heebie-geebie

Before we left, I uploaded my latest song, which is called Doomed Love. Both Jammies and my mom tactfully encouraged me to try a different beat some day ever, and so perhaps the next song will be toe-tappingly sprightly.

Let's be experimental, and open comments to constructive criticism, instead of merely encouragement?  I mean, don't tear me a new asshole. But I know this is not my best song, and maybe there's some brilliance which has been gathering in a stormcloud of commenters to rain down on me, and I'd be foolish not to get wet-n-smart. Great analogy, Heebie.

So I hang my head in a book

The weekend was wonderful. It was deeply reassuring to see Mom. On Saturday night I had a bit of a meltdown and discreetly excused myself from the barbecue to go cry on the porch. It wasn't the big picture that got to me, but just the idea that I'd be saying goodbye to Mom on Sunday. I just wanted to stay in close proximity to Mom. I couldn't bear the thought of letting her drive off with my dad.

Jammies came with me, and after a little bit he swapped out with Mom, and we had a long, cuddly heart-to-heart on the porch. Which I greatly needed. After that I felt recharged enough to resume enjoying the vacation.

while you look

Also on Saturday I got fourteen hornet stings. Isn't that exciting? My dad and I were jogging, and we decided to explore some trails, and then the trail ended a few yards from a street. So we traipsed through the bramble towards the street, until we stepped on a hornets' nest and were ambushed by a million hornets. We panicked the fuck out, and sprinted as best we could through the bramble, and then back up the trail. And then we paused. Then the hornets caught up with us and we freaked out and shrieked and sprinted off all over again.

And then we paused, but kept panicking, because I realized I had one in my shirt. I took off my shirt and Dad killed the hornet. I got five bites from that one hornet alone.

It was more psychological than anything. I kept seeing phantom hornets dive-bombing me for the next hour, and I kept nattering on about it in a breathy, hyperventilating pitch to Jammies until he was forced to humor me excessively.  Although a close second to the psychological trauma was the two bites on my left ear; those fucking hurt for a long time.

at the second hand twisting away

Also I now have revised my opinion of Hawaiian Punch from being a normal baby to being an easy baby. This is because my brothers and their wives were all amazed at how easily she goes to sleep, and stays asleep, and how chill she is when she's awake, and how much she coos.

Also, now I know to savor the baby stage, because watching one, two, and three-year-olds makes those years look like a giant pain in the ass. It's going to be so much work that I'll get the vapors, I'm sure.

We are here, we are all together for the first time ever. I told Mom that she and Dad should have made up this cancer story years ago to get us all together - kids and spouses and grandkids - and all of us well-behaved.

I have a great need to stick by Mom's side. She's walking back to the B&B to go to bed? HANG ON! I'll walk back too! She seems so healthy and normal. She goes to exercise. She laughs and jokes like normal. The only thing is her eating and heartburn issues, which is of course the symptoms for which she originally pursued treatment.

I told Mom that over the next few years she was under strict orders to ignore it whenever I well up with tears, and to continue on with the conversation. I can't help it, and I don't want to frost any conversation from happening because it looks like I'm crying. I want to have all the conversations. I want to have the most horrible conversations about what she's going through, and what I'm going through, and what this is all like.

Mom said that she finds it too hard to think about the past, like when we were little, or to think too much about the future, and so she finds herself doggedly focusing on each day. All night when I started to get overwhelmed, I clenched on to that comment in my mind, and did the same. Almost like I was paying some tribute to Mom by aping her coping techniques.

Hawaiian Punch had her first two plane trips. She was remarkably easy going. She lost her shit near the end of the first flight, but other than that, she was at most mildly fussy, or more often smiley and making friends, or sound asleep.

When we were talking about having a baby, I was obsessed with how much work it would be to have a kid.  I continually flopped back in my chair like I had the vapors, and said "It's going to be so much work." I was so overcome.

