Boys and or people who don't like things to get too "body personal" I wouldn't bother reading this one.
Ok, so I haven't really read about this anywhere so I'm hoping that those women who occasionally pick this up and are pregnant or have been might remember this, or at leat say "Oh, yes, that's true" so I don't feel like some sort of loon.
Women, and men who like women will know that there's a general tendency for one's sexual organs (ew, I'm such a clasically bad prude) to exude a bit of the old opaque fluid on occasion to keep things moist & juicy, like. And during pregnancy that's accented by a gradual changeover / leakage of amniotic fluid.
Well it strikes me that the wee baby is covered in this vernix stuff to protect it from the itchy soreness (and indeed, swelling, apparently) that can come as a result of coming in to contact with amniotic fluid over a long period - but what's it doing to me, in my un-vernixed state?
The answer is - making me feel a bit bloody itchy and uncomfortable, truth be known. It doesn't have the slightly more solid consistency of normal goo, it's watery and constant and it genuinely is quite sore. No, not GUM clinic sore!, just... indefinably itchy and annoying.
Did anyone else or has anyone else ever had this? Or is it just me.....
(tumbleweed).
Er... righto then. I'll get me coat...
Absolutely no understanding of how someone could reach that mindset. I can sit here and try, but I'm never going to get there. A lifetime of upset, of upheaval and unwanted change must have made him basically flip his lid. Or, he simply had a strong belief system (since honour killings happen all the time in countries where there the family has not been uprooted). Stronger than the love he had for his own daughter? Any belief system condoning the breakup of families, never mind the butchery of family members is fucked, frankly. And yes, before you say it, I know how lucky I am and I should shut up.
I remember a lass when I was at college who suddenly stopped coming in because her Dad had decided it was time for her to be a dutiful daughter, and she had to stop this education nonsense. It was only through careful negotiation that she managed to come back, and change from the traditional clothes he made her wear into her usual jeans and shirt in the girls loos. She applied for university, etc, all the time not knowing whether her family would let her go. I found a letter written by two girls, one of whom was being forced in to an arranged marriage, in a book in the library once. I have no opinion on arranged marriage, it being outside my realm of experience, but I do have an opinion when someone is forced in to it.
What will I attempt to gently push my kid in to doing? What will I advise her against and feel angry about if she does it? Smoking joints, sex without condoms, not doing her homework... nothing she could do would make me disown her, I know that. With the possible exception of mass murder on a grand scale as a result of serious pathology. Even then I'd end up visiting, I imagine.
...and still mobile free, so apologies to everyone I should be regularly phoning / sending nice sms's to, etc (Claire particularly springs to mind) because I en't got no one's numbers, being a nork, I never backed up my phone offline.
Back up your phone offline. Advice of the day. It's quite easy really. You use a pen and paper. Bah!
More pregnant woman advice: never get a cold when you're heavily pregnant. You've got enough pressure on your bladder already without having to rush off to the loo every time you sneeze or cough. I thought my immune system was supposed to be rock solid and protect me from these evil germans whilst I'm like this? Apparently not. Still, perhaps sprog will already be getting a good dose of antibodies as a result. If she's got a better immune system than me I will be *very happy*.
Heavy duty green goo, as opposed to grey goo is currently emanating from my nasal passages, thus demanding I breathe through my open mouth. This of course exascerbates my chopped-liver red raw sore throat.
If I move my head too quickly, I feel nauseous and fall over.
Apart from that, everything's just *peachy*.
(unsubtle mesage from today's almost entirely pointless entry: blurgh, leave me alone, I want to go to bed, winge, and sleep fitfully for the next 24 hours until the worst is over).
For those that don't know: my beloved is an actor, who had a couple of lovely years work as "The Professor", a character in a sitcom called "Time Gentlemen Please" which was developed and written by two good mates.
Anyway. So it's now on the Paramount Comedy Channel in the UK (plug plug) and, in case you've never seen it, also features the lovely Mr Phil Daniels, the king of Quadrophenia and star player in the classic single by Blur, "Parklife". Who it usually took me about half an hour before I could talk to him in any sensible kind of way given that I was standing there thinking "My god! It's Phil Daniels!" half the time (heh). Oh, and there's also Julia Sa... thingummy, offuv Absolutely Fabulous who is in it. She's very nice too.
