Eight Isn't Enough

Eight years ago Chris and I stood before our friends and family, smiling and holding hands. We didn't make vows, but told one another about why we were there and how much love we felt. I still feel it, and from how he talks to me, looks at me, and touches me, I know Chris still feels it too.

I love you so much, Chris. I am so glad we are doing this together.

Ok, you were right. Are you happy now?

Last year, I was intrigued by Blogher, but I felt myself too new, too little in the blogging world to merit the trip. When I read posts by attendees, I felt kind of left out, along with that teen kind of "I'm a big loser" angst I felt when I was a teen, watching my (significantly hipper and more popular) neighbor go out on Friday night. I felt kind of low for a few days, which seemed ridiculous given that this was a blogging conference we were talking about.

This year I didn't think I was unworthy of attending. I am (mostly) over the feeling that a small personal blog is not a "real" blog. I didn't go because when push came to shove I couldn't bring myself to give myself such an extravagant gift. The conference, the flight, the time away from work and family, all for a blogging conference?

Not that I didn't want to go. I did. And that was before Debbie started harassing er encouraging me to go with her. And fine, I should have gone. I could have even stayed for free with a friend in Chicago. But I didn't and I've been gently kicking myself about it all weekend. Because what if Blogher is so over next year? What if I missed a chance to do something fun for myself? I am not so good at "fun for myself." Hence the difficulty spending money on something so frivolous as a convention for a hobby. OK fine, I should have. And if I can next year, I will. Maybe my new mid year's resolution should be "allow more fun for myself."*




*It is both my hope and fear that people I know in real life will read this, and 10 months from now will hold me to my declaration, as wishy washy as it is.

Nonlinear PSA

Amidst all the talk about blogging for pay, advertising on personal blogs at whathaveyou (for the snark and crab-filled back-story on this molehill-turned-mountain, see the chatter over at Mom 101 and Metrodad, plus the very nice piece of a few weeks ago over at Bite My Cookie), I want to offer the following completely uncompensated advertisement for the newly published book by a friend of mine:

Several people have mentioned to me that they appreciated the dark humor of Terminal Alienation (as seen on my sidebar!). Well, you are in luck, as today is only the second day ever that you can purchase the novel The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse. Portlanders should take note that the author, Jonathan Selwood, will be reading at Powells (on Burnside) tonight at 7:30. I'll be there.


I know Jonathan would like you to read the book. But the man does have a mortgage to pay. Would it kill you to buy a copy? If you can, come down to Powells tonight and get a signed copy. Despite what you'd think from the pictures on Jonathan's web-site, he doesn't really drool quite so much, and is pretty funny and articulate in person.

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week (Karen's choice)

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

George Eliot
Middlemarch

Does whatever a spider can

The summer is a time for visitors. We have family and friends coming in and out all summer, plus a house guest who just left Wednesday after a five week stay. And then there is the spider. Ok, we have a lot of spiders, but I am thinking of one in particular.

An intrepid, if foolhardy spider has taken up residence in my car's side-view mirror. Whenever the car sits idle for a day, she crawls out of the space behind the mirror and spins a web between the mirror's casing and the side of the car. When I disturb her web, she scuttles back into the mirror casing, abandoning her web for the safety of glass and plastic. I'm sure she's out there right now, repairing the wind damage inflicted by this afternoon's trip to the store. I am sure she doesn't think ahead to the moment when I will re-enter the car, destroying her handiwork once again.

I sometimes feel like that spider, a tiny webbed don quixote struggling against forces I can not predict or control. When I allow myself, I can easily feel adrift in a world not of my making. But really, I am not the spider. I can see danger or opportunity coming, and I can make choices beyond the immediate hide! or rebuild.

Work is heating up, and keep reminding myself that I have chosen this work, and now I have the opportunity to be part of something big, something important, if I just stop worrying that I will be worthy of the task long enough to tackle it.

