Sophie Florence was born (at 7 pounds, 14 oz., and 20 inches) on Saturday, July 11th, at 2:28pm after almost exactly 12 hours of labor. She is amazing and tiny and has awesome/funny hair. She cried right away, came out pretty pink, and breastfed like a champion a few minutes after birth.

I am recovering from tearing and significant blood loss, so I'm not feeling very well and I can't walk much...or stand, sit, or lie down comfortably for any extended period of time. But we have this baby, and she is wonderful, and I'm seriously crying about what a happy thing it is that she is here as I try to write the simplest update there is. My sitting up time is over for the moment, but I will be back, I promise.

<3

Due date! No baby yet. Instead I have a wicked headache, am feeling sick and tired, and other things that are non-fun. However, I also have a due date cupcake from Meg and due date roses from Kelly, and baby feet poking me in the insides (I am marking this under the "good things" column.)

No definitive signs that baby is coming imminently, but we are hopeful anyway. I'm going to go sleep while I can now!

Neil Gaiman's website alerted me to the fact that some people are suing for, among other things, the right to burn a Francesca Lia Block book, as well as for damages because of the negative impact the book had on their well-being.


Yes, the language in this book can kill you. WATCH OUT. Neil said something about how if they'd picked up "American Gods", caskets would have to be ordered before Chapter One was over. I was thinking the same thing, only about...a zillion other books. Their argument about the "hate speech" in the book is disingenuous too, as it's definitely used in the context of characterizing such language as, well, hateful and bad. (I don't remember details, I read Baby BeBop along with the rest of the Weetzie Bat books a long time ago, but I do know the tone of the books and, um, they were not promoting hate. They were, in fact, protesting homophobia, among other things, and yes I know that is the real problem these people have with it.)

Book banning homophobic people are not new to me, no. Suggesting the book is actually dangerous to one's life is quite an exciting and entertaining angle, though, isn't it?

Zachary David Marmar

I didn't know Zach very well, but I did know him to be gentle, sweet, and very talented with a ball of fire - and I knew that Kelly loved him. I'm very sad that he died. I have been thinking about how he was just here, talking to Eleanor and mowing the lawn, and spinning fire at Erin's birthday party. He was just here. It's so sad and strange.

There is an awful lot of crisis around me. It makes life seem sad and scary. I wish I could just love everybody hard enough to make it better.

On the bright, happier side - today is 37 weeks, which is a magic number. At this point, if I went into labor, they wouldn't try to stop it, because the baby is more or less ready. So are we.

Awake awake awake, first punchy and light, then full of tears. At this point, that could be caused by pregnancy or just life. It is 5:30 in the morning, later than my insomnia usually hangs around. I have gotten up and gone back to bed twice. The world outside looks inviting, reminds me of being in Florida for some reason. I want company, and to go out to breakfast, and to go back to sleep. I want to take the peacefulness I see outside and wrap my brain in it and go back to dreaming.

Maybe it is time to try and go back to sleep, now. Hypnosis, here I come.

If Flickr can keep it together, you should be seeing a photo of the most delightful coffee mug known to man. I got it at the craft fair this weekend - it was bargain binned, can you believe it? ;) Plus, now I can officially throw out my old broken mug that was uncomfortably close to falling apart suddenly. (Why was I still using that, again?)

We attempted to nest this weekend. It was hard without, you know, the necessary baby stuff, but we sorted baby clothes into newborn and bigger sizes and did some inventory, cleaned the car seat we got, and washed some things. After my baby shower this weekend, we're going to Buy More Stuff. As eternal as 2 months seems to me right now in terms of being pregnant, it is not so long in terms of spending money to buy things to get ready for a baby.

Parrot screaming, cannot continue thinking. Must go cover him before I go insane.

It is getting to be finale season, and thus, I write about TV. Spoilery stuff behind cut tags, no worries.

( House )

( Scrubs )


Dollhouse
People, if you are not watching this show because the first 5 episodes annoyed you or because the premise is creepy or whatevs, PLEASE TO BE TUNING IN NOW. As predicted, the minute Joss took back the reins, things got way better. Now it is awesome. Finale is tonight, plz to be watching on the off-chance we get a second season? Pretty please? KTHNX. Also, Hulu views supposedly count for something, so if you can catch up this afternoon, you should. If you need to abbreviate, I suggest watching ep 1 and then skipping to ep 5. After that, you probably need to continue in order, if possible.