Aaaanyway! Enough of the schpiel. You can now bash my beloved over the head with a newspaper c/o Paramount. It's not his voice though. Presumably they would have had to pay him so they got some geek or other to record the voice.
Try to avoid Mackay with the super-large newspaper.
I assume that in 20 years when my beloved child reads this, the link will no longer work. Therefore if you would like to leave her a message explaining (nicely) anything to do with liking the show, or the game for that matter, then at least she'll know that someone, once did watch her Dad mess about with Phil Daniels, Julia Thing and get paid for it.
I seem to have bounced back slightly after having 2 reasonable nights' kip and managed to get a few things done at work. Anyway, this is long and boring igf you're not into the minutia of the management of community applications (who, me?) so I'd give it a miss if you're not.
So... MSN chat rooms. Interesting that whilst they will be introducing pay-only chat options for MSN-US apparently they won't be in the UK in the first instance. Bearing in mind the hysterical media in the UK it's a sensible move, then they'll quietly introduce pay options later when it's all died down - or extend the US credit card facility to a worldwide one.
There's alot to be said for using credit cards as a locked-door device I have to say. I was discussing a particular adult option with regard to something I'm thinking about longer term yesterday, and a particular community site which I think is very interesting and is heavily patronised by its members has a very easy subscription mechanism: card = verified over 18 / free member = you don't get to see any over 18 material. It doesn't stop people discussing whatever they want in the forums or the IRC but it does stop them from viewing nutso video or over 18 designated photographs. Easy money, in other words, plus an easy safety mechanism.
There's no doubt that MSN's decision puts more pressure on my illustrious employer and I wouldn't want to be my colleague who is currently in an emergency board meeting and will no doubt be voicing some of the following: MSN had very little in the way of safety checks for kids, they allowed p2p, the moderation was scant. We run ours as responsibly as we can, but at the same time there will always be kids who screw around and end up getting involved with people of indeterminate age just... "because". Because kids explore their sexuality, because they respond to flattery and because chat rooms are bloody strange until you get used to them - weirdly intimate. The other extremely important point is that if every ISP in the UK closed its chat room facilities, one can guarantee that the kids and teenagers in the UK would almost to the last one go off and discover the slightly (I say "slightly") frightening* world of IRC on their own because - hey, have you heard of this Mirc thing? It's so easy to download... and oh, look it's got a nice list of interesting places to go hang out.
*The potential to be - for kids, anyway.
That's not to say that many kids don't do that already, but at least a large proportion of them currently don't, and they hang around in the relatively well organised environs of ISP chat rooms instead. In fact, kids who discover IRC are probably the ones who are least likely to be taken in by nutters - they're more likely to be over enthusiastic boys who want to be hackers and thus annoy the hell out of any hackers who actually do still use IRC to hang out in (as opposed to them mostly being G-men, I imagine!).
There is no answer to this that makes a logical argument to me other than - chat rooms exist. Ergo, if they are not presented in a well organised way then the lure of chat which is as discussed extremely personal, and quite exciting, will drag children, Red Riding Hood like off the path and in to the dark and bosky woods where they cannot be monitored.
It is a sad thing to me that we are living in a generation where your average (I say average, I'm not talking about people like you and me here) parent has literally no understanding as to what their kids are doing online other than that they read of in the Daily Mail. I'm surprised in fact that we haven't encountered some sort of unbelievable backlash with parents taking computers and burning them in the streets. Perhaps it's because, unlike books, these things cost a grand.
Thinking of it, if I can, from a board member's point of view (who never use community applications and just know that they're sticky apps and they bring us PI's) I would probably at this moment be listening to my colleague and in the forefront of my mind would be an imaginary Daily Mail headline featuring the company name, and the latest horror story as some naive child is raped by a manipulative bastard she met on our chat rooms. I think he's got a hell of an argument ahead of him, but I hope, I really do that they don't go for the kneejerk response.
Of course - one thing does worry me. After October 15th, we get a new influx of kids - but we also get a new influx of crazies.
Overtired and grumpy for ... well, I was going to say "no good reason" but I can think of one.
