Consider me converted

Mrs. Slocombe kindly sent us a baby-sized pair of Aussie essentials – Uggs! I’d been wondering how to get our little bundle of joy home with his extremities unfrozen and intact, and these nought to six month sized booties will work perfectly.

I must admit, I never joined in the Ugg boot craze which ten years ago saw legions of young girls compromising their length by cutting themselves off unflatteringly at mid-calf with what, at first glance, appeared to be misshapen loaves of bread.

But as you can see, the baby versions are far too cute to be believed, and I will be doing my fair share of obsessive feet-checking this winter to make sure he doesn’t kick one off when we’re out and about.

Thanks, Betty!

xx Friday (and Bruce)

On my mind, or thereabouts

I’m nearing my 39th week of pregnancy, which means it won’t be long now. Sometimes I feel utterly heroic and wish that it would just happen already so that I can get this thing done. Others, the idea of leaving the security of my nest to do a 22-hour-long marathon push from an unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar room leaves me breathless, and I hope for just one more day of respite.

The last few weeks have been brilliant, with both of us off work and no obligations, and mostly we’ve been enjoying our time together as childless adults, which (provided all goes well in life) is a state we will never again revisit. Everything we do now feels like we’re doing it for the last time in this respect: our last Christmas together alone, our last mornings of sleeping in late, our last spontaneous outings into town, or even to the shops.

It’s a lot to get your head around, so best not to even try, I think. We ordered the cot - that final, essential piece of furniture - and it was delivered on Christmas Eve. I spent the morning cleaning and reorganising the kitchen while Bruce put it together, and then we basked in the strangeness of it all before heading out to our appointment with the midwife.

The head midwife of our team takes her cues from me, we now realise, and will go to great lengths to locate them if these aren't on offer, I guess because she feels she’s not doing her job if she can’t give reassurance or a scolding or uncomfortably long hugs, or mixed nuts (she gave me half a banana once, too, after she unsuccessfully stabbed me twice with a needle, missing the vein and causing vertigo).

This time we went in with the confidence of a storm, and still she eyed me critically, as though a single tear would at any moment dissolve the shoddy mask of my inimitable okay-ness. Finally, she conceded that I was looking better than she’s ever seen me and then dug around in her handbag for some miracle Australian lip balm which she then put in a specimen jar and ordered me to take home and use. Because by God, if she can’t accurately predict and stave off impending postpartum depression, she will at least cure me of chapped lips.

That’s something I’ve been trying not to think about too much, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my long ago stint with poor mental health, it’s that you can indeed break your mind if you’re determined enough. It would be churlish of me to imply that anyone who ends up on a psych ward could have done something to prevent it. But all the same, I can still recall how I stood by and watched the last vestiges of perspective ebb away with a kind of morbid fascination, still not really believing that it could get any worse. Though it did, it got much worse.

For all her melodramatic fussing, the midwife is spot on about something: hormones tend to upset the delicate balance of good mental health, and if you’ve ever blundered into a psychotic or depressive episode, it can take even less to send you spiralling into another one day. I know this from the many conversations I had around my release date with nurses, psychiatrists and other patients, all of whom calmly assured me that, however fine I felt now, I would in all likelihood be back.

So as self-destructive as the ensuing years might have become (at least until I met Bruce) I’ve taken silent but concerted measures to ensure that – at the very least - this does not become a self-fulfilling prophesy. And yet you can’t live out your life under the assumption that the Big Bad Breakdown is lurking around every corner just waiting for you to make a decision that will knock your physiology a bit off kilter (though having two or three drinks a night for years was probably not the best course of action, now I think of it).

I don’t know how the leap and fall of hormones will affect me in those weeks following the birth, but I do know that I’m prepared to deal with any eventualities that could arise, and that includes being mindful (but not too mindful) of at least a few.

Last looks

I’m not inspired to do much these days, and whereas at one time I would have at least tried to excuse my reclusiveness, I’ve come to realise that there is actually nothing wrong with wanting to check out once in a while. And if you can’t live in your pyjamas, ignore the phone, nap all day and watch bad television during your ninth month of pregnancy, when can you? Hmmm?

The common misconception seems to be that pregnancy loves company, however, and the more I try and recede into the experience, the more phone calls, emails and visitation threats I receive from friends, family and colleagues. Most people assume that because I’m off work now, I must be lonely or bored; that I must want to talk to someone about what I’m going through, or that I need someone to help me take my mind off it. Though the intention is both kind and considerate, the underlying assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.

For the first time in my life, I’m more content to spend quiet time alone in my own company than I am interested or willing to break out of that introspection and engage with others (Bruce being the obvious exception, as I think our co-dependence might constitute Siamese status by now). Whatever the reason, I seem to be on a different wavelength from the rest of the world, and I’m perfectly okay with that.

I’ve certainly done a lot of reading over the last few weeks, and it vaguely reminds me of those long, luxurious afternoons of University, when my only real commitment was a three-hour-long evening class on film theory and aesthetics or post-colonial literature. Except that in those days, I did not appear to be concealing a giant Kinder Surprise egg beneath my jumper (though I did have a pathological need for acknowledgement - one that has been mercifully snuffed out by time and maturity).

In any case, I don’t have long to revel in my deserted island experience before this journey becomes completely unrecognisable again.

It’s Bruce’s last day of work, and then we have a very small window of opportunity to pull everything together before the holiday draws us to its eggnog-scented bosom and smothers us in festivity; there’s just no way to predict when the newborn invasion will take place. Realistically, by the time we’re settled in at home again, we’ll probably have just over a week to turn the page on that short, intimate chapter of our lives when it was just the two of us and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Part of me feels very sad about this. But on the other hand, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

For meme

A personalised meme, just for me - devised by The Lass! If you want your own, leave me a note and I'll email you five questions. None as good as these, though, I'm afraid.

1. Of all the things you learned from your parents, what do you think was the most valuable?

If you don't regularly challenge your own beliefs - about the world, about others and about yourself - you risk closing yourself off to a wealth of experience. That lesson was inadvertent.

2. What is your most indispensable possession and why?

Our cats, quite literally. No matter how hard we try, or how logical it might seem at this point in our lives (and given the small amount of space we have to share), we can't seem to get rid of them. Yes, they are antisocial, ungrateful, petulant little things that flee from us 99% of the time and have nothing to offer except vet bills and the occasional whiff of used litter, but they're ours and we love them (at a respectful distance). Because we are suckers of the bleeding heart variety.

3. How has impending motherhood changed you? (Besides the obvious physical changes, of course.)

I'm less shy about saying what it is I want and need from others, because you can't afford to be timid when you're responsible for the well-being of something so vulnerable and so completely reliant on you. That meant saying 'no' to people at work more often, leaving the office on time instead of staying late, unapologetically taking someone else's seat on the tube if they offered, and eventually giving work an ultimatum (I can have the doctor sign me off now or you can let me work from home for the next six weeks). I will have to become even more assertive once this kid is out in the world, but it's definitely becoming a trend.

4. It's time to throw a dinner party for your favorite deceased authors. Who is in attendance? Why? What are you feeding them?

Most of my favorite authors are contemporary, but short of killing Martin Amis (who I'm not sure I'd actually want at a dinner party) and Zadie Smith, I guess I'd have to say Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and David Foster Wallace, because I like to imagine we share a similar perspective on life and writing, and I reckon that after a few bottles of wine, we'd have several hours of incredible dialogue. Or the two women would huddle together in a corner whispering venomously into into their cupped hands while I tried to wrest a bottle of corrosive toilet cleaner from David. I think we're having take out from La Porceta, because Italian is timeless and classic and therefore inoffensive to diverse palates, and I'd be far too nervous to cook for them myself.

5. Would you rather be famous or infamous?

The two aren't always mutually exclusive in these here parts, but if I had to pick one, I guess I'd say famous. Your tenure in the history books is probably far shorter than if you were infamous, but if I'm going to be remembered for something, I'd rather that something conjured up fond feelings in others, over impassioned rage or ridicule. Or am I missing a trick?

I'm beginning to look like Father Christmas

Just a regular old update then - mainly because it’s easier to farm the thought-scum that gathers at the top of my brain than dangle a tasty line in the deeper waters of the subconscious mind in the hopes of snagging a bigger fish. What? Yes, exactly.

So I’m 36 weeks + along, which means that by Friday, I could go into labour and come out with a baby that has reached full-term. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Every day I gingerly maneuver the great hull of my midsection – towards the toilet, into the shower, between the desk chair and cabinet, the bed and the wall – and carry on with life in spite of the discomfort.

A few weeks ago we had our antenatal classes with the NCT – not quite the hippy love-fest I’d been warned about, though certainly not a clinical hell, as was evidenced by our instructor’s dominatrix-like boots and stripy underpants, which she found far too many occasions to flash.

We spent two full days and one evening with eight other very nice first-time parents-to-be and were ushered through the terror (of which there is plenty) and joy (uh...) of what it will mean to birth a dirty plastic doll through the mouth of a soiled pink toque. Oh those were just the metaphorical teaching tools, but rest assured it’s the visual I will henceforth associate with my upcoming trials in hospital.