( Bones )

I am behind on Gossip Girl by an episode or two, but look what I found: WHAT CHUCK WORE, a blog of...what Chuck wears. “Hell yeah these pants are red. Look how red my pants are! Nate could never wear pants this red. Nate doesn’t have enough personality for pants this exuberant, this delightfully whimsical. Though maybe I shouldn’t have gone with the green socks. Wait - what am I thinking? I’m Chuck Bass. Of course I should have.” This same blog has a link to What Claudia Wore, which deals with the fashion choices of one Miss Claudia Kishi, of Babysitters Club fame. Hee!

Okay phew TV related update over. FOR NOW.

I visited my ex-school yesterday (well, it's still a school, I just don't work there now ;)). I happened to be there on the day the health teacher was doing the 8th grade "baby shower", where they talked about their flour babies. (Flour babies, for the clueless, are 5 lb. bags of flour that the kids are charged with "taking care of" for a week. They have to take them everywhere and make sure they don't get damaged, etc. It is the first in a series of mini-parenting lessons.) I got to be a cautionary whale special guest at the beginning of both periods, and the kids asked me questions about pregnancy. They wanted to know about obvious kid stuff like my appetite (read: look at you! your belly is large!), weird cravings, etc., but with health teacher guidance we talked about doctor visits and that sort of thing too. I got to tell them what a doula is! So okay anyway, I thought the fact that I walked into a lesson on pregnancy was pretty funny, and it was kind of fun. :)

Another good thing from my trip: I got to see the library looking great under its new librarian. The woman they hired is the person I wanted for the job, and I am really glad it worked out. I observed a great class with 7th grade, and I saw a set of student work that was really cool and extended an idea I started on last year. Visiting made me miss it, but it also made me happy.

So, now I have two links for you that veer wildly off course into the "definitely not school appropriate" territory!

First, one of my best childhood friends, Nellie, is quoted in this article about the San Francisco masturbate-a-thon. The editing in this piece is ridiculous in that they are writing about a MASTURBATE-A-THON, but decided they had to be oblique about things anyway, including referring to orgasms as "instances" - of masturbation, I guess, because it only counts if you come? Anyway, despite that, it made me smile to see Nellie in this article. If you knew her, you would smile, too. I think she's in her natural habitat now (by that I mean SF, etc., not the masturbate-a-thon specifically...) and I'm glad she's doing what she's doing.

Also, the new PG Porn features Alan Tudyk! It takes too long to get to the punchline, and then I am confused by it. She seems to be saying "It's some kind of Kindle thing"...but I have NO IDEA what that means. EDIT: BECAUSE MY BRAIN IS BROKEN AND INTERPRETS WORDS INCORRECTLY. THANK YOU FOR HELPING. (Perhaps obviously, NSFW, though not for the reasons you might think, and I don't recommend watching this if porn offends you, even though it contains no actual sex. :)) PS - I laughed a lot about the cat. Even if the rest wasn't very good.

2 posts last night and one today, I am spurty. SPURTY.

Today is free cone day at Ben and Jerry's. When Ryan gets done with work, we are so totally going. This is good thing number one.

Good thing number two: I had a massage today. I wasn't even in pain except for a couple of small stuck spots, so I basically paid a woman to pleasure me and oil up my skin for two hours. LIFE IS GOOD. (Pregnant women in particular should spend their lives that way. :))

Additionally, I remembered to Accomplish Tasks today, and I only have a couple of items left. After that, I play to play Harvest Moon and chill out until Ryan gets home to take me out for free ice cream. Awww yeah.