It can take me so long to drop off to sleep. Consequently, the mornings are dreadful. Just dozing and dozing. Now I'm at work yawning and desperate for shut-eye.
So you'll have to excuse me for not rambling on about nonsense today.
My bleedin mobile was nicked from me last night while I was in a bus queue at Brixton station.
I now have to have 3 days without mobile communication. You have no idea. Pain. Misery.
Next week it'll be 30.
When I was young, I looked upon the age of 30 with awe and trepidation, as if I couldn't *possibly* get to that age. Since it was also the year 2000 these two auspicious events colliding surely meant that I was made for great and wonderful things.
Now I measure my life, not in Starbucks wooden coffee stirrers but in monthly travel cards. Each one peels away another month of work purgatory, and pulls me closer to the next change in my life. I now have 2 months of work to go before I leave, to lie, sea-cow like on the sofa, wading my way through Matt's "Buffy" collection (much to Mackay's disgruntlement I have no doubt, and fair play, I mean it's hardly good use of my time but under the circumstances will I really want to do anythign other than lie down barking orders, trying not to grimace too hard when I sit up to have my herbal tea?).
She's now widening my bump so instead of it merely pushing forward, if you were to run your hands over my rib cage you would find an enormous, tumour like growth ballooning from the front and moving inexorably outward.
Sprog, my love (whose name will not be mentioned here until after the birth, well, that's my excuse anyway): You may blanche at me calling your current abode a tumour. However, please bear in mind that the chief definition of tomour is "a swollen or distended part". Which, my lovely wee girly, you are at present indelibly associated with.
Anyway, the point is she's got *so long to go*. Christ. I mean - where is the growth going to come from? there's only so much of me available to stretch! I now very much understand where Quinn's extraordinary stretch marks came from, given that Ada seemed to desire an internal residence about as spacious as mine appears to be. My mother, helpfully says "Oh well, pregnancies are all different you know". Oh, handy. Thanks! If you stuck a pin in my side right now, the amiotic fluid would shoot out like a fountain!
That, plus an awful increase in humidity meant no sleep again last night, after a long, looooong journey all the way across town on the very hot tube. At the lovely Mr Phil Gyford's flat for a belated housewarming I made the mistake of looking at my puce, sweating face in his very tasteful bathroom mirror. I won't do that again in a hurry.
Mr Six got on the train at Streatham today. He was in a city boy disguise, but it had to be him. Tousled too long hair, sideburns at a very neat but long length; drainpipe trousers in a delctably ironed pinstrip and immaculately polished chelsea boots, topped off with a pencil thin waistcoat and slightly too long length "I've got a personal tailor" jacket. Well done that man. Also carrying his newspaper in a Jermyn Street shirt tailor's bag. Nice touch.
The only things missing were the moustache and the shiny silver badge.
Tom, that's a terrible picture of him you've got there. You should use the delicious Bond artwork instead, he just gets Six to a *tee*.
I don't know.... you turn your back for 5 minutes and your friendly neighbourhood nuthouse writer bloke explodes in a flurry of activity.
I know why he does it, but I've rarely known anyone so fucking driven. Look at the level of activity on the last week - and this is just online messing about, mind you, not his actual job or anything.
Daft photo projects and all sorts on "Die Puny Humans (including early on Cory standing up in some cafe SF side).
Revealing a splurge of writing on Danny).
...and Bad Signalling something like 3 times in a day, plus the mobile wap god knows what...
I'm not too sure about the picture of Warren nekked on LJ though. Heh.
One day, I will recover sufficiently from the MBA & then getting up the duff & having sprog to have half his energy. One day.
Meanwhile, in my own spot of creation, sprog is currently as predicted bumping and grooving along to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, which eventually I have decided to play her (for my money, the worst song is the one currently on: Bono doing a dreadful version of "Children of the Revolution").
Well.
Didn't tell me anything much that I didn't know already, apart from the handy usefulness of having a lot of women in the same place made more sense of Braxton Hicks contractions. And as if by magic, I had one on the way home, which was a bloody nuisance!
