting you guys hear it, but in the meantime, here's my approximation of a transcription:

Lori: It worked! (referring to a conversation we were having about a fertility symbol)
[wooshawooshawooshawooshawooshawooshaTHUMTHUMTHUMTHUM]
Lori: That's you.
Me: Oh.
Lori: We had the baby, but it moved.
[wooshawooshawooshawooshawooshawooshawooshaTHUM]
Lori: Oh, it moved again. Where'd you go? Come back here.
[THUMTHUMTHUMTHUM]
Lori: Active little thing!
[wooshawooshawooshawooshawooshawoosha]
Lori: There you are.
[Wooshawooshawooshawooshawoosha*crackle*crackle*crackle*crackle*] (My recorder got too close to the speaker.)
Lori: Did you get it?
Me: Yeah, thank you.

Anyway, I already like this kid. Running away from the microphone, indeed!

Peapod's been moving a lot. I still only feel it once or twice a day, but when I do it's for a minute at a time as Peapod apparently does laps around my uterus. I am already assigning him or her a personality. Peapod tends to move during ballet, so I say Peapod likes ballet. Peapod does a LOT of moving after I eat hot sauce, so Peapod likes spicy foods. Although following this logic, Peapod also likes getting up at 4 am to pee.

I do know that it's much more likely that Peapod simply is reacting to changes in my body, perhaps is even irritated with the spicy foods or activity. Or even that it's just Peapod's brain stem shouting "Action! Reaction! Action! Reaction!" But it's more fun to think that Peapod has likes and dislikes.

And that is all for now.

"That's why they taste so good."

Hicks' Tamales
Originally uploaded by lucianvenutian

I was in Trader Joe's yesterday and the sample they were handing out was green chili and cheese tamales. Sounds good, right? I hardly ever try the samples, but after reading the ingredients to see if they are vegetarian, I took one. It was only one bite, but it was HEAVENLY.

I have, to date, bought NOTHING from the sample counter, but these were restaurant-good. I went to the little freezer right next to the sample counter, took out a package, and looked at the back to check the nutrition information.

The first thing I noticed was that a serving size is ONE tamale. Now, I don't know about you, but after one tamale, I'd still be hungry. They're not gargantuan, they're just normal. The second thing I noticed was that one tamale contained 15 grams of fat! I accidentally said "Whoa" out loud. The sample lady looked at me sympathetically and said, "Yeah, that's why they taste so good." She also noted that very few people all day had looked at the nutrition information.

Come to think of it, maybe I am hungry.

Okay, I think I'd call this a craving

Chinatown: Buddha's Delight: Tofu & Spicy Rice Noodles
Originally uploaded by Posy Cheeks

I want, and I mean REALLY want, a plate of Buddha's Delight. Actually, whatever big heaping pile of Chinese/Vietnamese veggies and tofu over noodles or rice that I could get my hands on. And I want the little tray of peppers, hoisin, chili-garlic paste, sriracha... Oh, it's not that I'm hungry -- I just ate lunch -- it's that for about three days I've felt like I could PLOW through a family-sized platter of anything that would delight the Buddha.

I can see where this is going...

PERSIAN CARPETS
Originally uploaded by HORIZON

So, back to archetypes, today we were talking about heroes and the hero's journey in class. I ask them to come up with some heroes, and naturally, we get King Arthur, Neo from the Matrix, Aragorn, Superman... Well, one kid who's seen "300" proposes Leonidas. I haven't seen the movie, but I go with it.

A few minutes later, we're asking about the big bad guys that these heroes come up against, and referring to them as "devil figures." Mr. Smith, Sauron, Lex Luthor, etc... And then to go with Leonidas, of course the Persians come up. I say "Well wait a minute, I don't think the Persians are the devil! I'm married to one after all."

Then I think of every horror movie I've ever seen where a woman is carrying the devil's baby, and I clasp my belly in mock horror, widen my eyes, and go "Uh-oh!"

We all had a good laugh.

Dreams, Jungian analysis (oddly enough, unrelated).

As you might expect if you've read 15 pregnancy books, I'm having some pretty vivid dreams lately. Last night's was funny.

I was invited to a party at a co-worker's house for her birthday. As I got there and got the presents out of the car, I realized with horror that I had eaten one of the truffles I'd gotten her, and it was in a box that showed the empty spot. I rooted through the other gifts (all were chocolates) to find one to replace the original one I ate, and I ate ANOTHER one! Then it sort of morphed into another part of the dream.

Notorious girl gang The Riff Randals was either extorting me or I owed them money for something, and they had instructed me to be near another co-worker's cell phone at a certain time. It rang, and they started asking me (it's code, mind you) whether I wanted to make a donation. I was asking what it would be as a lump sum rather than in monthly installments, when the operator cut in (the government monitors all phone calls, you see) and a recorded voice said "Crime detected. Your call is being disconnected."