Oh, and the original reason I opened a tab to post: I wanted to link y'all to this piece about Dollhouse, because I liked it and it's pretty much how I feel about it and its themes. That last part about it being "basically canceled", though, based on what I've read, isn't exactly true. It's not definitive yet, it's 50/50 and depends entirely upon who you consult/what you read. Of course, my faith in FOX, etc. is not what you'd call strong...but even so. Anyway, go read. Tiger Beatdown is now on my Google reader list, and thanks to Christina for the original linkage. :)

Doctor's appointment today: glucose testing is done and I do not have The Diabetes. I had to eat 18 jelly beans (Brachs) in 2 minutes, which was way harder than I thought - in fact, actively impossible. I chewed and chewed, and still it took me 4 minutes to do! I also felt pretty bad for a few minutes afterwards. But hey, I win at blood sugar levels - I was at 112 and the cutoff is 135, so it's all good. Also I have good hemoglobin, perfect weight gain, various measurements, etc. I am a perfect specimen of Pregnant Woman. My dad says it's good to excel at things. ;) (I keep kind of waiting for a shoe to drop somewhere, but I'm also trying to avoid that sort of thinking.)

Other news:
I have a scary looking sunburn marring my poor, perfect cleavage ;), due to spending a delightful day in the sun yesterday supervising yard work and occasionally wielding power tools (!). I wore sunscreen, but I find that the only stuff that works for me is the horrible, thick, zinc-y physical block kind, and usually only if it's fairly new. I am apparently a stinking delicate flower. With a tingly burning chest.

Ryan's birthday was yesterday, and he is 29. We went to dinner at Tilley's, so I got to have a pregnancy-safe sushi roll that basically made my week. Also, yesterday morning, we had the best lemon poppyseed cake I have ever eaten, thanks to Meg. Clearly, I cannot compete with that and should never make it with my recipe ever again. :) We went to a birthday party for Erin this weekend too, so I am full of birthday fun. I was glad that being pregnant didn't make me too tired to enjoy a party - I had a good time and even stayed up until a bit after midnight. ;) I was fine the next day, too! I am full of awesome.

We are watching "Castle", and then I will begin the long, arduous process of getting ready for bed. Good night, y'all.

This article on pregnancy and alcohol, caffeine, listeria, etc. features my favorite closing sentence ever:

"Try to remember, when the advice turns out to be nonsense, that not everyone has evil motives: some people will give you bad advice because they are stupid or ill-informed. Others will give you bad advice because, without even realising it, they have a yen to bring the business of procreation under closer central control. They just don't trust you. But then, why should they? You are an absurd shape and you keep crying."

We just legalized gay marriage! In Vermont, for those of you who have no idea where I am. :) Big yays!

In far less interesting and important news, I have tabs open and thought I'd share, because I like to make no posts at all and then multiple posts at a time, apparently:

Apparently, this is a thing, but I didn't know about it: guy who makes American Sign Language music videos. Here we have "If You Seek Amy" - in which he abandons pretense and spells it out ;). I thought it was pretty fun.



Also, I have been obsessively playing Desktop Tower Defense for the past couple of days. It's not quite as fun as my PixelJunk Monsters, but it is somehow as addicting. Probably because I made it to level 49 and then died, so now I HAVE TO beat it...and that takes many tries. You know how it is.

BSG at the United Nations

This was awesome in every way.

The Tighs drink to BSG

I could totally hear Michael Hogan saying "I don't know if I'll ever be able to growl 'gods damnit' ever again".

I am sad it's ending, y'all.

MY HAIR WILL ROCK YOU. It is notably shorter after my hair cut today, and it is SUCH A RELIEF. I was starting to look kind of feral. ;) Also, bonus groomed eyebrows. I hope the hair holds up, it is awesome right now.

Also, I am almost graduated from going to acupuncture. My asthma is a lot better, so I'm going to go one more time in a month and then go "as needed" which means "not for a while, at least". Awesome.

Annnd I've got nothing' else...except a coconutmilk-banana-mango-berry smoothie, some as-yet unopened Gmail, an oral fixation, Cadbury creme eggs, and a pile of books to read, some of which are in-progress. What have you got?

Thanks to the uterine invasion, my dreams are often super vivid, and they get into my hindbrain and stick for the whole day. Unfortunately, they are also frequently disturbing, upsetting, or otherwise just bad. A lot of the time, they are full-on anxiety parties, which is kind of funny since I feel like I am managing my anxiety pretty well - well you know, mostly - during the day. Last night's dreams are still making me kind of vaguely anxious and upset. But there was also a part about the ex-art teacher from my old school hunting me down in a grocery store (I threw groceries at her because, like in a video game, this would eventually deter her), which was VERY SCARY in the dream but in retrospect is sort of amusing.