It is so much work, but it's much easier than I pictured. Because the work becomes the norm. It doesn't feel like so much work. Instead, whenever I've been apart from Hawaiian Punch, getting around feels abnormally free and easy.  Taking care of her doesn't require constantly bemoaning how much there is to do. And believe me, if it took bemoaning I would be up to the challenge. I'm a bemoaner, big-time.

So we're packing for a ten day trip with Hawaiian Punch. The front half with my family, the back half with Jammies' family.  The back half - his sister's wedding - may feel like a luxury spa. At least, that's what I'm anticipating. There will be tons of adults battling over Hawaiian Punch's time, encouraging us to sleep in and drink beer.  Whereas with my family, there will be four kids under four years old, and a sad undercurrent. It's good the way the trip is set up. Mostly I am flush with emotion that I'll be near Mom.

The one cat nibbles me when I am not paying attention to him. Say, when I'm asleep, or holding fine china or Hawaiian Punch. He nibbles hard enough that I at least jerk away.  (I sleep with a sheet, even when it's super hot, because of him.) Today he bit my back fat, while I was changing Hawaii's diaper. The indignity, dude! Biting me on my pregnancy weight!

I had an awful, awful conversation with Grandma. What on earth do you say? How do a granddaughter and grandmother comfort each other when they're losing the link between them? We just sort of cried and got off the phone.  (Is it crass to gleefully point out that the Good Enough Lecture was absent? Because it was.) (Actually, now when Mom or Dad ask me how I am, I joke "Good enough." Because I can't quite bring myself to answer "Great! How are you?" At least, not with them.)

When talking with Mom and Dad, it's hard for me not to cut-up constantly.  Dad made jokes at his own father's funeral.  I know it's a coping mechanism. And yet, it's so great when I get a chuckle out of them.

We saw Up yesterday. It is not sad. Why does everyone say it's so sad? I was baffled. Jammies said that I am not currently the best judge of what is sad.  Wouldn't that be wild if my overly sentimental temperament is permanently altered by Mom's cancer? That I become a cold robot sneering blogger, who says, "Bah, you lost your lunch money. Cry me a river."  If I could deliver a toast without choking up?

My oldest brother is hot on the case of how to solve Mom's cancer. He's got some renegade doctor that he's in touch with, and he is squabbling with my dad about which drugs should be included in Mom's chemo.  It's hard to talk to him. He says things like, "The only outside chance for a curative treatment is to include this experimental Drug X." I can't stomach the thought of excluding the only outside chance for a curative treatment.  But my brother and dad have kind of alienated each other and are not having productive conversations about Drug X any longer; they are polarized and defensive. 

I haven't actually talked to dad yet about Drug X; this is all my brother's side. But I know how to warm my parents up, and massage them into an idea, and I know my brother didn't necessarily take the time to do so.

I hope my dad, who is a Scientist!, can convince me that Drug X is a terrible idea, and that we're actually optimizing Mom's chances by not using it.  Drug X is apparently more toxic to the patient, and is still in the trials phase. I just want to trust that Mom's getting the best treatment possible; I want to be lied to, if necessary. I do not want to be burdened with hindsight.

I do not feel grim and sad, even though I'm writing about grim and sad things. I am totally excited to see Mom this weekend.

Spontaneous plans! We are now jetting to San Francisco this Friday, to be with Mom and Dad, who were already planning on going to visit my brother and his family for the weekend.  Not just us, but also the remaining brother and his family. Everyone is flying out, provided that Tuesday's doctors' visit doesn't reveal that the cancer is progressing so fast that Mom can't wait a weekend to begin treatment.

We haven't told Mom and Dad yet, until we know for sure if they're going. If they cancel, I think we'll all storm the homefront this weekend, instead. One way or another, everybody is converging around Mom and Dad this weekend.

So weird that Mom has wanted for years and years for us all to be together. That was her big treat for her 60th birthday, and it hasn't happened since then, because my brothers and their wives are infantile jackasses. And then this was thrown together in about an hour or two.