Well now I was worried, because I somehow had to get the money to The Riff Randals. Luckily my friend actor Seth Green (in drag) remembered that we were all able to fly on broomsticks, which we promptly set off on. Then there was some lame sit-com-y stuff about telling people to duck as we went under bridges. Then I woke up.

In reality, The Riff Randals are a punk band I like and I DID eat a friend's chocolate. When Guitargirl and I went shopping Saturday for shower goodies, we bought a BUNCH of candy, mostly chocolate, for the favor bags. And most of it is the kind I really like. Bags and bags of candy I like have been sitting on the kitchen table for five days, and yesterday I ate one. Just one truffle! But I must have been feeling guilty.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, new topic! I'm teaching the novel "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami. I've been teaching symbolism and yesterday I switched over to archetypes. Basically, I try to give the kids a whole bunch of tools to unlock the text without giving them my interpretation. And as I was refreshing my memory as to all the different archetypes, my brain exploded.

I went OHMYGOD! The trip down the well is totally a descent into the underworld, and Mr. Honda is the wise old man and Noboru is the devil figure and each of the four women in Toru's life is a different aspect of the female archetype and he's on a quest through Hell to retrieve his Beatrice OHMYGOD it's the fucking INFERNO!!

And now I'm going to have difficulty keeping that reading from the kids, because I'm so sold on it. I want to write a paper on it. I want to go back and re-enroll in graduate school just to pop off with this shit in a seminar class.

Which is a little overboard, but that IS what I like so much about studying literature. As a reformed Lit major, I think I'm like most of us: I read a book for the pleasure of it, sometimes I'll make some connection to an archetype, or I'll appreciate a symbol, or I'll recognize an allusion, and I appreciate that special relationship I have to literature. But most of the time, I just dig the story. But what I liked about really studying a text was when your mind got blown by all that STUFF. All the meanings you could assign to it. Because in the end, it is about you and what you think. That's what math and science people hate about lit -- there's more than one answer.

See, someone could come along and say: OHMYGOD it's totally about Freud! When Toru goes down into the well, he's going into a yonic symbol and when he's leaves it, he's experiencing a spiritual rebirth, and in fact, he comes out changed! He has a new birthmark!

And then someone else could go: OHMYGOD! He goes into the well for three days, and at the end of it he rolls away the cover, and exits and he's TOTALLY a Christ figure!

See what I mean? They're all relatively convincing (especially for me having just made them up just now), and they could all be right in their way. They give meaning to the text that's additional to the story. It's so FUN.

This is a memo I received at work.

Goosebumps
Originally uploaded by dan robinson

I found approximately 23 errors in grammar and usage! Can you find them all?

Exiting the Lab
• Please be sure students’ pickup after themselves.
• Please ask students to push in their chairs.
• Please keep printer area clean and neat.
• Please used papers from the printer if your class printed documents.
• Please walk around and observe the student’s area. Insure the sign-in form is completed and submitted before releasing students.
• Please be the last one out the door to be sure everyone leaves.
• Please be sure that the door is locked and secured if there is no class in F8A.

The F8 Computer Labs have been updated and we need more accountability to avoid the computers from being vandalized. Therefore it has become necessary to use a class sign-in sheet. Students must sign-in at the computer they will be seated at. There are several ways to do this. Print the attached form and fill it in prior to coming to the lab, or fill it in at the time of arrival. It is mandatory for each class to complete this form. Please assign a student or yourself to evaluate the computers at the beginning and at the end of each session. When completed please place the form in the appropriate area, which depends on each lab. Forms are available on the S:Drive in the ComputerLabinfo. Folder or in the labs.
Sign in Form information needed
Fill in the date of your session.
Fill in the name of your student helper (if assign a student for the task).
Fill in your name (teacher’s name)

Column 1. The number of the computer available.
Column 2. Student’s First Name.
Column 3. Student’s Last Name.
Column 4. Place a check mark where problems were found.
Column 5. Draw a line through column if all is well.
Column 6. Area to write down comments or problems found.

Teachers must be responsible for there scheduled slots when reserving the school Labs if not privileges may be lost.
For question please call or e-mail me, or Mrs. Kirk

Please be advised of the allotted (4 time per month) per request of Mrs. Kirk.
Where to Access all Forms / Computer Lab Information
S:\Computer Labs Info
S:\Computer Labs Info\CmpLabRules
S:\Computer Labs Info\0708Cmp calendar
Please refer to the HOW TO USE FORMs instructions below.
S:\Computer Labs Info\LabSignup- Form
S:\Computer Labs Info\SeatingChartForm

S:\Computer Labs Info\Request4NewStdAcct-Form
S:\Computer Labs Info\LabWorkOrder-Form