Everyone has a funny antenatal class story I’m sure, so here’s mine:

We were asked to visualise what a gorilla giving birth in the wild would be likely to do, in terms of finding a spot, getting comfortable and even asking her gorilla pals for help. It was the perfect allegorical blend of science and fantasy. As sentient beings, we humans tend to forget that the birth-giving process is, above all, completely natural. Huzzah! We were finally thinking outside the box of modern medicine!

Well, most of us anyway. Our instructor asked, “So what are some of the predators we might encounter in a labour ward?” and before the rest of us could conjure up that intrusive orderly or unwanted mother-in-law, an overzealous incubator piped up with “PEDOPHILES?” And because this is England, nobody batted an eyelash while the instructor attempted to address this unlikely scenario.

Okay, I thought it was funny.

So here it is, weeks later, and even though we’ve bought the newborn essentials and written up the birth plan and gathered the elements of an overnight bag (in theory), I am still having trouble believing that what we’ve been talking about and preparing for since April could feasibly happen any day...no...any second now. Fortunately, belief doesn’t enter into the equation, and this kid is going to come whether I’m ready for him or not.

And I am not, so please, kid: try to hold off on the grand entrance for your poor, frazzled mother? At least until she can erase the memory of The Constant Gardiner, Snow White: A Tale of Terror and The Changeling, which, you must admit, were some pretty poor choices for weekend entertainment.

Also, the more times I hear Oh you’ll want the epidural, trust me, the more I want to shout Enough with the scare tactics, you insensitive twat! and prove otherwise. I know I have a low pain threshold, and anyone who knows me could tell you the same. I can’t even get on the kiddy spaceship ride thingy at the fair without wanting to vomit. But I will not be talked into having someone else’s experience before I’ve even had a chance to register that first strong contraction. So fuck off, you epidural-pushing veteran baby-labourers!

And, erm, thanks anyway!

I'm also meant to tell you how deleriously happy I'm feeling about this important and exciting time in my life, which I'm going through with the most amazing man I've ever met. And I am! I really am.

Another cop out

Lovingly lifted from The Lass, who tags you as well!

Where is your cell phone? Mobile phone - Missing, again.

Where is your significant other? On his way home from work.

Your hair color? Auburn.

Your mother? Crazy, controlling.

Your father? Emasculated, controlling.

Your favorite thing? A day/night out/in with Bruce.

Your dream last night? Oral sex.

Your goal? A natural childbirth experience in the New Year.

The room you’re in? Is finally organised, clean and exactly how a bedroom should be.

Your hobby? Take a stab.

Your fear? That I will go into labour whilst visiting relatives in Hertfordshire.

Where do you want to be in six years? A more spacious home with a happy, healthy child, a happy, healthy husband, happy and healthy, and preferably in a job I love (I don't want much).

Where were you last night? In front of the television.

What you’re not? Smaller than a breadbox.

One of your wish-list items? Record player

Where you grew up? Canadia

The last thing you did? Plugged in the trees.

What are you wearing? Pajamas

Your TV? Is not communicating properly with the broadband box, hence no recorded shows - we are back in the dark ages of surfing and commercial-watching until we can fix this.

Your pet(s)? Are finally starting to come around (sort of).

Your computer? Has no tension in its screen so is propped against a small pillow as I type this.

Your mood? Content

Missing someone? Yes, but he'll be back soon.

Your car? Ha.

Something you’re not wearing? A hair shirt.

Favorite store? Orla Kiely

Your summer? Revolved around strategic eating so that I would not vomit.

Love someone? More than he knows.

Your favorite colour? I'm not bothered.

When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday.

Last time you cried? Last week sometime.

Tagging: Bruce, even though he has nowhere to put this. I need him to give me one item on his wish list now because I'm running out of time and ideas.

No ice cream before bed

GREAT, THANKS - MESSAGE RECEIVED.

This is by far the worst thing my esophagus has ever done to me.

Yeah

(Mixwit is now kaput and have replaced all songs with this one)

2posh 2push

Over the last 24 hours, I have had one fight involving two editors, four bouts of crying and three hours of sleep. I am so wired, I almost feel like I could do it again today. A rather dramatic end to my penultimate week of work before maternity leave, and probably not the best way to usher in a weekend of antenatal classes, but there you have it.

More redundancies at work have been made, and someone I legitimately do not like - on a personal or professional level - has been given the boot. No part of me feels like celebrating though, because the axe is indiscriminate and the few colleagues that have made my life in corporate Britannia bearable are leaving too. It makes me wonder if I’ll be walking into a sea of brand new faces when I return next year.

There is so much to do and buy and prepare for before the baby arrives and I’m not sure how we’ll finish everything alongside Christmas, which we’re spending in Hertfordshire. I’ve got four baby books and two parenting ones on the go, and I’m desperately hoping that the essential pieces of information will sink in before I have to do something like, oh I don’t know, pick him up. What on earth do you do with these things?

I know what to do with toddlers – you just follow them around all day, making sure they don’t put small objects in their mouths or run headfirst into the edge of a coffee table until they exhaust themselves and fall asleep on a pile of Lego. But an infant? I vaguely recall tipping a Cabbage Patch doll out of a pram as I tried to wheel it down the grassy knolls of our front lawn, and holding my nephew Christopher as though he was a small sack of gunpowder or a spun-sugar light bulb. I don’t remember what I did next in either scenario.

They say it’s different with your own child, and by ‘it’ I do hope they mean ‘everything,’ because when I see a baby coming my way, my instinct is to hold it at arm’s length and then pass it on to the next interested party. It’s something to do with the drool and the vague waft of brussels sprouts emanating from their nappies. That and the cockeyed way they size you up, like they are trying to determine whether or not you would absent-mindedly leave them in a shopping trolley at the grocery store if this relationship progressed beyond a cuddle and - once they see that yes, probably you would - the way they tense up and scream in your face.

Even if I get past the squeamishness and the not knowing what to do, this doesn’t necessarily mean I’m off the hook. What if the baby triggers my latent obsessive compulsive tendencies and I start to panic if we’re five minutes late for his mid-morning nap or he hasn’t fed enough by my stopwatch and uncanny sense of mammary weight to volume ratio? Or worse – what if I find parenting incredibly dull? It’s a good job these fears don’t kick in until after implantation, or we’d be very limited as a species, numerically speaking.

Also good on the things list: Bruce. He’s very excited to meet the little guy and keen to get started, bless him. Last night the baby was pushing his foot into my side and making it shudder like an overripe jell-o mould and Bruce was poking back and talking to him like he was already in the world with us. I still have trouble making that leap - I guess because if I thought about it too hard, it would probably dawn on me that I am housing a small person in my mid-section that will one day want to vacate the premises. And there’s only one way out of there. Two if you’re posh.

Million little feces

I’m in my 33rd week now, and the only thing that made the pregnancy halfway bearable (holiday) is now finished. So it’s back to sleepless nights and stressful days of work, at least for another three weeks. In the meantime, I’m trying to forget about symptoms like breathlessness, a drum-tight belly that feels like it will burst, acid reflux and constipation like never before. I’d be a hot date, I tell you, if I could only fit my dancing shoes.

Things at work are bordering on farce now, with freshly redundant colleagues sending scathing emails to the entire division and a general uncertainty about Who’s on first, What’s on second and Where do I report to when he/she gets laid off. Part of me feels glad that I’m experiencing these revelations remotely, from the (dis)comfort of my sofa, but the camaraderie would certainly take the edge off not knowing what’s around the next corner.

As it stands, I am doing the honourable thing: keeping my head down and trying not to give them even the barest elements of a rope (cotton?) I could hang myself with. High branches and stepladders interest me not in the slightest, nope, not I.

I managed to accomplish quite a bit last week – apart from my visit, I also overcame my fear of city streets and commerce, leaving the house every day to buy a gingerbread latte from that coffee giant we all know and love (to hate to love) or eat lunch in a restaurant or just go for walks. I finally finished David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which I started about four years ago and deigned to pick up again recently. Now I’m onto the latest James Frey novel, which begins with an irritating disclaimer that nearly put me off my first experience with the author.

No one ever accused James Frey of inaccuracy, so we can go ahead and dismantle that straw man. Getting the facts wrong and making stuff up entirely are two different matters, and you and I both know how a little embellishment can sometimes seem a delicious proposition for autobiography – except that we have too much respect for the integrity of truth! And also for our ability to make a tale good regardless. Events are difficult enough to interpret without the added distraction of fabrication, so let’s just call a spade a spade and see if we can keep from burying ourselves with it, yes?

It’s a good read so far, though the disclaimer has me questioning whether or not the historical backbone of the story (City of Los Angeles – an overview!) is made up, or partly made up, or what have you. (It’s your bed, Mr. Frey, so get comfortable.)