Mostly I'm beside myself with excitement. I never thought I'd get to see Mom again before treatment begins and she feels awful and her hair falls out and she's eyebrow-less.

From there, we'll go directly to Jammies' sister's wedding in Colorado. So the Family Geebie will be away for ten days. Not away from you, Gentle Reader. There's no way I would take a blogging hiatus when I need to process something like this. A lesser blogger would slip into "private" or "friends" status, but I deftly combine my juvenile desire for attention with my emotional digestion into one mushy verbal splatter. (Do you like how my brothers are infantile, but I am lofty and juvenile? I've got thirteen emotional years on them, despite what the calendar says. Mere babes.)

So, why is mouthwash so goddamn stingy? I bought non-sting mouthwash, and it felt ineffective. Can't it sting a little, like a carbonated beverage, without feeling like it's taking off the outer layer of skin?  I certainly don't gargle. I put a very small amount in my mouth and try to move it as little as possible, just so that I can stand the full thirty seconds of acidwash.

Yesterday I had a tremendous desire to be a total asshole to everyone. I patroled myself quite strictly over at Unfogged, because otherwise I would have just been picking fights.  I wanted to provoke someone into snapping at me, and then I could fly off the handle at them. But instead the power went out and I ended up taking a nap with Hawaiian Punch, and then playing soccer in the evening.

And we had another game this morning, and inevitably something protective kicks on in my brain, and I end up feeling okay for the time being.  Cheerful even. It's maybe the excess exercise. I e-mailed back and forth with Dad, and he reassured me that the tumor is probably operable. That cheered me up, too. 

Like I said, somehow I was convinced from the moment I got the news that Mom has three years left. When they told me it might not be operable, I updated that to six months in my head, and it rattled me super profoundly.  I have a lot of grieving left if there are three years to go, but I have a lot of panicking-the-fuck-out if it's just six months. So the reassurance from Dad helped very much.

Hugging my dad is like hugging a sawhorse. He's totally unflexible, and he's skinny, and he's uncomfortable with physical affection. When we were e-mailing*, after we knocked out the technical mumbo-jumbo, I switched tone and got mushy, and said how I felt better, and how awful I'd felt prior to this correspondence. Dad replied with the single line: "I think it will work out".  Which made me laugh, because "I think it will work out" has got to be the verbal equivalent of hugging a sawhorse. (But it was still comforting, because I can translate from Sawhorse back into Loving with the greatest of ease.)

*Does "e-mail" still have a hyphen? Or is this like over-enunciating "internet"? Does it only have a hyphen if you use aol.com and get flustered by pop-up ads? Why am I hyphening it? "Email" looks fine, too, I guess. Better, even.

It's not good. Well, we don't totally know. But if it was clearly good, we'd know. If there are cancerous cells in her trachea, then they won't operate. She'll still have chemo and radiation, to shrink everything, but she wouldn't have a shot at going into remission. They'll go back in next week to find out.

I didn't get as much information as I wanted. For the first time, last night Mom and Dad seemed like they wanted to get off the phone and not to talk about it. Mom tried to change the topic several times by requesting that I tell her something nice, instead. Each time I rummaged around and found something nice to tell her about. But I still had huge questions. Eventually Mom begged off the phone, and let Dad deal with me for a little longer.

I want them to have infinite reserves when it comes to talking to me. I want to be able to lean on them with all my weight.

Instead I called the therapist that Chaunda had directed us towards, when she was retiring. He's out of the office until Monday. I hope he's got an opening. I need help breaking this into bite-sized pieces.

Who the fuck is sad that Michael Jackson died? I mean, I'm sorry for the guy, but let's be real: he died a long time ago. Why is my page of facebook status updates full of weepy bullshit?

I seem to have some self-preservation mechanism in my brain, wherein I can't ruminate endlessly on Mom's cancer, at least not in the tortured-tears way. I'm still calling home a lot, though, being all clingy. I'm okay with being clingy.

