every freaking time!

I'm pretty obviously pregnant at this point. I mean, I've been asked for a cigarette in the last week, but I just thanked the guy for not being judgmental. Nonetheless, I'm assuming that most people assume that I'm knocked up.

Which is why it's so infuriating that the last three times I've gone to the grocery store, the bagger has left my checkout lane as soon as I start to check out. Apparently, the Krogetto in my neighborhood has not instilled in their employees an unconditional fear of pregnant ladies pushing food around in cages.

I would not consider myself a high maintenance, wispy pregnant lady. I mowed my own lawn (using a rusty, manual push mower, cuz we're hippies, remember?) into my third trimester. I wear heels to work still. I moved all the furniture in the nursery several times, by myself, before I was satisfied.

But there are some things I simply cannot do anymore. For example, reaching. Reaching and almost-full-term bellies are diametrically opposed. Thus, bagging my own groceries should be beyond my capacity. But I'll be damned if I ask for help! So I braved the Braxton Hicks and leaky bladder on the day Kroger had canned fruit on sale, and bagged and loaded my own friggin' groceries. And I'll keep doing it every time, too, because the whole time, I'll be praying the my water breaks all over the checkout lane. That'll show them.

Unrelated. Mitch is indulging my love for Robert Downey Jr. (and his love to kitschy action flicks) by watching Sherlock Holmes. Is Robert Downey Jr. really that hairless? It kind of makes him look a little geriatric. But he's still my #1 boo.

hey boo!

Four Ninjas

I had a dream last night that I was putting on makeup, and Mitch made me spill my really expensive Bare Minerals foundation (okay maybe you don't think it's expensive, but it's a splurge to spend that much money on something that my dog just licks off my face later) all over the floor. In my dream, I got really pissed at him, and he started laughing at me and wouldn't stop, so I just started beating the crap out of him. I was smart enough to stay away from his neck and face, so people wouldn't see that I had dominated him, but I totally cornered him in the bathtub and punched the crap out of his arms. And he kept laughing at me the whole time.

I don't know what this says about my marriage, or about me in general, but I always feel guilty when I have dreams about beating people up. I think it means I have this subconscious violent tendency. Most people don't know (or choose to forget) that I have a second-degree black belt in TaeKwonDo, which I obtained as a 12-year-old Ninja Turtle devotee. I totally played around sewers and manholes (keep it to yourself) with the neighborhood boys. We pretended that Shredder would come out and give us missions, and we would kick BeBop and Rock Steady's asses. Then I started to get distracted by girl things like Bonne Bell lip gloss and removing my leg hair, and I abandoned my dreams of auditioning for the next Three Ninjas movie as their tomboy sidekick who roundhouses her way into their hearts while at the same time rescuing them from their own misogynistic hubris. I would own that.

Anyway, my dream flooded back to me suddenly this morning as I was brushing my teeth and Mitch was toweling off after taking a shower. I confessed that I had assaulted him in my sleep, and apologized, all the while resisting the urge to give him a purple nurple. It's just so tempting.

Inflammatory Things

I'm trying to avoid posting stuff like this on facebook, because I really hate status arguments (so pointless). I've been dog-sitting for my parents, and unlike Mitch and I, they have like a million channels. So of course I've been watching way more TV than is necessary for life (Note: none TV is necessary for life). In particular I've been enjoying Sister Wives.

I'm pretty sure most people are familiar with the premise: it's a reality show about a polygamous family. The husband is definitely a huge dweeb (c'mon, Kody with a K?), but it at least appears that the family is relatively functional. The kids are clean, well-fed, and enrolled in school, and the wives are realistically cheerful. They just seem like a really huge family; not much different than the Duggars I suppose.

Anyway, amidst all this push to legalize same-sex marriage (of which I am a proponent), I feel like maybe we should also legalize polygamy.

Much of the argument in support of same-sex marriage regards access to benefits and destigmatization of families with same-sex parents, not to mention the fact that two consenting adults should be allowed to marry each other just because. Seriously, just because. It has no bearing on anyone else's marriage, and the kids in these relationships are no better or worse for it, so just leave it.

Along that same vein, why shouldn't three or four (or more) consenting adults be allowed to marry? Isn't this type of prohibition just another example of banning a lifestyle that we might not understand?

Personally, I don't understand polyamory either. Even though I'm pretty sure I would be the alpha wife, I really have no desire to share Mitch's manly resources with other women. Conversely, I also have no desire to manage a houseful of husbands who don't know how to scrub a bathtub. Regardless of my own insecurities/laziness, polygamous families are also stigmatized and denied equal access to certain benefits. I'm sure there are some deeper economic, tax, and insurance issues that perhaps could exploited by polygamous families, but that's beyond the scope of what I feel like talking about here (it's late, and I'm starting to ramble). And I believe bringing these families out of the woodwork might help regulate some of the darker aspects of polygamy, namely child brides and rape. Maybe it's the tiny (very tiny) libertarian in me, but I just don't think the issue of who marries whom should be left up to the government.

Then again, I've also been watching a lot of Iron Chef, which also makes me feel like they should make it legal to marry a wheel of Gruyere.

Ultrasound Day

Confession. This isn't even our baby. I figured it didn't matter because all babies look the same on an ultrasound picture. ALL of them. Although we did get a creepy photo of its face where it kind of looks like the Terminator or the Donnie Darko bunny.

The baby squiggled around the whole time, and made it very difficult for the sonographer to take pictures, but we did find out the gender today. Honestly, we were just excited that it's human (did I mention I dreamed it was a piglet?), that it seemingly has all its body parts, and that it's normal on every scale. Head circumference, length, weight. All good.

We're not sharing the gender until the birth for a couple of reasons. One, because what if they're wrong? They're never 100% sure unless they do a genetic test, and I've heard enough horror stories about parents getting ready for a certain gender, buying all pink or blue shit, and then getting a big old surprise when the baby comes out. We would like to avoid that inconvenience.

Second, we just decided that we want to keep some things to ourselves. We decided to keep the name and the gender a secret just so there's something to look forward to (other than the actual birth of the baby).

But really, I just get off on being withholding.

whoops

Soooooo grad school swallowed me whole. The last several months have been nothing short of mind-numbing. Since my last post I have:

• Gone on tour with my band, during which we were called the wrong name on the radio several times.
• Consumed at least 40 bottles of wine and 100 pots of coffee. A modest estimate.
• Read the Hunger Games Trilogy TWICE.
• Watched several more of my friends sadly succumb to parenthood.
  
• Been mistaken for a local celebrity.
• Gotten a big-ass tattoo (not to be mistaken for a big ass tattoo).
• Fought off a rabid raccoon.

I'm so sorry I have deprived the blogosphere of these stories.