Anyway, I’m not sure where I’m going with any of this and the battery is about to drain away on my laptop, so you lucked out of a few more pointless paragraphs. Call me uninspired, but never let it be said that I’m a liar.

The good, the bad and the absent-minded

I am a bad, bad mother-in-waiting. Let me preface this by saying that over the weekend, we cleaned the flat from top to bottom, which consequently inspired me to face the mounting pile of postnatal booty I’ve been stowing next to the lovely little cabinet I bought to cheer up what will effectively become the nursery (currently our bedroom).

It was through no lack of enthusiasm that I let the sorting of wee socks and bibs, hats and scratch mitts fall by the wayside for so long, and in fact, such apparent neglect was more a reflection of my own sense of inadequacy towards the classification of such tiny necessities and the sheer momentousness of giving these a proper home. At least, that’s how I’d built it up in my own mind.

The task turned out to be much less complicated than I’d imagined though (doesn’t it always), and in no time I was tearing off price tags, untying bows, un-popping snaps from plastic parcels and tossing aside miniature hangers and cardboard shapers with the speed and irreverence of a child at her gifts on Christmas Day.

The clothes and blankets, towels and books fit perfectly inside the cabinet’s dark, woody interior and suddenly the prospect of there being someone here to take ownership of these little things hit me like a ton of bricks and I felt very strange indeed. That same evening, we read through the manual that accompanied our intimidating, top-of-the-line, power-mummy pram and assembled it with relative ease.

We lay in bed and poured over products and advice, debated over sleepwear and toys, and even picked out a few essential items of furniture. We set out a game plan for transforming the flat to maximise on space and efficiency, easily solving what seemed insurmountable issues in past conversations. At nearly thirty-two weeks along, we were finally coming into our own as expectant parents and it all felt like it was falling into place.

Then today, I was rooting through a file of letters from the hospital, the midwives and the National Childcare Trust in order to determine when our first antenatal class was and saw that it was starting…last week. At which point the first real twang of maternal failure – one that is sure to hit me hard and often in the coming months - hit me hard, and I felt like the worst first-time-mother-to-be in the whole of England.

This isn’t the end of the world, of course: we’d double-booked ourselves in advance, signing up to both the free, month-long classes offered by the hospital and also the posh, expensive crash course the NCT advised we take, with the intention of doing both. The literature the midwives gave us claims, however, that the information each class offers is nearly identical, so as long as I write the NCT dates on the wall above my writing desk in permanent red marker and set the oven timer to go off a few hours in advance, we should still be ahead of the game.

I’m on holiday this week, and it was a hard-won holiday at that. Sorting out who would cover what while I’m away proved more difficult than it should have been and I’m still getting copied in on emails that don’t concern me right now.

The break and the extra naps have given me some perspective, and even though I might be a psychological mess in another fortnight, I’ve decided not to play the unbalanced-pregnant-lady-in-distress card and instead suffer through the next three weeks of work. Then I will have an entire year off (provided I’m not made redundant) with no strings attached, and can start planning the next phase of my life, as it relates to this little family unit and also my own personal development.

I’ll have two significant individuals depending on my ability to cope, you see, and I want to set the precedent early.

Throwing back another

Last night we took a stroll around the Broadway to see what we could see from the hill. Tiny explosions popped and whizzed at irregular intervals, peppering the horizon and sending up small spurts of colour, while close by children called out excitedly as someone lit a succession of mixed fuses and the air sparkled maddeningly before resolving into silent, dreamy clouds.

Our own street was a friendly pall of smoke and gunpowder, regularly punctuated by the screams and crackles of unseen rockets. We’d bought some 50p sparklers, which made more sense in the context of our tiny garden and my compromised state, and we lit them up outside after tea.


It’s been almost two years since I moved to London and nearly a year and a half since Bruce and I were married. Everything is moving so quickly still, and there is hardly any time for reflection. Bruce says this is a sure sign that we’re living in the present rather than looking back or dreaming ahead. It’s a brand new thing for me, but I know that in order to catch more, I have to keep letting go of these fine moments.

Remember remember?

We’ll be setting off fireworks in our back garden tonight, though it will be for Guy Fawkes Day – an event that President Obama’s recent big win will have surely overshadowed, but hey. America is back on its meds and I think we can all breathe a collective (but cautious) sigh of relief for that.

And speaking of mental health! I need some of it quite soon, as the gap between work’s relentless pace and my capacity to hormonally cope with that is closing quickly now. It’s impacting on my ability to keep a cool head when my colleagues flail about in agony as zombies dine on their limited brain matter threaten to lose theirs, and also sleep.

I can’t sleep. I just can’t do it. I lie in the dark - exhausted, wearing earplugs to block out the distracting noise that breathing and air and photosynthesis make - and the clock goes midnight, then one, then two, then three. Then I fall asleep for five minutes and am wakened by the sound of a spider plant frond waving from across the room or a feather working its way out of my pillow and onto the rug.

I am more or less able to deal with these things, taken together or alone, but Bruce thought I should try and get signed off of work anyway. Just in case our little joke about ending it all stops being funny and starts making sense to one of us (honestly, I don’t know how he’s put up with me so far). As long as I can eliminate the most obvious stresses, we can work on the ones that are not so straightforward.

My midwife called today to say that if I had any problems getting a note from my GP she would write it herself. I guess that means it’s a done deal, but I’m not sure whether I’ll use my get out of jail free card or just pocket it for a rainy day (a monsoon, perhaps). Sometimes just seeing an Exit sign can give you the encouragement you need to keep going. It’s not much longer now.

I probably won’t be handling the fireworks myself, though.

A good case for taxidermy

On Saturday we took a slow, easy trip into Central London to have lunch, see a film and basically do what the average couple does on a weekend, because it’s been months since I’ve left our borough and I’m finally feeling somewhat stable again after my most recent pregnancy fiasco.

I know exactly how to plan and execute a day that won’t overwhelm me now, or cause massive amounts of pain, which might sound pathetic but is nowhere near as sad as spending entire weekends wrapped in blankets, napping and reading and napping and occasionally emerging for food.

It was a lovely day out anyway, and it reminded me of all the reasons I love this city. I can’t wait to tackle it when I’m back to my old self again, and this time with a new little Londoner in tow!

For now, I find the prospect of leaving the house to do anything on my own entirely unnerving. I’ve been working from home for the last three weeks, and I can no longer remember how to screw up the courage to deal with strangers in a confident manner when the last thing I want to do is come face-to-face with another human being (one I don’t share covers with, anyway).

In the next few minutes I’ll brush my teeth, put on some clothes that I haven’t been sleeping in and head out down the street to have my teeth cleaned. A straightforward process, perhaps, but one that fills me with a nameless dread that almost makes tooth decay sound like the easier option. Ditto on the yoga classes I begin tomorrow after I finish my work – it will be my first ever recreational encounter with a group of strangers, and the fact that they are all pregnant does nothing to reassure me.

My friend from back home has just moved to Wales and is planning to visit me next week, so I’ll be able to dust off my social skills and give them a bit of a workout then. I don’t think the language that couples develop together and use fluidly with one another necessarily counts as a skill, so it’s a long time coming.

Shows lack of foresight, initiative and a blatant disregard for the environment

The sun is shining, the ground is dry, and over here in England Halloween feels like a silly personal custom made up by my parents, or your parents, or some other parent who lives on a continent where adults aren’t afraid of children, and you can be sure that ‘Trick or Treat’ is shorthand for ‘Fill my pillowcase with a bounty of store-bought sweets’ and not the imminent sound of shattering glass as someone throws a brick through your window.

That said, there were crates of pumpkins at the grocery store and I’d picked a smallish one with a nice smooth surface for carving, figuring the bit of pumpkin gristle on its top was the remnants of a sickly neighbour. Not so: our pumpkin had a right old gash near its stem, in the very spot that would indicate a soon-to-be-rotting pumpkin, and rot it did, because neither of us could be bothered to go back and exchange it in time.

I briefly considered putting it out anyway, because what’s spookier: an orange grin gently flickering at the window or a moldering, faceless gourd with its head caved in, possibly swarming with fruit flies? I know which one I’d run screaming from, provided it was set aflame and poised to be thrown at me by its headless owner.

But I didn’t – I just wrapped it in a carrier bag and put it straight into the bin outside (at the equally thrilling prospect of being told off by our unfriendly, environmentally friendly neighbours, who would probably compost their own mother if they thought there was a slim chance they could end up in the paper for single-handedly saving the planet). (They are good people.)

Whilst digging the eyes out of some jacket potatoes (bwahahaa), I wondered how easy it would be to turn these into Jack-o-Lanterns instead of boiling them and slathering them with butter, except that they were for our dinner and, realistically, it would have necessitated a seperate trip to the grocery store, where we could just pick up another pumpkin. Sometimes indolence outweighs even the most primordial impulse to follow tradition, however, and nothing was done about our regretful lack-o-Jack in the end.