I used to talk to Mom and Dad about once a week. I figure if I call daily, then the next three years are equivalent to twenty-one years! Sweet! Right?

Someone sent us this:


I laughed and laughed when I opened up the package. It's toddler-sized; I would have taken a photo of Hawaiian Punch wearing it, as a nightgown, but she is asleep, and I think we all recognize the value in not disturbing that magical state. But such an awesome, awesome shirt. I love it.

(But I do not know who sent it. Perhaps you prefer to be anonymous? Who are you? Who?)

Anyway, maybe I'll even wrap up my current song and post it. It is certainly dragging itself out enough.

Also Jammies helped, more than anything. I can't believe I forgot to say that. But he helped over the weekend, too. He was not specific to Monday.

People always say "thank you, that helped a lot," after they share bad news and everyone chimes in with condolences, but the thing is: it really does.  At least for me.  For me, you guys are very real individuals out there, and I felt better as everyone put their small note in.

Also writing everything down helped.

Also it helped to talk to my brothers. Who are totally weird and had a way, way different weekend than I did. They did not go look up esophageal tumors on Friday the second they got off the phone with my parents.  Which I guess I can understand, but I'm not built that way. They talked to each other on Father's Day and did not even mention Mom; that's how unconcerned they were.  I kind of felt like I was breaking the news to them when they returned my calls yesterday. One brother was chattering cheerfully about his car troubles and my mind was spinning; how can I tactfully break the news to him without making him feel like an idiot?? I settled on carefully asking if he'd had a chance to look anything up online yet; he hadn't.

And in fact, it is pretty bleak, although it could be worse. We got the CT scan back, and it's probably Stage III. It has spread to some tiny lymph nodes nearby, but not her lungs, at least not visibly so on the scan.  We'll find out about the course of treatment and the details of the original tumor on Thursday, when they talk to the surgeon.

So, my oldest brother has two kids; three and one year old. My middle brother has a two year old. None of the grandkids have ever visited my parents. Mom has saved all our childhood toys, since they still live in the house I grew up in, waiting eerily for hypothetical ghost grandchildren to come revive them.  And so far no one has ever visited.

Jammies and I have been plotting and calculating for over a year about how we'd bring the first grandchild for a visit. We've built it up like a stealth mission.  It was finally going to come to fruition this Labor Day weekend, when Hawaii would be about four months old. VICTORY WAS GOING TO BE OURS!

And now both brothers are musing about how they'd like to take the grandkids to the homestead over the summer. CURSES! I knew it! I knew something would prevent us from clinching the Best Kid title, at the last minute. Stupid mom with her stupid cancer.

Taking care of Hawaiian Punch helps, because it's very physical and keeps me occupied. There are diapers to change, and faces to make, and shushing and swaddling and waltzing.  Going to sleep at night is impossible if it's quiet - I just begin to torture myself, either by picturing life without Mom, or by remembering life as a small child with Mom. So instead I've been listening to podcasts. I need something to focus on, and then I can drift off pretty well.

On Friday my parents told me that there is a tumor in my mom's esophagus.  This is probably a death sentence, although we'll get more details throughout this week. Most likely it is esophageal cancer, which is generally symptomless until it's metastacized.  It's one of the bad ones, with 5 year survival rate of 5-20%, depending on which website you look at.

I've somehow concluded definitively in my head that mom has about three years left. I've been quite a mess this weekend. I'm always someone who cries easily, but holy shit, can I cry a lot or what. I've had that childish headachey feeling of having cried too much pretty much nonstop since we talked on Friday.

The only thing that actually consoles me is telling myself that I can call home as much as I want.  So I've called home several times, just to say "I'm really sad and scared" and then sit there with a lump in my throat while mom keeps the conversation alive. She might be sick of this by now; we've long since run out of idle topics to chit-chat about. But whatever, that's the type of imposition moms are perfect for.