She's so high in my belly (my sticking out begins literally directly below my breasts, hence why I get such terrible heartburn) that the top of my belly, along with the bottom of my lungs are sometimes stretched so tight it's extremely uncomfortable. So I didn't actually notice that some of that tight stretching isn't actually stretching at all, it's compacting.
So there you are. I've been having these contractions for a while. I have no idea how long but I think probably only a couple of weeks. These would be the bits where I feel absolutely drum tight, and have almost mini asthma attacks when I just can't breathe in to the lower part of my lungs. How lovely!
There were women there at 33 weeks (33? It's a 6 week course - thank God I'm not that late) and I was extremely, extremely jealous. Cows! I want her to arrive at 37 weeks! THat's still *eight weeks away*. Pleeeeeeeeease enough already.
Very quickly, I just wanted to put a link to the UK version of the learning kit done by this bloke Joseph Garcia. It comes with a video. We bought this used from some Amazon person and watched the video last night, and it was absolutely amazing. Kids, a year and a half away from speech, maintaining *sentences* through signing to their parents. and these grinning wee babies making themselves completely, and perfectly understood with no tantrums or screaming. The guy did his thesis on this stuff after he realised that his deaf friends could communicate with their children way earlier than other parents, so this is not some daft fad. It seems to be based on reasonable assumptions and subsequent sensible research.
Babies begin to have concrete learning and memory activity from 6 months approx, so that'sthe time to start teaching them signs - or even later doesn't really matter. So - Danny - look in to this for Ada. I'm gonig to lend this to Stephen and Becca to see if they can find some use for it too. The UK version comes with a BSL supplement if you want to teach your kids in British Sign Language. It's not terribly onerous from a parental point of view, it appears.
But really, genuinely, it seemed revelatory. There was an amazing, beautiful bit (it steered admirably away from nauseatingly twee, for a US based thing) when a baby had had a ... Descartian philosophical moment when she had, in a great moment of excitement, achieved the sign for baby, then pointed at herself. "I am a baby". Her Mum was grinning from ear to ear and I'm not suprised.
Mackay, the sceptic grumbled about half watching the video at the beginning but by the end he was fairly grumpily excited too. And he is extremely hard to please.
Anyway - go take a look at this stuff, it's actually opening up whole new areas of research in to the way babies' minds work given that they can obviously pull together huge levels of understanding and language structure long before they tought otherwise.
This has made me very happy.
Went to bed last night, looked down and found that my ankles had turned in to what looked like bags of soft walnuts. In fact they were more like you would imagine your ankles would look if you'd sprained it badly, but with no bruising.
So. I'm not panicking, since summer has decided that it was bored and wanted to play some more, so therefore it is actually as hot here today as it was in Madrid yesterday (but thankfully not as hot overnight or I think I'd collapse in a puddle). Point is, we'll see how it goes and if they're not any better by the end of the week then I'll go see the Doc - pre-eclampsia is not what I really want.
Extending my entry a little and hiding it from regular visitors, I had to eat tuna for about 3 meals running earlier this week, which is really not good from a toxins position - but also I've discovered not good from a everything holding itself in position, in as much as - I left a heavy duty non-removeable deposit for the poor Spanish chamber maids to find in the hotel (weak flushing loos, y'see) and 2 days later, I have just been bleeding profusely from the general area since the train carriage (that took 4 flushes and several thrusts from a bog brush to shift) that took about 5 minutes or more to shunt from it's stationary position, scratching and graunching all the way, was eventually evicted.
OW! Quite frankly. Advice for all pregnant women - intersperse all meals with lentils as much as you possibly can. Jesus.
On a slightly different front: have bothered to look up the whole Humanist naming ceremony business. There are 3 people trained in my area to do naming ceremonies. Which is handy! The only problem with the person we wanted to be the sort-of-godmother is that she can't leave the States because she's living there under (cough) somewhat false pretences (less said the better).
So that's a bugger. Not really sure what on earth to do about it really. Em would be a rockin' Godmother. She'd be the fantastic mad aunt type character you could say anything to, that you were a bit embarrassed to tell your parents about. She's been the person we knew for certain we wanted to ask for almost literally years, so I'm a bit flummoxed as to know what to do really. One thought is that we could ask Shelagh, John's wife (andtherefore the "extra Granny") because it occurs to me sometimes that she might feel her bonds in to the rest of the family can be weak at times. Actually - that's a killer idea. I'll raise it with Mackay.