In the absence of something to carve, then, or even a fruit bowl of individually wrapped chocolate bars to plunder (we are on diets), I asked Bruce what we could do to celebrate Halloween, because I don’t want to lose my traditions, however commercialised and socially defiled by nubile alcoholics dressed as Gogo Yubari they might be. He said he would pick up some face paints after work and we could paint each other’s faces and then post them on Flickr, but then he doesn’t want to hear another word out of me about it.

That’s fair enough, I guess! And once the baby’s here, it will be much easier to sell him on my fervent but vague tribute to this beloved holiday, as what parent doesn’t want to dress their little nipper as a cannon ball to compliment their own pirate-themed costume, hmmm? (Arrrrr?)

I’m thirty weeks along today. Thirty! That means I have ten more weeks to go. I’m partially excited, partially horrified and partially wait-and-see about the whole thing. As I told a friend from back home this week, I am just as much of a procrastinator now as I was in my university days. Some things only get done under pressure, and most things are only done well at the eleventh hour, at least for masochists like me. I will probably start cramming for the newborn exam shortly after my antenatal courses, or possibly on the way to hospital, should this kid decide to show up for Christmas.

Atheist transport in London

“There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Well Hallelujah.

Technically that bus is agnostic, but it’s not a bad a start.

Hibernation

I’ve been talking to a good friend from back home and it’s very late now but I can’t sleep because it’s snowing, and the snow is sticking to London, and it all feels magical somehow. Life, I mean, but the snow too.

Last year it finally snowed in April and in some ways it was a greater slight than no snow at all. But here it is - snow in October, just like when I was a kid and hoped very hard that it wouldn’t come until after Halloween, because then I’d have to wear a coat over my costume (some kids wore their jackets underneath, which was worse). It almost always snowed before Halloween when I was growing up.

It took a very long time for me to understand the clemency inherent in winter’s final say - this blanket statement that could take all night, but which unified every city block, tore up every disjointed summer thought and replaced it with an endless expanse of fresh parchment and the open invitation to start over.

Rain can have London, but I will always belong to snow.

Just untangling

I’m beginning to settle into my sequestered life now, in spite of the fact that our midwife looks at me sometimes like I should be committed. She oscillates between telling me that everything I feel is completely normal, and (conversely) that if I continue to feel the way I do, I’d better tell her straight away.

“The way I do…”

“You know what I mean,” she says in a ‘no-nonsense’ tone which makes me feel that we both know I’m trying to pull a fast one on her, even though I legitimately don’t know what she’s talking about.

After our last appointment, Bruce said, “I don’t know if she can see straight through you or if she’s just getting the wrong impression.” When I told him I didn’t know either, he laughed and said, “I was hoping you’d tell me which it was.”

The last few months have been rife with such contradictions, and between not being able to get a handle on any of it and gaining a zillion pounds in less than three weeks, I guess it’s no surprise that I prefer to keep a muzzle on the outside world and hide out in bed with a good book whenever I get the chance.

I’m still working from home, even though it’s becoming increasingly difficult to manage - both in terms of keeping my stress levels down and finding the energy to keep up with tasks that are no less demanding than they were before the pregnancy. It’s not just the commute that takes it out of me, I’ve discovered, but the very act of sitting at a desk for 8 hours, however close that desk is to my bed.

The economy here is in real trouble, and companies are folding left, right and centre. Mainly we’re talking financial sectors, but everyone is feeling the pinch, and businesses are less inclined to waffle about redundancies. Nearly every week we get an email from one of our directors, who tells us which colleague or product or job function is now off the menu, making the rest of us feel very vulnerable indeed.

One friend from work tells me I picked a good time to be pregnant, though I’m not too sure. There’s a clause in my contract stating that if my role is made redundant before I return to work and they’re not able to re-house me, I’ll owe them back every penny of their terrific maternity package. Even though Bruce says we will always manage, the idea that I might have to look for work in this climate, and well before I’ve had a chance to help our little guy settle in, is still worrisome.

And this brings me to the next major rotation of the wheel occupied by my frantic hamster brain, which is that I can’t in good conscience go running to my parents for financial aid. Aside from the fact that they are both retired, there are also far too many strings attached to that scenario – strings that would knot themselves into one massive tangle of familial neuroses I’m not prepared to take on.

I suppose there’s still a chance that I could develop a convenient amnesia about the reality of our relationship between then and now. It was only last week that I was mentally drafting a break-up letter to my mother because I could see no other option. Bruce came up with a better solution though, and through the power of Skype, I’ll never have to be alone in a conversation with her again. In fact, she’s always on her best behavior around others, so I can’t see any reason not to keep up the happy family ruse on my end, if she can keep it up on hers. I don’t know, it might come in handy one day.

Anywhatever, I’m 29 weeks along and everything else is progressing exactly as it should.

Bob Loblaw

I just thought it was about time for an update, so here I am, updating you on stuff, as I sometimes do.

Bruce was away for three days this week, and for the full three days I did nothing but work, watch television and sleep - all of which I accomplished in pyjamas. I’ve been working from home these last few weeks, you see, due to an extremely painful collision involving a baby and my groin, so every day is dress-down day if I so choose (and I do).

They don’t tell you that having pain in your nether regions is possible long before you have to squeeze out something the size of a Thanksgiving turkey, but there are many fun facts about pregnancy nobody bothers to tell you, like that they make panty liners for your boobs. For your boobs! For when they start to leak milk! It’s just one more happy event I have to look forward to.

It makes me want to throw oversized maternity bras at the heads of those other glowing, serene mothers-to-be who prattle on about butterflies and happy hormones and how in love they are with their unborn babies. You’d think they were growing a sparkling pink unicorn in an icing-sugar palace instead of stretching themselves to unthinkable proportions to accommodate something that will one day steal money from their purse to buy cigarettes.

Never mind butterflies - the foetal movement of this kid feels more like a trapped wood pigeon trying frantically to escape, my belly jumping and jerking around like something straight out of Aliens. I am not feeling serene or glowing or hormonally happy at all. I feel tired and listless, unwell and useless, and some days I don’t even want to get out of bed. I count myself lucky to have so far escaped the horrors of skin discolouration, stretch marks, varicose veins and cracked nipples, but never say never!

That said, I’m so grateful that the pregnancy itself has so far gone off without a hitch, and by that I mean no scary bleeding, scary blood results and scary painful other things that indicate that not all is well in wombland. We lost an early pregnancy at the beginning of the year, which happens to something like one in five women (some of whom never realise it because it’s like having a heavy period), and it is as though my body remembers and is now doubly resolved to do things properly.

I’m lucky in other ways as well: I have a loving and supportive husband who I know will make the best dad in the universe, a close-knit British family that cares very much for us both and an understanding line manager who has been flexible about how and where I work. I really am in the best possible position to have a child, credit crunch be damned, and in spite of these temporary discomforts, I do feel rather blessed.

Pet shop...and grille?

Self-dipping chicken nuggets - now why didn't I think of that?



I'm glad Banksy is branching out a bit finally. Graffiti is great and all, but it doesn't pay the bills. A little bear urine and a desecrated Looney Toons character, on the other hand...

Some would call it good sense

I know this is meant to be absurd, but I totally get where they're coming from.

It sure beats letting your freeloading ex take the lion's share because you can't afford legal fees.

Self-portrait in spotty mirror

Thought it was about time I showed off the bump (click to enlarge), though this mirror is slimming and I didn't want to hike up my shirt. Though I'm sure that will happen on its own soon enough.

Split hairs and dangerous cocktails

A bit distracted these days – we’re very concerned about a friend of ours and hope that she gets in touch with us soon.

Yesterday I woke with a hangover – minus the benefits of an actual drink and maybe some regretful memories involving a greased pole and The Rapture, but hey, once this kid finally breaks out, life itself will turn into one big long party. A poopy party of sleep-deprivation and breast milk, oh yeah.

I hadn’t had anything to eat since midnight and was about to skip breakfast too. I figured I would have a steaming mug of pure liquid sugar a bit later on, and then maybe spend the next few hours sitting around doing nothing. See how that went down with the little guy.

Would you believe that this is something doctors actually encourage pregnant women to do?

It’s called a Glucose Tolerance Test, and it’s a shitty way for them to determine if I’m predisposed to diabetes, as apparently one in five women are at risk of contracting a mild form of the disease during pregnancy. And hey: it’s no wonder! Maybe if they stopped dispensing with the death-defying, blood-sugar-level-plunging tipples, those numbers would dwindle somewhat.

Unsurprisingly, my body was in complete disagreement with this new nutritional development and proceeded to try and purge the stuff not fifteen minutes later. At which point I was told to try and hold off on that, as it would have ruined the whole experiment and we'd have to start all over again on some other day. So I didn’t; I swallowed mouthfuls of whatever liquid your glands excrete moments before you vomit while Bruce and Nurse Sugarplum struggled to fix the broken plastic fan, as though the fan would somehow magically obliterate the discomfort of having ingested the liquid equivalent of 100 Mars Bars.

Two blood tests later and it was onto another appointment with the midwife, who first said the baby was measuring a bit small and then, on second thought, that it was measuring just fine. You have to trust what they say, I guess!