Also on Friday, Hawaiian Punch hollered bloody murder all afternoon.  From getting her vaccinations.  Since she had good reason, it was easy to just bounce and soothe her continuously.  Plus it was kind of like she was letting out the howling anguish that the four-year-old inside me was also feeling.

Anyway, we'll find out the degree of metastasis today or tomorrow, and we'll find out whether the original tumor is operable on Thursday. Mom has said that for the first round of treatments, she'll give it everything she's got and pull out all the stops, and then she does not want a second round of treatments. Quality of life over incremental quantity of life.  I can respect that and understand it, but I kind of hate it, irrationally. She's being very zen about the whole thing, saying she can only deal with the news in bite-size pieces, and so she's letting it in gradually, and mostly taking note of how much she enjoys each day.  Dad is analyzing the hell out of it, which is exactly what I want to do as well - read the tea leaves from every possible angle.  He is a pathologist, actually, so he says things like, "If the slides are ready on Monday, I'll just look at them myself" and "I know a guy who's an expert in colon cancer, which has a similar treatment strategy, so I'll pick his brain on Tuesday".

I'm very worried about Dad. He and Mom are like intricate puzzle pieces that have melded into a single, inextricable mess. He can't cook dinner without her, she can't turn on a computer without him.  One of my biggest fears has always been how to comfort the remaining parent after the other one dies. This is the kind of tortured hyper-analysis I've been doing.

One thing that strikes me as an additional layer of tragedy is if Grandma outlives Mom.  For Grandma, she would have to watch her child die. For Mom, she would never get to live out from under Grandma's thumb. The whole thing is horrible.

It has been a big day.  Hawaiian Punch got shot full of vaccinations, and then we put a deposit down to hold a spot for her in a daycare.




Her weight is 75th percentile, and height is 50th percentile. Healthy baby.

Sleep tight, sugar bear! We love you tons!

Remember the paper I was crying over, back in January? But I finally got it submitted? I would just like to note that I have not heard back from the editor. I would also like to note that this paper has been in submission since 2004. This publication will be hard-fought if it ever materializes. (Facebook suggested that I friend the editor, but I think that kind of wheel-greasing should be unnecessary.  Facebook just wants what's best for me, though. I for one welcome our new Facebook Overlords.)

On an easier note, my ex-advisor found an alternate proof to my proof in my dissertation, and wrote it up in four pages and e-mailed it to me saying, "Why don't we publish this?"  I would like to note that his proof is not improved, and is really just phrasing my proof in different language, but he has a million times better grasp on how to write succinctly, and which sections can be left entirely unexplained, while I painstakingly re-invented the wheel in my version. But quality-wise, mine was just fine.

On a more ludicrous note, I got an e-mail from these guys, asking if they could publish my dissertation as a book.  This is basically a German vanity press, except they don't charge you. They give you five copies free, and after that they are print-on-demand.  Apparently, in Germany everyone must publish their thesis in order to graduate, so there is a market for this type of publishing. These guys just solicit dissertations from ex-grad students particularly aggressively. The consensus in the Chronicle of Higher Ed is that if your discipline expects you to publish your dissertation in book form, this is a terribly un-prestigious route. If your discipline expects no such thing, then this is a harmless novelty. Since my dissertation is collecting dust, I am going the novelty route.  What fun!

Hawaiian Punch has entered an Easy Parenting stage, where she is content to sit in your lap and look around the room for up to fifteen minutes or so.  I can parent while playing online! I'm cleaning my oven!

Anyway, I took a bunch of photos of her, today, that I will post tomorrow, for tomorrow is her Big Two Month Birthday.  Today is Song-Writing Thursday, but it is also The Electronic Mixer Is A Pain In My Butt Day, so I will be spending her valuable naps futzing around on the keyboard, not uploading photos.

Hawaiian Punch likes the Baby Bjorn, but Mama Punch thinks it was designed by sadistic fucks who've never seen a hiking backpack, and don't understand why the weight should rest on one's hips, and not one's waist.  It makes my lower back achey.