It is hot. more to the point, it is hot at night. The temperature doesn't go down too much. So - no sleep, basically.
I have eaten so much fish in the last 2 days!
Work's offices are approx 2 inches from the Novotel I "slept" in, which is in turn about ten minutes from the airport. All of which points to seeing absolutely *nothing* of the town at all. But, i have managed to say, without too much awfulness "I'm sorry to bother you, but where is this office", "I am a Vegetarian" and countless other dumbass small phrases which nevertheless make hyou less of a complete buffoon than you would be otherwise.
Didn't stop me getting ripped off by the cab from the airport, but I suppose it's hard cheese commuppance for all those poor bastards who get ripped off at Heathrow. I got ripped off about 6 quid - they usually get ripped off about 30.
Must go now to attend airport shuttle bus or will have to risk being ripped off by a cab again.
Well. I am leaving for Madrid in 20 minutes.
I
I wish I wasn't, to be frank. However - needs must. There's no way I'm flying again after this one. It's not so much the flying as the utter exhuastion I'll no doubt feel. Particularly after another sleepless night, unfortunately. Not sure exactly why I didn't sleep. I kept very still so didn't have to many graunching pains. Something to do with tenseness I have no doubt. The dream I had was a typical Cait anxiety number.
Anyway. now in to week 28, I have grown so much in the last wee it's quite asyounding. My very large orange shirt is now my very tight orange shirt (whereas last week it fitted perfectly comfortably). And i noticed yesterday that almost overnight, my four quite tame stratch marks which have only growed casually and slightly over the last few weeks have suddenly decided they'd rather be livid and red, oh, and throw in a couple of new ones for good measure. I had a couple of meals just recently where afterwards I felt so insanely tight and "popping" big around just above my bellybutton that there's no way my skin is going to hold out. Without a doubt new stretches are going to be arriving shortly.
And that, with a twice daily slathering of wheatgerm oil, and heavy duty vitamin e cream from shoulder to ass. Mackay comes on to the bedroom and says "are you greasing?".
Sprog meanwhile had a fairly active day yesterday, and is beginning to find full on amusement in big fat kicks. Some, so strong that i can feel them on the outside if she kicks low enough. I think she's trying to kick her way out. I've been wondering whether it would be worthwhile to keep a diary for 1 week of exactly when I feel her movements and when I don't, to see if she does have a sleeping pattern or not.
It was Spike, Stephen Sharkey and Becca Stone's wee baby boy's birthday, oh - today actually. They had a party for him on SAturday afternoon, for which we trooped across London on the underground (not often I do that, and it showed, I was exhausted). They live in a somewhat unique thirties crescent, all white and metal framed windows, but more to the point - all the neighbours know each other. Half the people at the party lived on the estate. It was quite dumfounding. There were also about 15 kids there all under the age of 5. I sat, knackered on a bench for most of the time, feeling slightly scared of this strange new society and way of living I am about to enter. they all seemed perfectly nice kids though. Spike is a very serious kid. Methodically removing all toys from the toybox, the nplacing them back in again carefully. Was a very nice afternoon, if a little daunting.
Afterwards went to see "Spirited Away" (after eating at one of the Eritrean food places at the Oval, and walking, amazingly, all the way to the Ritzy afterwards) which made me want to know more about the Japanese mythological relationship with spirits, which the film had a lot more in common with than other more well known Japanese animation that's made it over here. It was gorgeous and strange. And the animation style was wonderful - 3D pieces eg: box shapes, only very, very occasionally slipping in, giving the cell animation an even more "other world"-ly feel. And the attention to detail was fantastic.
Anyway. See you in a couple of days.
There are so many pieces all over the web from newspapers and fans about the death of Johnny Cash it hardly seems appropriate for yet another career overview and outpouring of emotion so I'll try hard to achieve only a minimal version.
I was thinking not about his earlier "bad boy" songs, the ones everyone knows from adverts, amongst other things ("Ring of fire" was used for some hot spicey tex mex ad a couple of years ago in the UK) but the more recent albums, containing that truly wonderful version of "Hurt", the astounding version of "The Mercy Seat" that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, and that lovely version of U2's "One Love"... and and and...