She said ‘So, you’re 26 weeks along’ and I said ‘Not until Friday’ and she said ‘Well, we won’t split hairs.’ And I didn’t point out that a week is only made up of 7 days, so there weren’t that many hairs to split in the first place. She then congratulated me on being over halfway through the pregnancy, though actually I’m more like two-thirds of the way through, except that in keeping with the avoidance of hair-splittage, I had to let that one go.

These days I am feeling overweight and unattractive, lethargic and ungainly, and for good reason (I am). But these things do happen, and it’s all very normal: a phrase I am well accustomed to hearing by now. I will not even be surprised when a green goblin comes bursting from my mouth to spit in my cereal tomorrow morning, because chances are, when you’re pregnant, these things happen and it’s all very normal.

Real families and imaginary futures

Watching Supernanny this weekend, it occurs to me once more why having children always struck me as so distasteful. Influenced mainly by documentary programmes, I’ve been under the impression that 99.9% of parents become, through their trade, overweight, ineloquent buffoons who do nothing but struggle to buckle their children into car seats, enforce the eating of soggy vegetables and mechanically read sticky-covered books to sweaty-haired offspring so that they can turn out the light and possibly enjoy a quiet half hour of Seinfeld together.

Worse, their houses are an environmental manifestation of this nightmarish depravity: fluorescent-lit living-rooms of unimaginative décor (the mile-long, paid-by-instalment sectional sofa piece upholstered with Cheetos and colouring books, on Ribena-patterned industrial carpeting); a back garden that sprouts broken toys, saggy washing lines and (if very lucky) a trampoline enshrouded in collapsed safety netting; a bedroom whose only possible merit is that the duvet set matches the curtains.

If this is not the way of the average, Westerly-civilized family, there certainly do seem to be a propensity of them willing to have their troubles splashed all over the airwaves for the rest of us to contemplate chillingly.

But the small part of me that always wanted to be a mum still remembers how, at eighteen, I sat paralysed with shyness in the atmospheric character house of an ex-boyfriend’s employers, accepting glass after glass of orange creamsicle because that was what we’d brought with us to drink, and dizzily watching one of two enchanting little girls do back-flips up the legs of her long-haired father who, though in his forties, was wearing a band t-shirt, torn jeans and no socks.

Holly and Ivy shared the same tangle of hair and wide-set blue eyes, qualities that rendered four-year-old Holly impish while lending her taller, ganglier older sister a kind of moody elfin charm. Both were sharp as tacks, and whereas I grew more uncomfortable (and inebriated) by the second among these well-adjusted people and knew that soon they would be avoiding me for quite the opposite reason, Holly’s own shyness translated to a socially acceptable air of self-possessed reserve that made guests want to engage her in the hopes of becoming her one ally at the barbeque. Ivy was already everyone’s best friend.

Too, there was the time I babysat for a couple who lived in a small village high in the Rocky Mountains. Their A-frame home had the quality of a tree-house, or that cabin belonging to the three little bears, with its dark, knotty-wood round dining table, pine chests filled with handmade quilts, webby, looming shelves of mismatched china and old fashioned tins and a television set hidden away inside a great oak cabinet.

Their girls, Meghan and Sarah, were close in age, and had identical bobs (one blonde, one brunette), matching woollen jumpers (one green and one red, with reindeers) over corduroy dungarees, and drank fruity teas sweetened with liquid honey stored in bear-shaped bottles. Extremely well-behaved, the girls donated many smiles and unexpected moments of unselfconscious intimacy (sitting on my lap, asking for their hair to be brushed) while they talked me through their gentle routine of now we colour, now we watch our VHS tape, now we have a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with apple slices and whatever else happy, cold-cheeked mountain children do with their established, well-ordered days.

In retrospect, did the part of me that could imagine motherhood wish to raise a small extension of myself who could somehow adopt the mannerisms of a child with a happy upbringing, even if I wasn’t sure I had the wherewithal to provide one? Probably.

But one thing I’ve learned about life is that you can only build it with whatever materials you have at your disposal, and it’s those materials that will finally determine the outcome of your home, your children and the ensuing atmosphere. There is no way I could have done this five years ago. There is every chance I can do this now. And that’s good enough for me.

Covering the mirror

Bad writing is almost always bad for the same reason: the writer believes that staying true to their own unique perception will lend a piece enough authenticity that a reader will be able to overcome the hurdles of clumsy prose, the poor handling of dialogue and bad pacing. (I use the term ‘writer’ quite loosely, in the context of a verb, as writing does not a Writer make.)

Most of us experience the world in ways that are similar enough that when someone makes an astute observation, it can give you the impression that this person somehow ‘read your mind.’ If they are very clever, they will put a unique spin on things, thereby making us all feel like dimwits who should just cap our pens now because we will never achieve this level of lucidity.

On the other hand, if a writer interjects too many of their own quirks, the piece risks devolving into an alien text that, while being utterly relatable as far as it may refer to something of a shared experience at times, more often than not fractures our sense of unity and dislodges us from the fantasy. In this instance, even when they believe that they are tapping into the life-force of the universe, these writers are still mainly writing about themselves.

And this is where I get stuck. The navel can be a beautiful thing to gaze on (just lift up your shirt and see) but I want to escape the restrictive playpen of my own ego and immerse myself in fiction for once.

I think I need to detoxify and take a complete holiday from the internet. It frightens me a little bit to contemplate, but on the other hand, this fear only strengthens my resolve.

Miser

Sooner or later, you have to stop counting your pennies, or you’ll never be surprised by the sum total of what you’ve acquired.

Fait accomplis

My favourite hours of the day, and they are all of them taken up by things I don’t particularly enjoy. I do not measure my self-worth in clicks, but I am encouraged to.

I get through this by imagining what I’ll do after work, even though I’ll be too tired to do much of anything, and know this already, even as I’m inventing my after-hours liberation.

It’s relentless, but the mind lets you down gently by sweeping away these filaments each night as you sleep.

I know it’s really fruit that I’m craving, but psychological deprivation demands a stronger fix than apples, or peaches, or even cherries. Incarcerate my will but my palate is born away on a cloud of spun sugar.

In my mind’s eye, I watch the final word appear on the final page, the last leaf fall from autumn’s unclenched fist, and this is why I do nothing. Imagination leaves the cage door open, and in this way creates a prison stronger than any earthly material.

And the awards goes to

There’s a festive mood at work, given that everyone in our group is out of town at an event save for me and the designers. I’m not really feeling it, though. Mostly I feel pregnant, tired and frustrated by one of the content management systems I’m working on. The chitty chat is starting to interfere with my ability to concentrate on not stressing out about it, which means I’m going to give up at any moment. Though I guess I already have.

We’re going to take a field trip after lunch, to a photography exhibit, which has about as much to do with my job as a trip to the London Dungeons, if I’m being honest, but I was asked in front of at least one editor so I figure I’m covered.

While I’m here, I’m handing out an Arte Y Pico award to Shhh, who is somewhere in the air by now, and also to Wit of the Staircase, who won’t be around to accept.

In the first instance, the website is a testament to photography, poetry and the nature of existance I'm guessing. She likes to switch it up, so I go there every so often to see how she’s getting on.

Wit of the Staircase is a website created by Theresa Duncan, a woman who took her own life after some fairly shady dealings with an unknown aggressor, which she writes about briefly. Fascinated and fascinating in equal measures, this website is immensely hard to put down once you tunnel in.

I’m also giving one to Mil Millington, for Things My Girlfriend and I have Argued About. This is the first blog I probably ever read, having had no idea what a blog even was at the time. It made me laugh (out loud!) and wish that I had a boyfriend who found me half as compelling as Mil found his partner. And then I did, and I married 'im.

Congratulations, you three. At least two of you won’t ever discover this prestigious honour, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it! That's all the time I have for today.

I am not my mother

Following personal tragedy, our dear friend Shannon is moving back to the States tomorrow. She will be sorely missed by everyone, no less by me, as she was the first of Bruce’s friends to welcome me over when I arrived in London and has been an integral part of my socialisation here, such as it is. It’s understandable though, and we’ll be keeping in touch (and possibly even holidaying together next year) so I’ll try not to be too sad.

I’ve been in London nearly two years now, and can honestly say that I’m happy with my somewhat reclusive pattern of work and home life; to a degree I would have thought impossible back home. What I once considered a social life I now see as a kind of forced construct, invented to make things seem as though they were moving forward, even though I was in an unhappy relationship, hadn’t been in school for a few years and had no future plans to do anything other than subsist on beer, cigarettes and the internet.

Even without a steady diet of bars and restaurants, movies and festivals, classes and exams, my life today is far more fulfilling than any other time I can point to. I suppose you could call that success, as fulfilment is all anyone can ever aspire to. The rest is just trimmings.

