Posts from — August 2008

Yesterday was a Bad Day.

Work was stressful, Bug and I had an Olympics-worthy fight involving tears and yelling and snot (only some of which was from him), and also I don’t know if you know this but I am eleventy million months pregnant. Give or take.

So it didn’t go so well, yesterday. And I learned also (ok, didn’t really learn, I’ve already known this but had to acknowledge) that I am pretty much the World’s Worst Asker for Help in situations such as these. Because why ask for help when you can sit around and wallow in your own misery?

But Lorso is a good husband who cares for me, and so he lifted his Horn of Gondor and sent out the alarm from on high at his place of work.

And so the cavalry came. Two good friends (and one very sweet 10 year old to entertain Bug) showed up at my house and lent me their ears. And they talked to me and offered me their insight and wisdom. And, well, they helped me. Because I needed it.

And so I let them.

And the reason I’m writing about it is to say thanks to those two friends, but also to remind myself that receiving help does not make me weaker. It makes me stronger.

And so I am.

“You know, if it is possible to drop something, nine times out of ten I’ll do it. I wish I had one of those long handled trash guy pincher things to pick up all the things I drop.”

“You should use Bug’s little dinosaur head pinchers. You know, the ones that roar when you chomp the teeth.”

“Pshaw. Those things are about 10 inches long. Wouldn’t save me much bending now would it?”

“Well, you know what they say – Preggers can’t be choosers.”

One thing that has been true for me in both this pregnancy and the last is that the hormones that are involved seem to bathe my brain in a way that temporarily switches my dream section to the ALL MEN ALL THE TIME setting. For one thing, I constantly dream about past boyfriends/crushes. In fact, when I was pregnant with Bug, I dreamed about every boyfriend I had ever had – almost in order – and said goodbye to them. Apparently my subconscious doesn’t do subtle.

Since I took care of the goodbyes last time, I guess this time my brain wants to have a little fun and has started just picking whomever the hell it wants to and making me love them in my sleep. Love them, smooch them, marry them, bear their children, whatever. My dentist – fair game! Checkout guy at Target – why not! Michael Phelps – well, he makes sense, since I see him every day (and also HAVE YOU SEEN HIS BODY). Everyone is a possibility. There are no boundaries to my brain’s HILARIOUS HILARITY.

And then last night I dreamed in two successive dreams (potty break in between, natch) that I was engaged to be married to two guys who are actual acquaintances of mine, in my age bracket. (Who may or may not live near me and whom I knew a long time ago or just met – I’m being intentionally vague here FYI.) This weirds me out more than dreams about being my dentist’s arm candy or the Target guy’s boo. First of all, neither of these guys are goofy looking or old or gay. Secondly, they’re both married. Thirdly, it’s just WAY WACKED OUT, SRSLY. I feel like because they are my age and my acquaintances, they will just know somehow that I dreamed about them (from their far away or close by range – I cannot stress my VAGUEY VAGUENESS about this enough) and then infer that I have a thing for them or something, which, I’d like to stress, I do not. Not even a little bit if I squinted.

My brain is turning me into a harlot.

Why do you ask?

Things I am currently obsessed with, in no particular order:

• Crossword puzzles. I can’t stop doing them. I think I’m counting on them to prevent my brain from atrophying like my poor ab muscles have clearly done already. Right now I am on puzzle #51 out of 75 in our NY Times crossword puzzle book. Puzzle #1 was moderately challenging, and as the puzzles progressed we passed the Hard stage, went straight to Crazy Hard and eventually reached the What’s Wrong With You, You Crazy Masochist stage. Tons of fun!

• Great God Almighty, The Olympics. It’s like being on drugs. You think, I can quit any time! I’m just in it for the gymnastics, man. And then all of a sudden it’s one in the morning and you’re watching recounts of steeple chase and fencing and wondering where you could score some quality table tennis at this time of night. You watch the entire two and a half hours of the women’s marathon coverage. You see Bob Costas’ face in your sleep. You know the name of Michael Phelps’ bulldog. But it’s so totally not a problem man. I can quit cold turkey. On August 24.

• Painting my house. I see this one as ok, because it actually requires me to get off the couch, unlike the previous two. First it was the living room, then the dining room, and now we’ve moved on to the bedroom. Which is where we will stop (I PROMISE, LORSO), because we will then be out of time. And money. And permission from landlords.

• Emptying my bladder. This doesn’t really require explanation.

• Eating food. I’m pretty sure that if you were required to record all your eating habits throughout your pregnancy and submit them to your doctor, I would receive mine back with a big red FAIL across the top. I am helpless in the face of ice cream. I tremble at the sight of Cheetos. Nine letter word meaning “Thought most often found occupying Rachel’s pregnant brain?” NOMNOMNOM.

Clearly my utopia would be sitting in my freshly painted bedroom watching the Olympics with an open bag Bugles and a crossword puzzle in my lap. Uh, hooked up to a catheter.

BLISS.