Someone's got the hiccups I know-oh-oh-oh

Hawaii has started cooing, or rather making raspy gargling vocalizations, which are a million times cuter than that description sounds. We go back and forth conversationally, which I'm told all babies do, which makes it no less enchanting, of course.

Someone's got the hiccups with Dinah

Remember in Slaughterhouse Five, the creatures who live in four dimensions? So they see all of time simultaneously, instead if being trapped one moment at a time? They see people as a millipede, with baby legs at one end and elderly legs at the other. 

Having a baby is kind of like being able to see people as millipedes, because they grow so damn fast that many sizes of baby are fresh on your mind, simultaneously.  Seriously, in the last eight weeks, she has put on half her weight again. What weight have you put on that's so great in the last eight weeks? Your eight-week millipede would just look like you, in a three way mirror. Admit it.

Hiccups on the old banjo

Mom bought me her favorite infant care book from the 1960's, Infants and Mothers, by T. Berry Brazelton. It is my favorite, too. It just narrates the experiences of three families with new babies: one is an active baby, one is a normal baby, and one is a quiet baby.  And it breaks into italics to give you some pointers and explainations behind the stories.

He has written the families to be rather neurotic and foible-filled, which I totally love. Like: Mrs. King is totally wigged out that Laura is such a quiet baby, and ends up kind of ignoring her. In italics, the doctor says that if someone had explained to Mrs. King about the differing temperaments of babies, she might have saved herself much grief. But no one did, and so Mrs. King continues to fret.

Or: Mrs. Kay puts Daniel in his chair, up on a table, and goes into the kitchen. Daniel,  (the active baby), manages to flip himself over and onto the floor. Mrs. Kay felt terribly guilty, but Daniel seemed fine. In italics, they tell you that most babies fall at some point, and here are the signs of a concussion.

I love how he just wrote suffering into the lives of these families, with this cheerful clinical tone of voice. Mrs. King thought she might die of frustration, but little did she know that her desperation would last for several more weeks, until her fragile psyche shattered dramatically into a million shards of brains. In italics, she might have benefited enormously from the content of the italicized bits. But no one thought to inform her. Poor Mrs. King!

If Dr. Brazelton were narrating our life, he would be sure to include the episode on Saturday where we took Hawaiian Punch to our soccer game and she got sunburnt. Poor Mrs. Geebie felt terribly guilty about this.  We took a tent and kept her in the shade the whole time, but nevertheless her tiny face and shoulders were blotchy on Saturday night. Had Mr. and Mrs. Geebie known that all babies get sunburnt at some point, they might have saved themselves much grief. But they don't know this.

And I say fee-fi-fiddly-i-o. Fee-fi-fiddly-i-o-o-o-o

Jammies dislocated his pinky about two months ago, which I never told you about because I do not like to discuss injuries. In fact, my least favorite conversations are the ones where people try to one-up each other on the gruesome details of what got severed when.  Keep it to yourself, bub.

Anyway, Jammies got the splint off today, and now has pinky physical therapy, which I find hilarious. It's sort of like Inchy the Inchworm doing his tiny aerobics alongside everyone else's macho huff-puffery at Gold's Gym. I like to picture Jammies in a track suit and headband, hand propped up on a mini yoga mat, doing pinky push ups while his trainer mops up sweat on his brow.

Fee-fi-fiddly-i-o, hiccups on the old banjo.

I think that's about the short of it.  Smoke you later, hookagator.

Usually I am all, "Look Ma! No boundaries!" and just tell you guys every intimate detail that crosses my mind. But I admit that you are not going to hear the details of how my vaginal anatomy has changed after childbirth.  Which is too bad, because part of it would make a funny story. Which pits my desire to entertain you directly against my wispy shred of dignity, and unbelievably, the dignity is prevailing. (Although if dignity had prevailed by a wider margin, I wouldn't have lorded the story over your head and taunted you with it when I had no intention of giving it up.)