As for those trimmings, I guess that’s TBD. I have no idea what’s in store for me once I finish out the year, aside from the obvious. At Shannon’s leaving do, Mel squealed and shook her head at some of the things I was describing about my body in its relentless march towards motherhood, claiming “I don’t have a maternal bone in my body!” My impulse was to squeal back, “Me neither!” but then I realised that probably wouldn’t go down too well with the group and so didn’t.

This morning, Bruce pointed out a mum and her two kids, arms slung chummily about one another’s shoulders, comfortably waiting for a bus, and I said, “I really hope I have that sort of confidence with my kids,” to which Bruce said, “Uh, me too!” Though what I meant, I guess, is that part of me worries that some latent paradigm of motherhood will somehow interfere with all the hard work I have put into unlearning the defensive behaviour resulting from my own upbringing, to the detriment of whoever I'm bringing into this world. I want to be a real person for my kid – not someone who has to feign love and concern because I’m far too busy tending the wicked, noxious garden of a wild ego.

I am not my mother, but I am certainly elements of her, and I think I will probably always struggle to remain firmly entrenched in the pale, restrictive embrace of reality: where I am at once more and less special than I believe, the events of my life are both more and less determined, and the apparent discontinuity between this stuttering zoetrope of object- and subjectivity can blur steadily as one complete picture inside some unwavering persistence of vision. I just want to find a natural flow, and stay with it somehow.

Arte Y Pico, anyone?

My gratitude to Lass: for surprising me with an Arte Y Pico award and thus shaming me for falling behind on my online reads. I appear to be around because I post every day or every other day, but mostly this is to keep my writing habitual when the demands on my time are such that I can’t manage much else. The luxury of snooping through the self-published thoughts of others is no longer mine.

I’m fairly confident that if I were to miss something vitally important on your blog though, I would receive an email or phone call, or at the very least a note saying: "I got married to the King of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and you STILL haven’t contacted me to offer congratulations? What kind of a friend are you?!" And then I would know to snap back to attention.

I have been crawling through some fantastic works of fiction, but I don’t suppose published authors are in need of a blog award. Maybe if someone had given Mr. Foster Wallace an Arte Y Pico, he would have been less sad in his life. Probably not though.

So long story short: I am horribly out of the blog loop and don’t quite know what to do with my allotment of award donations. It should come as no surprise to those of you in my notes page that I am an avid appreciator of Mrs Slocombe and The Lass herself (though I don’t know if you can do backsies).

Mrs Slocombe: would you like an Arte Y Pico? Because I’d very much like to give you one (that is an AWARD for those of you who’ve only been skimming and don’t read Spanish).

Let me get back to you on the other four, because I’m at work right now. And in Londontown, we do work at work. I know! It’s so totally incomprehensible to my small-town, grain-fed prairie brain at times, but it’s the truth.

M’kay, that’s enough now – here are the rules of the award, which I’m not actually sure I’ve earned:

Post the award pic on your page, pass the award along to five others, link to the original prize site (s/he should get some sort of SEO award for that one) and the sites of your winners.

Check, check and check-ish.

Six unspectacular things (or why I may need therapy)

Tagged by Mrs Slocombe for this meme about what makes us dull as dishwater.

Here are six unspectacular things about me:

1. I'm terrible at making friends and consequently have none in London (of my own, anyway).

2. For about a week in 1994, whilst in Amsterdam, my favourite meal of the day was breakfast, even though it was just ham and cheese sandwiches, manky hostel tea and chocolate sprinkles on bread.

3. I only ever like one outfit in my wardrobe at a time. The rest I force myself to wear for the sake of variety.

4. I don't know how to behave normally in front of a camera and so just pull faces or look away (like most people).

5. The only person I feel comfortable having any sort of physical contact with is Bruce. If I have to touch or be touched by others (as in friendly hugs, contact sports or team-building exercises involving hand-holding), I either feel repulsed or unworthy, depending on who it is.

6. My hair is too fine for the shape of my face.

You gotsta:

1. link the person who tagged you
2. mention the rules on your blog
3. list 6 unspectacular things about you
4. tag 6 other bloggers by linking them

Did you not read my first unspectacular thing? Oh let's see then. Lass, lynn, Lacking, thebeesknees, Emmms and dominguez.

I hope you don't mind

I met Bruce under very unusual circumstances, to say the least. We only spent a week or so together before deciding, independently of one another, that we’d finally found our match.

Of course, I only knew this intrinsically, and was pretty oblivious to the fact that Bruce was several steps ahead of me in acknowledging the reality of our situation outright. He’d even made this plain in an email he sent a few days after I left London to attend a wedding in Poland, when I was still feeling unsure of whether or not I’d ever see him again - such was my faith in both love and people.

But my feelings were stronger than any doubts I harboured about his sincerity, and whereas this would have caused me a great deal of trouble in the past, I’d somehow blundered into the most appropriate avenue for this vulnerability, thank god. I loved him more than anything or anyone, and part of me – well, all of me - didn’t want to know if it wasn’t reciprocated.

I still feel that way. I don’t mean that I doubt his feelings for me, but one thing I do know is that love is a complete contradiction: the more you love, the better you feel, which renders the act of giving more selfish than generous. I will always believe that I get more out of loving Bruce than the reverse, but I’m okay with that, so long as he is. Call me selfish.

Anyway, I came across this song again on my iPod, which I first heard on Bruce’s now defunct MySpace page. I was still stupidly unsure about how he perceived the situation, because we hadn’t been any more explicit than two people living halfway around the world from one another can manage without irony in an email or a phone call. But I flicked onto his page, and there was the song, and it was like an atomic bomb went off in my chest. He hadn’t put it there to be interpreted by anyone, obviously, and yet from that moment on, all the beautiful music in the world started to sound like something he’d created just for me. It still does.

Discover Spiritualized®!

First clothes, new cabinet

A few of my favourite things

One of my colleagues is being sexually harassed on our site by someone she used to work with; the fallout from this has pretty much taken up my entire lunch hour. As such, all I have time for is a list of five things I love but rarely acknowledge, even to myself. Just thought it was about time I gave them props!

In no particular order:

Canned pop from a hotel vending machine – I don’t know why, but these seem to be so much colder than canned drinks from any other machine. I don’t normally get wound up about canned pop, but given the shipwrecked nature of hotel rooms, a very cold drink can feel almost luxurious in that particular setting.

The smell of gum, newsprint and tobacco – making gift shops and newsagent stands one of my all time favourite places to loiter, when I have the time (which is never).

Floating on my back in the ocean, or the sea, or even a pool – the most liberating feeling I know. That’s above flying, which fills me with terror, even though I’m mostly over the phobia now.

Hotels in general – I’ve stayed in countless hotels but I still get excited about it every single time. Typically, I have the best sleep of my life, provided the pillows aren’t too hard or lumpy. And regardless of quality, I like the idea of going downstairs to have a meal, especially if it's breakfast. I even like having a drink in the skeezy hotel bar, right before going up to the room for bed. I suppose it feels like living in a very big house, where all your needs are met but nobody expects anything in return (except £100 a night) and nobody keeps tabs on you either. It's an agoraphobic's paradise really, and having once had agoraphobic tendencies, I can still appreciate this.

Planning vacations – taking holidays is nice, but thinking about a holiday and trying to envision what it will be like is 80% of the enjoyment for me.

You know, I didn’t realise the common link between these items until I’d written them down. I guess I must subconsciously love holidays as much as I do consciously.

Long since spoiled, but: SPOILER

Bruce and I are probably the last people on earth to have seen The Happening (well, of anyone who’d planned to see it I guess). Similarly, we were determined to be the only people on earth who did not hate it entirely.

We were doing a rather good job of it too: humming and hawing about how it was a little cheesy but not so terrible, and wasn’t he sort of trying to emulate Hitchcock? (my ingenious love spotted this), however unsuccessfully, and the premise was good, it’s only unfortunate that the writing had to be so terrible. And the acting. And the plot. And that’s when it all started to fall apart.

There were even some unforgivably stupid moments, such as when the train stopped in the small town and refused to take them any further, so they all congregated in the diner. After hearing a news report about how they were smack in the middle of all the trouble, a disembodied voice cried out: “This isn’t happening 90 miles from here, c’mon let’s go!” and everyone sped off in their cars except for the leads. Marky Mark was uselessly trying to hitch a ride for himself and his bug-eyed girlfriend and their surrogate child, crying desperately as the last car raced away, “We haven’t got a vehicle!”

And I turned to Bruce and asked, Should any of them have vehicles? They all arrived on the same train!

Absent too was the famous M Night Shyamalan twist, and if there was one, he gave it away straight off (I realise a twist can’t be given away straight off, but in the absence of anything else, I imagine he’d counted on us forgetting the important little aside about nature’s inexplicable…well, nature). I mean, at the very least, the guy who had a good relationship with plants should have met a better end than an off-camera gun-shot to the head. The famous twist was also absent from Lady in the Water, though, which makes me think M Night has finally made enough money to shed the restrictive conventions of mainstream cinema to pursue his real passion: bad student art films.

