It's amazing to me just how little I care about these days. I care about the couch, the TV, and the blanket to keep me warm. And things are starting to bug me, too. Like when people wear perfume, when they eat in front of me, when they are being too positive for anyone's benefit. I've made an effort to say as little as possible throughout the day, because that's energy wasted that could be invested in watching TV. So when I DO say something, consider it very thought-out and important for your well-being. Such as, "Gee, I'm not feeling very well today." And I'll get a response like, "Awww, you're not? Poor you. Well, it's all for the good of the baby! Isn't that great?" "No, you idiot. I've never thought of it that way. Really? The BABY is making me feel this way? Take your positive thoughts and shove it, because you have no idea how I'm feeling right now."
Or when someone's in the middle of gossiping about a person, and I throw in the benefit of the doubt, and then Miss Gossipy tries to compensate for her own negativity by agreeing and then adding something nice about the person herself. "Excuse me, are you trying to out-positive me? Are you trying to OUT-positive ME? Because you're wrong. You're mean."

The moral of the story: don't piss me off when my hormones are raging.

I woke up to my daughter trying to convince my husband that Cat Power was "too sad" to listen to this morning. It was sunny, Adam was cooking breakfast, and Amaris was drawing. There's no sad anywhere in the picture.

Hooray! She's caught on to the notion that music fits a certain mood we're in. Last night on the way to a gallery reception, she wanted to listen to very upbeat, singable tunes. In the backseat, she's beating her hand against the door like a drum, and shouts periodically, "Let's get slammin', GIRL!"

And when she was dressing up like a princess and began awarding Adam and I with treasures (coins and jewelry), Adam played what Amaris considered the most inappropriate music of all. Loud, fast, hardcore. And this is what came next:

"Not THIS music! My TALENT! I have to do my TALENT! MYYY TAAALLEEEENNNNNTTT!!!"

I'm not sure if harcore will ever fit Amaris's mood in the future, but her firm stand against it now suits me just fine. When trying to decide between eating, sleeping and regurgitating, I'm almost never in a loud, fast mood.

Last week proved to be the most exciting Super Bowl Sunday I've ever experienced. Both my sister and I announced that we're pregnant. WHAT? Is this a TV show? It felt like it for about an hour, but then my mind wrapped itself around the idea that I AM PREG.NANT.

Do I sit a certain way? Are my hose too tight around my abdomen? I'm totally obsessing about sleeping only on my left side - it's the safest, right? Should I REALLY be lifting that? BLAH!

These are the thoughts I keep mulling over day and night. Then I wake up to pee, stay awake with the thoughts again for another hour, then get too hungry to sleep, repeat. I actually tried to think of a list of things that I've been productive with. I folded clothes Thursday and showed up for work this week. That about sums it up. I've proven to myself that one can really get by in life by being a complete lazy ass.

But, good news from the ol' doctor's assistant yesterday. It looks like everything is going much better than the last time around, so I have something the size of a sunflower seed inside me, that looks like a tadpole, that is developing a brain. This is crazy. And... fun.

And with that bit of news, I can concentrate again being creative, spend a little more time figuring out exactly which Luna Bar sounds good, and prepare myself for a week with the in-laws.

Dinosaur Jr. ...

they're still grunge.

And Slayer?

Lame.

With the help of my friend Matthew, I determined that I can be a little judgmental sometimes. I realize this more now that my daughter and her classmates are beginning to make her own judgment calls. One little kid at her school actually said that he didn't want any Spanish-speaking kids to come to his birthday party, because he wouldn't be able to understand what they're saying.

Yikes.

More so than that, though, I figured out that I use other people's judgment calls as my own. It's all in friendship and support, really, based on their own actual experiences instead of my flighty, judgey whims.

Today I went to my friend's baby's birthday. Of course the whole family is going to be there, including the crazy part of the family. After story upon story of how exactly these people have proved themselves to exist on the insane side of the spectrum, I practically own the rights (by association) to make judgments against them, right? Right. Periodically, I overhear their comments and the evaluation begins.

"baby, baBY, BABY! It's your book! LOOK! It's your BOOK!"
**put the damned book down. she doesn't give two shits about the book.**

"Do you want to say goodbye? Yes! Let's say goodbye!"
**stop smothering her. plus, if she wanted to say goodbye, she would have by now.**

After present opening, "We bought her this, TOO!"
**so? my present is cooler.**

But by the time I made that last remark in my head, I realized that they can sound perfectly normal and grandparenty, and I will always think, sometimes out-loud, "Did anyone just HEAR that??? What the fuck?" This is wrong of me! So wrong! But there are some people who will always need to be judged carefully, lest we slip up and start thinking they're normal again. They might just catch us by surprise one day and say something completely off-the-wall, and then we'll regret all that niceness we wasted.

This might be a fucked-up mentality, but I can pretty much estimate that it's not as fucked up as those clothes you're wearing right now.