I can't think of another artist so willing to keep experimenting, and so willing to have his elderly voice on display, laid bare on very sparcely produced albums in such a way. Being openly frail and reinterpreting a whole bunch of songs (as well as writing his own) in order to in some ways put a message out about a life well lived. It's rare to the point of non-existence to have that kind of commentary coming from someone of that generation, when he could just as easily just have pottered about in his garden, seeing grandchildren occasionally and making coffee. And you find that strength of spirit throughout his recording career.
I'm not a huge fan with loads of his records, I have a chosen few but I respect the timeless quality of much of his better work. Like any great creator, he worked within an oevre, but the music transcends it.
Ah, so I ended up rambling anyway but maybe it's my hormones. But what a lovely, decent man he was.
It's happened. Nearly a full night's kip (only waking to change position for a couple of seconds!) and wake up to find that I've had a sex dream about Eminem.
Well I say sex. That was the implication. Of course it didn't actually happen. Although he did meet my Dad, which was a bit mortifying - if only because John tried to be really "hip". . He was, however, at least in this context, the owner of a terrifically large wanger. I use this slightly polite and excrutiatingly twee language because I know my Mum is reading this diary, which is for other reasons, extremely mortifying. I try not to edit myself but there are times ;)
I don't know about other people, but when occasionally I have dreams wherein a famous person wishes to shag my brains out (or, very likely, the other way round) it's extremely unlikely that I have particularly ever thought about "famous person X" before in that context. Not only that but they often don't behave anything like what one would ordinarily imagine that person to behave like. So, for example: Eminem looked slightly different to normal, but only just, had a completely different voice and seemed to be a "nice lad" generally speaking.
Of course the really good bit was that I looked lovely and svelte in the dream, draped in a large beach towel, standing in the lobby of a Spanish hotel trying to speak the hilariously little Spanish I've learned in the last week to the receptionist (I have to go to Madrid on Monday for a meeting, y'see). No sign of any "two large bags of sand stuck to my front" or any of that nonsense. No back ache, and no waking up with heartburn. One night's reprieve. Hurrah!
I do like relating dreams. I often do to Mackay, much to his disinterest. The Dali-esque goings on fascinate me. You don't need to report whether or not you find my dreams interesting, because frankly, it's of little interest to me whether you do or not!
More sensible reports later, I promise.
Look, I know I always sound like I'm moaning here, but I want you to take it as read that I'm happy, you know... kinda. I think I've worked out why your seratonin levels are naturally boosted during pregnancy. It's to shield your head from all the really crap stuff you're going through.
The latest wheeze in the "Cait versus heartburn" fight is for her to sit / stand / whatever in the same position (ie: breech) all night. So, it is of little consequence whether one gets up at 1.30 after being woken up grimacing with pain about twenty minutes after one fell asleep at 11.30, in order to crunch up more Gaviscon. Noooo no. Because her head is pumelling the underside of your stomach and bringing anything nasty, acidic and painful out, regardless of anti-acid content. Which means all in all about 2 hours... maybe a couple of minutes more than that, kip on er... Tuesday night.
So Wednesday I duly trooped off to John Lewis after a work meeting in Wigmore Street and bought myself 1 extra normal pillow, 1 "V" shaped pillow and a pillow case. I'll have to make one for the V shaped one, they spookily didn't have any.
So last night I kept waking up because I was too uncomfortable!!! But - very little heartburn.
There must be some happy medium. I vill find it.
(Getting the V shaped pillow is really good actually - those kind of ones, or banana shaped ones, seem to make wonderful breastfeeding "holding the baby up" type tools. Which means I *really* have to make a cover for it or it'll be covered in sick before I know it).
On the slightly strange front, "stuff" has started coming in from Ebay. A snowsuit, white, which is very nice, and a bonus pair of shoes are now lying on the sofa. It's a bit peculiar, frankly.
In a pathetic attempt to help publicise artististic product created by people what I know, here's a link to cory Doctorow's site he's done to help promote his book of short stories "A place so foreign".