So even with the negative press in mind, I was still quite disappointed with the experience and can only imagine how people who paid to see it in theatres must have felt. Actually, I do know how they felt. One of the posters in the underground on the Northern Line was scratched out and defaced so that the letters in the title following the director’s name read:

DICK

Creative solutions, I know.

Still, you have to admire the guy. Most people find success with a book or a film and then spend the rest of their lives struggling with their egos in order to produce a handful more that might live up to the first.

Mr. Shyamalan is obviously fearless about trying things out and potentially failing, which should give all of us courage to keep doing what we love, brambles and berries and nuts and bird droppings in and amongst the laurels we try on and toss away.

Progress

My tumultuous love-hate relationship with London has swung back to love again, and last night was the first time I was properly able to enjoy the city minus the sensation of full-on nausea. It made me realise, too, that the little things which seemed to make all the difference when I was sick (poor customer service, crowded transport, a bit of extra smog) are, in the happy glow of my second trimester, just that: little things.

Hold these up to the elements of my former life (uninspired cultural environment; death-defying winter temperatures; self-important, small-minded neighbours), and that’s practically like snubbing paradise because you saw a spider.

Work, personal accomplishment and family will always be major undertakings, no matter where you live, and I’m just thankful to have anchored myself in one of the most exciting, dynamic places on earth while I sort through these.

That’s if you asked me today, anyway.

Returning to Canada has also led to a more acute appreciation of the independence I’ve finally achieved here. When things got tough with the pregnancy, I rued the loss of former parental resources that once included rides to work, free meals and occasional help around the house. But these fringe benefits of living close to family come with their own price, and I’d have been handing back the keys to adulthood for the privilege of a few creature comforts – an uneven exchange by anyone’s standards.

I doubt I’ll ever go into detail here about what took place during our two week stay with my folks, but were it not for Bruce, rest assured I would soon be sending them the divorce papers with visiting rights on the unlikely proviso that they seek professional help and keep their sticky issues away from my psyche. I love them dearly, though I’ve had to concede that a distantly fostered ideal is much better for my sanity than getting up-close-and-personal with the reality.

Anyway, cue final credits for Doogie Howser M.D., Sex and the City, The Wonder Years, whatever. I’m finished reflecting on this now. What I really wanted to say was that last night at dinner, our friend Matt said that he couldn’t imagine not having children, but he couldn’t really imagine having children either, and hence didn’t know whether he’d ever be ready to make a decision, either way. And it made me think about my own attitude towards readiness for parenthood, which seems to change with each hospital visit, abdominal twinge and new bit of information gleaned from newsletters, friends and family.

What I ended up telling him seemed to solve the dilemma Bruce and I were having ourselves, which is that parenthood is not something you can imagine doing until you're in the midst of it, so there’s no point in trying. All you can do is go with the experience at every stage and wonder at the miracle of getting through it intact and even happier than you were before.

Whether you’re thrown for a loop, or whether being a mum or dad is something you’ve been getting ready for your whole life, nobody has the upper hand on preparedness. But hopefully everyone is pleasantly surprised by what happens next.

Rhetorical maybe

I sometimes wonder if the things you loved about me at first are still apparent to you. Or whether they amount to a most fortunate misconception we shed like a wrapper off a bar of chocolate after purchase. Or, worse, if they fell into place like a single puzzle piece, its outline fading into the background of a mundane landscape.

Not as often, mind you.

Snips and snails, sugar and spice

Yesterday I was offered a seat on the underground for the first time. Bruce often wondered aloud who would be the first person to spot my condition without having been told, and now we know. Her blue eyes bulged with concern and she scolded: “You should’ve said something!” I’m not quite sure what I would say though, in this case. I’ve got a loaded womb – give me the seat or I’ll puke in your lap! There’s no easy way to ask.

Our second, mid-pregnancy scan was much gentler overall than our first. The ultrasound technician was Jeremy – a kindly, broad-featured South African in his late forties, with tousselled hair and fine, wire-frame specs; he looked like he must spend his free days chopping wood for the fireplace, playing Handel in the kitchen while making soup and then applying paint to model trains with a tiny brush in a dimly lit basement.

He squinted amicably at the information on his screen, turning the wet wand this way and that to get a better look at all the parts. “Do you want to know the sex, if I can spot it,” he asked before he began, and we said yes. After what felt like several agonising minutes where I couldn’t read Bruce’s expression and had given up on Jeremy’s altogether, he said that everything looked normal. He showed us the arms, the hands and fingers, the long narrow bones of the legs ending in feet, and the details of the face and spine. And then he asked again if we wanted to know what it was.

Do you?

Probing for a good look at the genitalia, Jeremy laughed kindly and said, “Well, it’s not 100% accurate, but in my opinion, it looks like you’re going to have a little boy.” He said this with a warm, low smile in his voice. And he twisted the wand until the tiny little scrotum came into focus.

And then I basically ruined the moment by looking woundedly at my very excited husband and asking him if he’d have been as happy with a girl. Because I am an over-analytical, emotionally-retarded idiot at times (always then), and for a second believed that what I was seeing wasn’t rejoicing at the news of a healthy baby but relief that it wasn’t the girl every person in our family save for my sister had predicted.

Even if there had been some relief mixed in with his reaction though, it’s completely understandable, as Bruce has spent his entire life in the exclusive company of girls and women. It’s about time we upped the testosterone levels around here, and even though I don’t know a thing about little boys or how their brains and bodies work, I still have a hard time not crying when I think of how lovely our lives are going to be from this point onwards.

My own reactions to news always come much, much later, when things begin to sink in finally, like they’re doing now.

Ocean time

There are, there really are, worse things in life than being at work on the Thames during a rain storm on 1.5 hours of sleep. Remind me to tell you about those things sometime; at the moment I’m preoccupied with keeping my eye trained on the inching clock and desperately trying not to do what I did earlier on the underground (a feeling of passing-out-meets-vomiting-meets-coronary-meets me slumped over for a short while).

This afternoon we’re going for our second and final ultrasound before being left to our own imperfect divination with regards to the health of this growing potential. It’s right here, beneath my fingers at times, and yet it all seems to be happening on some distant planet, news reaching us by way of sonar reverberations light years away, as yet indecipherable.

So we’ll know how many appendages and if a brain or heart or how shapely a spine, and if conversation could progress beyond these essentials, these very essential essentials, then possibly a sex. Inquiring minds would like to know just which imaginary who we could be dealing with.

In any case, I’ve had no sleep and don’t think I could manage bad news. Wish me a baby.

The Bible rubs shoulders with Angela Carter

Well, my holiday in Canada is drawing to a swift close. I'm not sure how I want to commemorate the experience online, if at all, though I do want to say that a vacation rarely ever offers a break from life, and that a long break from family rarely ever results in happier visits. I'd do well to keep that in mind the next time I plan a trip to the homeland, and also to make damn sure we have our own place to stay.

Still, the bits that weren't fraught with the overanxious, clingy neurosis of my parents' suggestive hive mind were just what I was hoping for, and we do plan to return to these things next summer independently (for a longer period, and with our new addition).

If I felt there was something essential missing from my life in London, it certainly isn't here, though I do wish I could rescue all my books.

Hey: 21 weeks today! I think I feel little bursts of movement, but I'm not entirely sure.

See you back there.

So cool it hurts

I have tried to write about my experiences of being back in Canada on a few separate occasions, and under the influence of various mood-altering family members/scenic routes/local cuisines, without success. So instead, I present you with a meme nicked from Mrs. Slocombe’s fine page.

Having looked more carefully at the rules, I’m suddenly unsure of how one would go about pretending to be cool with this meme. Presumably we’re all under the impression that our taste in music is impeccable. If we could come up with anything ‘cooler’, well. Then I guess we’d have downloaded it by now.

Though I’m not actually sure how Metric ended up there, so.

1. Open your music library (iTunes, winamp, media player, iPod, whatever)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question below, type the song that’s playing
5. New question — press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool

Opening credits: “Say Valley Maker” Smog
First day at school: “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievances” Daniel Johnston
Falling in love: “At the Break of Day” Bonnie Prince Billy
Breaking up: “Want” Rufus Wainwright
Prom: “Say You Do” TV on the Radio
Life’s Okay: “Flight Tonight” The Avalanches
Mental breakdown: “In the Warm Room” Kate Bush
Driving: “Hustle Rose” Metric
Flashback: “Strayed” Smog
Getting back together: “Speed is the Key” Sugarcubes
Wedding: “Heaven” The Rapture
Divorce: “Let’s Hear That String Part Again” Sufjan Stevens
Current Mood: “If You Find Yourself Caught In Love” Belle and Sebastian
Final battle: “Breakin’ the Law” New Pornographers
Death scene: “Wind is Blowing Stars” Laura Viers
End credits: “Today Will be Better, I swear!” Stars
Leaving Theatre: “Falling Man” Blonde Redhead

Through flight

Wading through life is a bit like trying to dig a hole in soft sand – you can scoop out as much as you want, but the grains of its circumference will tumble back in as surely as the tide licks in and out with each stroke of a moon.