Also from a post I started last night but sort of forgot about:


Am I wrong for being super jazzed about the fact that Aerie.com is having an 8 for $25 underwear sale? Oh wait no, I'm not - it's mostly because I am pregnant and want 8 more pairs of underwear in a size bigger than everything else I own. :) But is it wrong if one of them is a tuxedo thong? It's just so cute! It's a black tie affair in my pants!

Also, since I have seen pregnant ladies rocking the American Apparel lately, I went and looked at their website for a few minutes. I was very amused to see this little number (not really very safe for work, btw). They're not even pretending anymore! I like, also, that hot pink and white are "coming soon" - for all your strippertastic needs! A hot pink mesh dress with nothing under it is 100% what I am wearing this summer while megapregg0rz, yeah? ;)

Okay, I have VP stuff and other stuff to catch up on, no more dawdles. Someone please send me some brain bleach, though, the dreams are tainting my nice sunny morning!

Possible side effect of pregnancy #12834: I have an increasingly difficult time *not* verbally eviscerating everyday idiots and assholes on the internet.

INCREASINGLY. DIFFICULT.

Okay so, tomorrow I am really for sure going to go to yoga in the evening. I tire of being too..whatever to go. So I am going! SO SAY WE ALL.

I just finished my second Jodi Picoult book ever. ( Book discussion time )

Things Alejandro likes ("likes", here, is an interpretation of what it means when Alejandro moves a lot. This may signify hate, too, but I don't think so based on the things in question. :))

- Body work. Every time I am on a table, there is a party in my uterus. Especially work on my neck, head, and shoulders - because who doesn't like a hit of endorphins? In fact, during an appointment with Erin, I *saw* the movement for what may have been the first time while she was doing work on my neck and scalp that had me looking down towards my belly.

- Being in the car. This was all well and good until things got kind of rowdy in there suddenly while I was driving. I am now aware that this may happen and thus hope not to be dangerously surprised by being beaten in the internal organs while trying to navigate.

- Haagan Daz coffee ice cream. This is a passion we currently really, really share. (Chocolate chip cookie dough, which I got as a stand-in for coffee ice cream they DID NOT HAVE, is not having the same effect on the baby or on me. :P)

- The middle of the night. I know, they wake up while the mother is resting - and I get some movement while watching TV or video games or whatever quite frequently, too. But dude, it's like a disco in there every time I wake up in the night. At 5 this morning I thought maybe it had hiccups - do they get hiccups this early? I know they start swallowing amniotic fluid at 21ish weeks, and here we are at 22 weeks, so...maybe? I should check. It felt like a somewhat rhythmic jolt, over and over for quite a while.

It is fun feeling my inner alienbaby move. Well, you know, most of the time. ;)

I found the cure for nasal decongestant rebound stuffiness of doom! I got very sick of it last night, so I took a bath, then a shower, then used the Neti Pot. (I am SO VERY CLEAN.) Things are way better today. I was right - my cold seems to be gone, and all that is left is stuffiness - but it's way, way less stuffy than it was yesterday. I can function normally, mostly.

It is starting to snow, and it's all gray and quiet. I feel lonely. But, bright side - not sick!

I fought it for a while, but last night I took a hit of Ryan's OTC nasal decongestant spray (acceptable in pregnancy, it turns out, though I should not make a habit of it) so I could get some sleep. It worked miraculously well, and I slept some pretty heavy sleep for almost 9 hours. But today, I am paying for it with the rebound effect from hell. My nose is basically closed for business, and it is no fun. At least I slept, though. I actually think I would be largely over this cold, maybe, if not for this particular issue.

Anyway. I was, regretfully, sitting today out at home, which is not something I was excited about. But it's so sunny outside that I think I want to drag myself out for a little while. I have been working to cut down on both the financial latte factor and the caffeine latte factor, but I bet I could go drink part of a low-caf latte somewhere with a book for a while with Ryan and be happy. Maybe I will get on that.

Oh, my parents and sisters hadn't seen me since Christmas, so upon being seen I got a lot of "WHOA"s. I look pregnant these days, folks! One of these days there will be photographic evidence.