He actually sent me the book in foolscap print out version (!) as a thank you for staying over in the early summer, and I can tell you that they're purty damn good short stories. What's nice is you can see his natural progression in style - and also, he's so damned optimistic and energetic, all his bubbliness just can't help but splurge out all over the text. He told me that the novel that's going to come out next year was written when he was incredibly grumpy. I can see that, but it still has this irrepressible joyous urgncy about it. Maybe he is "Monkey" in disguise ;)
One early one stands out from the other earlies for me, the one that gives the book it's title. The reason being that he was very good at getting under the skin of the kid in the story. The ones later on, you think he's getting all carried away, but he drags you along with him for the ride. It's fun. that's about as close to review-speke as I'm going to get.
Anyway. Buy it! Don't just download a couple of stories to read. It's well worth it.
Ok, this is assuming that parents buy nothing, that friends buy nothing, etc. I did a list which didn't just do basics, but included some "nice" things rather than expensive nonsense that has no meaning. Spent Saturday and Sunday (not all day, obviously) sorting out our budget until August next year, and sprog is going to cost in total the grand sum of £2317. That excludes all toys that say "from 6 months". And that's only till August! Wouldn't be so bad except for the now having absolute zero savings due to tax hell, and my wages going down to £100 a week for a large part of the beginning of next year. Sheeeeit.
It's obviously going to go down from that (hello Ebay) but you'd be surprised how little actually. Because the big fat expensive items are not where the expense is. The expense is in the lots-and-lots of medium sized or small things.
However, since we just got some baby clothes and hopefully a cot bed from Ebay for 75p and 30 quid respectively (as opposed to - in the cot bed case - £140 new for the cheapest from Mothercare) I don't think we're doing so badly so far.
My friend Cherie has just informerd me that I'm having a baby shower. Which is ridiculously charming and faintly embarrassing for some reason. Anyway, we think what we're going to do is put up the list of things what we want to get, with appropriate links to the appropriate catalogues, kind of like a wedding list, and y'all can email me if you've bought anything so I can update it and take the item off the list. Should be relatively easy. Still. I'm *so* glad we're doing this now and not in a big blind panic at the beginning of November.
Whilst I think I've taken over his food ration for the moment.
So, the most monotone magician of all time has begun his "44 days" stunt. My bet is he won't make it because the medico's will get too worried about him. At that stage, he won't be able to be worried about himself, rather obviously, having gone a bit mental under the strain. Maybe he wil actually go mental. Who knows - or cares? That's a very interesting question.
Perhaps we could do with going to some drought stricken area, or some place where the babies have stomachs swollen from having had no food, and see if the people there think a man starving himself for money and television fame is a good idea. I think those people could well put forward a few volunteers who would probably be halfway there already.
I very much hope that David Blaine's better nature will mean that he donates a large amount of his personal cash gained from this stunt to charidee after the event. There's a challenge - to see if he could survive on the annual wage of an average person in Malawi for a year in New York. Mind over consumerism as opposed to purely matter.
She's been kicking all day. Strong, belly kicks. Still not big enough for me to truly feel where she is, what she's doing however. And now I must wince once more as I get up, and hope to Christ I don't wake up too many times in the night with the not-quite-crotch ligament pain. Was up stupidly early this morning after not really sleeping well at all.
Oh, yeahhhh... something really fucked is up with the innernet. Well, mail, to be precise. In the last 4 days specifically, as a mail list maintainer, I've been bombarded with hundreds and *hundreds* of viruses. At least 1 every I'd say 5 minutes, day and night. Alot of them are automated spoofs but someone or something has just opened floodgates. Does anyone know anything? Getting a bit narked with a web based interface that doesn't let me delete all these cunts at once. Mailman may be an easy install and easy to maintain but jaysus, the admin UI & function has some limitations. Bloody geeks.
Christ I'm so tired. Woke Mackay up as well as myself last night trying to move in bed and being confronted with a wall of pain.
Somehow though, the brain dismisses these "minor" irritations in the morning when sprog decides she's going to give me a good kicking for about ten minutes from the inside, and seems to respond marginally to me giving her nudges of encouragement back.