(A friend of mine has twins, who were six years old when it was time for their first sleepover.  At the last minute, one twin chickened out and decided to stay home, so the other twin went on by herself.  In the morning, the mom and the shy twin went to go pick up the adventurous twin. As she got in the car, she said to her shy sister, "I'm not going to tell you what we did last night, because you would be so, so jealous."  That is like my favorite line ever.  Anyway, I'm not going to tell you about the anatomical changes in my fur-burger, because you would be so, so jealous.)

The days kind of drag slowly.  I feel like I am complaining about Christmas vacation or something, but they do. My next song is mostly written. Soccer continues to make for poor blogging, but I totally worship getting out there and playing again. Hawaiian Punch continues to be smiley in the mornings and a fussbucket in the evenings. Everything inches along. I finally read my class evaluations from the spring, and they were stellar, although they feel like they were a million years ago.  I am in some slow-motion warp. I react to the endlessness of the days counterproductively.  Instead of planning activities and taking Hawaiian Punch for walks, I end up trapped by this ill-conceived urge to conserve effort and we end up staring at the wallpaper for an hour, to kill time. Ooh look! A ceiling fan!

I'm not depressed, although that last paragraph makes it sound like I am. I just like my bourbon in the morning, and I've taken to peeing in the houseplants because I'm too sad to go to the bathroom. I  just need to be more proactive about my days, and getting out during the day.

I missed the anniversary of my therapist Chaunda's death. Usually I'm really big on anniversaries and seasonality, but since I didn't find out that she had died for several more weeks, the actual date of her death isn't that meaningful to me. So this is the anniversary of the awkward limbo period, after she died but before I knew.

I miss her a ton, but I'm finally used to the fact that she's dead, in a way that doesn't take my breath away anymore. Hawaiian Punch's birth is a big part of this - my world is now vastly different. Chaunda could no longer come back to life and slip comfortably into my routine - I'd have to catch her up and explain what's happened since she's been gone. (Although typing these words and thinking about last summer is bringing my sadness back vividly.)

It's still hard for me to casually mention something about her in conversation, so when something relevant flits across my mind, I usually choke up and mentally depart from the chit-chat for a moment. Here are some things that interrupt me most often:

1) How she would always say exasperate when she meant exacerbate. I corrected her once, early on, but this was an entrenched confusion, so after that I just enjoyed it and tried to listen to her point.

2) A story she told me of how, when she was twelve or thirteen, she and a friend found a cardboard box big enough for them both to get inside. They turned it upside-down and inched down the sidewalk, ecstatically hoping that people in cars would think Holy shit, that box is moving all by itself!

3) Her standard background music CD was mostly faint classicalish muzak. But it happened to have Chariots of Fire as a track. So periodically I'd be talking, and that very dramatic familiar bum bum bum bum BUM BUM! would escalate in the background, as though we'd entered the climax of the session. I liked to flex my arm Celine Dion style when it came on, as though I was delivering a tear-jerking address instead of bitching about homework.

But honestly, that exasperate-exacerbate one sticks with me more than anything. There's a lot tougher memories, like hugging her goodbye, or the tormented blur the day after I found out she died, or thinking about her son, or thinking about what she said about her son on our last meeting, when I thought she was retiring. (She told me he'd said "Mommy, you hurt my feelings!" He was three years old. She told me she cheered internally and thought "If you can just keep staying in touch with your feelings like that, you'll be okay." So in hindsight when I realized she knew she was dying, that took on epic tragic proportions.) But I don't feel like revisiting those further, now. I just get too sad.

I wasn't even seeing her but once every few months by then.  We'd finished the emotional heavy work over two years earlier, and I just stopped in occasionally for a tune-up.  But I put Chaunda up on a pedestal like no one else.  And I still do! I'm so sad. She was only in her early forties.