The boiler’s been replaced, hot water restored, flat cleaned and sorted, laundry washed and folded, lists drawn up and calls made. And still I’m coming down with flu.

And still we’re flying out on Saturday.

And the Saturday grains mingle with the grains of impending flu until the two are so indecipherable, I can’t tell if we’re flying out of rain or into sun; if I’m digging a tunnel or burying myself alive.

So I’m fixing my gaze on being there, however quickly the hole fills and whatever happens in the interim, because regardless of how I perceive these physics, I am going on holiday.

There is no other dimension.

I'd rather be the ugly duckling

I’ve been working not too hard at getting though my x365s, as you can probably tell. It’s taken me over a year to write twenty five of them. But seeing as how I’m at least bothering to stick to the word count rule (only as many words as years of your life) and most x365ers show flexibility in some way or another, I won’t be too hard on myself.

The problem isn’t cutting back on words so much as trying to nail down the individual. So many faces vie for attention, and then one finally pops into place like a bingo ball and there’s nothing I can do about it. Obviously, you don’t always have a glowing report for every person in your life either, or can be sure they aren’t reading your blog. But on the other hand: who cares! It’s a blog, not a livelihood.

Speaking of which, I can’t wait to get away from work for a solid two weeks. The culture here is driving me nuts, for one thing, and for another, I’m not overly fussed about the work itself. As soon as I get that promotion they've been promising I might just have to change my tune, but this bird don’t sing for free, yo.

A colleague of mine was telling us how he had to beat a swan with a branch nearly five times before it gave up trying to drown a Canada goose for getting too close to its children or something. He did this not because he had any particular affinity for the victim (and swans know people in high places in this here country) but because his young daughter was in hysterics over the scene.

I had no idea that a swan would have the compulsion to drown a goose in the first place, let alone the ability, but live and learn. It only strengthens my conviction that beauty gives most people/places/things more than enough leverage to behave like assholes.

Anyway, that same colleague is now clearing his throat repeatedly, I guess to get me to look at the time, it being a few minutes beyond lunch. But that’s what happens when you give me content at the eleventh hour. I take lunch. And sometimes I go over.

x365: 25 of 365 - Mrs. V

You ridiculed me in grade six for using ‘devastated’ to describe failure. Is it because you didn’t believe I knew what it meant? Or because my average mark didn’t endorse the sentiment?

Recipe for Sunday and other matters

Sunday: you good for nothing day of the week. But I’m learning to take it in stride.

Hot chocolate and strawberry jam on baguette, eggs chuckling in hot oil. Swab the jewel cases of CDs, the plastic bodies of boot sale cameras, the miniature Che Guevaras - return them to tenderly dusted shelves.

Paddle unhurriedly through the thick, yellow hours. Boil kettles, pots and pans for a bath; fog stipples the bay windows, creeps damply across wood floors.

Mad Men and mountain music, Bruce fixes the letter ‘n’, partially. I love him to the balls of his eyes, which he insists are green, though they’re often blue, or overcast.

Pots steam on the gas range. Laundry hangs in the damp bedroom, the picture window sweating. Lamps seal out the gloom, and it rains cold, misty rain you can really imagine, dashed down haphazardly into lush shrubbery.

Red grapes glisten in white crockery. Swiss roll for afters. The sun makes a surprise guest appearance and dries away the remaining minutes before tea.

Next weekend we’re on holiday. God help us though, we’ve bought another lens. Medium format, and there is so much more to account for.

I’m eighteen weeks along and in good health. Perfect health, actually. For once, I’m not arguing.

Friend or foe

Each time Yuan sees me now, she reaches out a hand to cup my ill-formed paunch (instead of pregnant, I look like I’ve just consumed a platter of burgers) and exclaims loudly. She does this not to gauge the growth of my very young tadpole, but to indicate to others in the vicinity that I am in a family way, and she a close ally.

It’s the same behaviour she exhibits when I say, “Let’s take a look at the showers in the basement” if I’m contemplating on using them because our boiler at home broke (it did) and she announces to the room, “Yes, you should be able to use these. You remember where they are? You go down to the basement and turn RIGHT. Okay?”

Because it pleases her if she can make me seem like a simpering idiot that needs all the help she can give me.

Today in the stairwell, after the shower fiasco, she cupped my belly again and then ogled my massive mammary glands for a moment before decidedly reaching out and poking these as well: They are so HUGE, Friday!

Yes, yes they are, Yuan. Thanks for the friendly reminder.

Our boiler broke, did I tell you? We haven’t had hot water for a few days, no thanks to the rental agency whose job it was to maintain the thing in the first place, and who is already waffling about sending over any but the least expensive tradesperson they can drum up. I have an appointment with a midwife tomorrow afternoon and I do not want to show up without having had a hot shower. Emphasis on hot.

Aside from being a princess who cannot condone a jet stream of less than 23 degrees Celsius on a good day, I am now a moderately pregnant woman who will burst into tears over a missing button on my top, or tomato sauce. Spluttering and shivering under an icy stream first thing in the morning, or leaning my growing uterus against the rim of the bath with a heated kettle in hand is simply not an option.

Anyway, no amount of railing at my poor defenceless husband or the bastards that put us in this position in the first place has made any difference whatsoever, so I’m left to direct my frustrations elsewhere. I’m at work, which is a dangerous prospect for all involved.

Here, read this – the BBC really knows how to make a gal feel safe about the prospect of giving birth overseas.

Oop! And more excellent reading material for the flight home next weekend.

I promise I’ll write something uplifting soon, like when somebody invents calorie free Haribos.

Uncut and uncensored

Lately I’ve been fighting the urge to run screaming back into the arms of Canada, Oh Canada, my home and native land. When I try and think of the specifics of what I’d gain from this escape, though, I come up empty handed.

My hometown is sleepy and predictable as ever, last I heard, and I’d probably go stir crazy within a few days of seeing it (given too that my current condition precludes indulging in the preferred pastime of locals – beer). Vancouver is too abstract a concept, my family an unhealthy illusion hastily erected by the trembling hands of unsubstantiated nostalgia, so that’s out.

Then a few things happened and I remembered why being here is good for me. The first thing that happened was I read a news story on the CBC website, about a man who killed and beheaded another, younger man on a Greyhound bus. It wasn’t the incident that gave me pause so much as the journalism, and then the attitude of the readers, conveyed through commentary.

News stories on the BBC website (and in many newspapers I read here) typically function as a series of pure, dispassionate vehicles for information. You can bet that if someone were decapitated in England, you’d get the details first and foremost. Any ensuing pieces would include further details as released by police or officials, and from this you could paint your own picture of what took place.

In Canada, news is nearly always a community event, and the community spends a great deal of time debating broadly through the singular voice of a newspaper or the disparate voices of its readership about what that event should mean. The man beheaded on a bus was sort of a no-brainer, but Canadians cannot be trusted to their own interpretations, thus we’ll throw them a few more maudlin headlines like “Man slain on bus had ‘a heart bigger than you can know’” - blatantly not news, but just in case you didn’t catch on the first time.

And as though in validation of this journalistic patronisation, readers give their poorly articulated (and often grammatically abhorrent) views on the matter, leaving comments riddled with religious propaganda at best and, at worst, racist slandering (the killer was of Chinese decent).

Reading the CBC website made me recall an aspect of Canadians I can’t abide, which is that even though we have plenty of educated, well-spoken individuals, the loudest voices (I hesitate to say bleeding heart Liberals and brainless Conservatives, but I can’t think of a better catch-all) are the ones that pollute the airwaves with utter nonsense. The better voices stand quietly by for the most part, out of politeness or for fear of dirtying their hands.

This is not exclusive to journalism either – impotence is a way of life for Canadians, and you see it in their politics, their profit and non-profit organisations, their arts & entertainment and various institutions. It makes a body feel more alone in the world than if she were to read a newspaper that inadvertently scrambled the communal impetus of a newsworthy topic, or travelled the busiest streets of the busiest city and found not one open face among its pedestrians.

So I’ve taken cbc.ca/news off my list of favourites and now that leaves the second thing that happened which made me realise that maybe I should sort out my differences with London and get on with my life here: a conversation with my mother.

There was nothing overtly wrong with how the conversation went. We speak every Sunday, and usually manage to struggle through with mostly happy results. But I suddenly had a flash of what life used to be like when my parents were no more than a ten minute drive - or an inexpensive phone call - away. And that unleashed a montage of imagery related to what holidays in Vancouver are actually like: frustrating, disappointing, and with mere flashes of repose, affection and rare exhilaration.

My family – exhausting and often mortifying to be around – are usually too self-involved to bother with one another, and that is the sad, honest truth.

But aside from the likely erroneousness of all this synecdoche, it is true what they say about escaping the self: wherever you go, there you are. And most of what needs fixing in my life has to do with how I perceive myself in relation to others in my environment, and the environment itself at times. I honestly believe (right now, breaking news) that it will be easier for me to do this here.