Anyway. So I wanted to talk about my Gran's funeral a bit but now I come to write, I'm not really sure what I want to say. She was buried, of course, and my Aunt Magella, who has lost a ton of weight with all the worry and stress of looking after her was deeply upset, standing there looking very vulnerable, with Martin, who had erstwhile been a bit cooped up in his own world, standing with his arm around her shoulder protectively. Watching the rest of the family know each other so well, it made me angry and John and Sheila have had this preposterous and childish relationship for so long. The emnity between them is like some kind of grand canyon gulf, and it - specifically, has more or less cut us all off from the rest of John's relatives. Who seem perfectly lovely, frankly. Apart from being dyed in the wool Catholics, but I can't blame them for their faith.
The funeral was a strongly ritualistic Catholic affair. Up and down off your knees with various prayers and so forth all the way through - a strange feeling of solidity to the proceedings since the ritual has been carried out the same way for centuries - the only difference being that it was in Latin until comparatively recently. I felt that awkward mix of defiance as in "You must be joking, I'm not praying" but also deference to these peoples' way of life. It wasn't really the place to make a stand or whatever, but what are you supposed to do when you don't know any of the rituals involved: the prayers - the whole shebang! You'd be amazed how many times people just break in to some prayer they all know backwards while you're standing there like a tit not really knowing what to do with yourself other than look a bit solomn.
And the other thing that struck me was just how much Martin looked like Grandad these days. He's - and I realised that John also has, the bushy dark eyebrows and the white grey hair - as well as the slightly thickening set of features that one gets with age. He's a lovely, gentle man, is Martin. I hope we see more of him now. I made the possible mistake of inviting the whole crew to the naming ceremony. I hope Mackay doesn't go too ballistic.
The funeral yesterday, surprisingly uplifting in a wierd way. I did feel bad that we have such a distant relationship with the whole family. It's dreadful really.
And arrived home too late. And sleep is now a toss up between sleeping in one position, and waking up in agony when I move in my sleep, or waking myself up, moving my feckin' bump pillow then gingerly moving myself, waiting for the agonising jags of pain down the right side of my crotch.
That, as well as an horrific tax demand which has suddenly appeared for 3.5k because my employer undercharged me one year (or, alternatively, my accountant has told the tax people I earned about 10k more that year than I actually did) so - we have no savings now and the baby is now almost horizon near, so I feel very freaked out by the whole thing but can't show Mackay that. It's my job in our household to be all relaxed and logical and sensible, rather than let financial worries "get to me". So am trying to be all logical and sensible. Eeeesh.
Oh, and a miserable long running argument I've been having with a good friend is drawing to a close in a kind of "closure of friendship" type way which is a bit soul destroying. Could really do with it not happening right now, frankly but sometimes you just can't put a timer on these bloody things. More eeeeesh.
Cait, bleary eyed, over tired, wanting to be working at home in bed and wish I'd never heard of email today.
You know the worst thing about the pains in my side? Liz just shrugged her shoulders and more or less said there's fuck all I can do about it. I mean, it's so painful sometimes I feel like crying in bed. There's nothing for it, I'm going to have to start going to bed at 9 or something just so I can sense I've had about 8 hrs kip by the time it's the morning.
(Pathetic version of me whines): It just feels unfair, that's all. Thank God the feeling about the pregnancy is separate to my feelings about her, otherwise it would be unutterable hell. I just *hurt* *so* *much*, but nothing is wrong. It doesn't make any sense. All I want to do is curl up and lie down but I can't even do that without it being agonising.
Ugh. Welcome to the fucking third trimester.
This care of Boing Boing.
Apparently, some butterflies are born half male and half female... nothing new in that natural phenomena... except look at the amazing results in this Gypsy Moth. There are several other amazing examples in the list of oddities.
Meanwhile the obvious inability for other non-pregnant people to understand the need for me to EAT A LOT is currently playing itself out as I wait for my line manager to phone me up regarding some budget gubbins. When I phoned her it was 13.10. I gritted my teeth when she said she'd call mer back and asked politely when? "Soon".
Time now: 13.39. I'll start gnawing my own fists in a moment.
Mackay's back today! That means an increased amount of sleep hopefully on the horizon!