The most fascinating thing I've ever seen is my child, held in rapt fascination by a rotating mobile of fish over her head.  Maybe this is not as captivating after the first couple hundred times it happens, but we are still early in the count, so.  Because my god, Hawaiian Punch is utterly transfixed and I in turn am utterly transfixed by Hawaiian Punch. And is anyone transfixed with me, just to keep the chain alive? Perhaps you, lucky reader, are part of this telescope of transfixion.

Soccer this weekend - three big games! - was very great. I thought I had a hernia. Isn't that exciting? Soccer was great despite the suspected hernia. I wore two pairs of too-small bike shorts under my soccer shorts as a pelvic Ace bandage of sorts, and barrelled through.

I sort of relished the novelty of a hernia, although I know hernias sometimes require surgery and subsequent mending, which would make me cranky.  You can get hernias from being pregnant, and it was sort of in my pelvis, and so I wondered.  But no, my third trimester belly caused a load-bearing muscle to overstrain, and it's still healing.

Today Hawaiian Punch was a very easy baby, and we drove a long way to visit my friend who just had the baby, and Jammies didn't get home until 9:30 at night. So there were all the ingredients for a difficult baby, and lo. She was easy.  I feel a need to keep a log of my gratitude that she really is an easy baby, so that I don't get bad karma for bitching about the parts that are still difficult.  Plus, gosh, so freaking cute.

The friend told me that her husband's son was born under the following circumstances: he was newly separated from his ex-wife. The ex-wife pretended that she wanted to try to get back together and work things out, and then deliberately got pregnant and called him up and said "Now you'll owe me more alimony." The husband did not see his son until the son was two months old. That is some psycho shit.

Soccer last night was significantly less awful than last Sunday.  I was so relieved. I participated and did not make things worse for my team. Last weekend left me really demoralized. Whereas now I feel that I played kind of like I expected to play. More stationary than I used to be, but not completely worthless.

After Sunday's game, I got really preoccupied with losing the baby weight.  But now that has faded in importance, because it was really just a stand-in for soccer anxiety.  Although it would be nice to be able to wear my old clothes.  Although then they'd be all covered in spit-up, so maybe it's all okay after all.

All kinds of crap gets stuck in this new cleavage of mine. Mostly spit-up and whatever I've been eating.  I get into the shower and it's like "Oh, a raisin. Hello." And Jammies said that when I was sprinting last night, he could tell that having these northern weights was throwing me off my stride. I kind of miss my smaller set.

In conclusion, hooray soccer. Also it's so lovely having Jammies home with me on the weekends.

Last night, Jammies, Hawaiian Punch and I went to the park, to hear some live Texas Swing music. One of those Concerts In The Park type series.  We spread out a blanket and met up with our doula and her husband and two small children.  We drank cans of Lonestar.

The sun set, the trees were dark sillouhettes against the lightened sky, everyone else was wearing so much bugspray that we got some herd protection, having forgot it ourselves.

The doula and family had to leave early to put the kids to bed, and after that it was like Jammies, Hawaii and I were on a date. It was like we were so happy to be a young family that it balanced out my exasperation of the Stop Screaming And Take The Nipple game. It was kind of heavenly.  Next week they're having a Mariachi band, which is not quite as heavenly in my opinion.

This weekend I have three soccer games.  I would like to see some improvement in my skills by the end of this weekend, please.  Not huge, but something perceptable.

On the nights when we're not together

I haven't been around many babies.  Do all babies hit that note when they're most worked up that makes your eardrums wobble? Or is this some sort of mother-daughter synergy? I am being very literal: when she's screaming, something in my eardrums physically wobbles. How weird. At that point I usually hold her away from me and chant "I'm soooooo mad!"  in my baby-falsetto along with her screams.  If Jammies is around, he says "Stop mocking our daughter."

I kind of have too much time on my hands. Or rather on my brain, while my hands are occupied with diapers and nipple pads. I'm spending too much time dwelling on inconsequential bullshit.  I feel buried very deeply in a mountain of diapers and nipple pads. Maternity leave is a weird thing. You want to savor it, but you end up stewing in it. It's too bad both parents can't each work twenty hours per week.