Same goes for parenting. I never considered having a child in my twenties, thinking it was too much, too hard. Even when I was desperately trying to become a parent, I worried that I would not be able to meet the big challenge of a child. Ada is two now, and for the most part I meet the challenges she presents. Sometimes I fail, but I have a lot of support and room to fail. Chris is with me every step, and behind him are our families, close friends and numerous others. In considering the idea of a second child I find myself wondering whether I will be able to handle it. My fears aside, I know I will be up to the challenge if we are lucky enough to have the chance to try. And I know I will also continue to fail on occasion, but that is part of the deal.

It frustrates me that I, a well educated, competent and cared for 35 year old, often struggle to find easy confidence in my own abilities. These feelings are not pervasive, but they are nagging. Seeing the spider spin and re-spin her web, I hope that I can take a different approach. I am planning and making choices. Hopefully I won't be eating too many bugs.

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

Louis L'Amour

I (word that means take pictures) Myself

(After months of suffering people visiting looking for home-made p*rn that isn't here, I changed the title, hoping I will fall off google's ranking for a popular search phrase.)

While in San Francisco the week before my sister's wedding, I had a lot more time to myself than usual. I'd gone down to help Karen and Anthony deal with last minute details, but as organized as they were, there wasn't really that much to do. Plus, without Ada Shortpants hanging around, I suddenly had the freedom to read an excellent novel, an over-rated graphic novel (the movie was better), and everything short of the music listings in the most recent New Yorker.

I also took some pictures. But with my favorite subject a state away for most of the trip, in four days I shot more pictures of myself than I normal get around to taking in three months. Here are a few of them.

Self-portrait with mustache and camera.
I'd just like to say - it is a lot harder than it looks to take a picture of yourself that aligns properly with the fake mustache stuck to the mirror.



And people say San Franciscans are stand-offish.



Ok, this isn't me, but don't you feel like this sometimes too?




The question isn't: Why is this on your head?
The question is: Why was this in Karen's house?


Now if I can just track down some of the green wig pictures Ellen took, I can really embarrass myself.

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

"He's always hungry," she said, and began to say all over again the same things she'd just told him, because she was unable not to say them.

Denis Johnson
1966

Eight It Up

P-man tagged me for a meme. He was supposed to tag 8 people (to keep on an "8 things about me" theme), but chose only four. Perhaps he did this because he hoped each of the four tagees will post 16 things, and he'll have hit his quota. Or maybe it is because he knows that 4 (like 8) is a product of powers of prime? (I'll let that one sink in while Chris and Stephanie laugh at me.)

Whatever the reason P-man decided to pick (on) me, I will step up to the plate. As I understand them from his blog, the rules are:

• list 8 facts/habits about yourself;
  
• post the rules at the beginning before those facts/habits; and
  
• tag 8 people and post their names, go to their blogs and leave them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and ask them to read your blog.

For no better reason than that I feel the need to have a theme to these facts, I offer 8 things about me, the mind and body edition:

1. (Mind and Body) I take a Darwinist approach to gardening. It pains me to have to water, because I feel that the strong plants deserve to live. But. I want lots of tomatoes, and would an ear of corn or two be a lot to ask?
   
   
2. (Body) I can't seem to find sandals. I have worn the same two pairs for years and years, despite the fact that one gives me blisters across the tops of my big toes, and the other pair hurts my feet if I walk more than a block in them. Either consequence is better than the fruitless shopping for replacements.
   
   
3. (Mind on Body) I am feeling disappointed that it is July and Chris hasn't made me a mojito yet. Last year we were awash in them. Sloshing, really.
   
   
4. (Mind) I am in love with this website.
   
   
5. (Mind over Body) I have just come to terms with the fact that I would rather go to a museum than get a massage. I like a massage, but given the chance to do something fun while child-free in San Francisco last week, I ditched the suggestion to be pampered. Instead I wandered around SF MOMA enjoying a fantastic exhibit of the photographs of Martin Munkacsi. The only downside is that I left with museum-back.
   
   
6. (Body) For years I had a used Polaroid camera I bought for $5 in Brooklyn. It took great, if strangely colored, pictures before dying suddenly. I keep thinking I should get a new one, but now I don't have to. My sister and her husband bought four of them for people to use during the wedding reception. They kept one and the other three went to the officiants (me, since I performed a pre-ceremony on a bluff in Crissy Field, and the two guys who performed their main wedding.) Karen told me that one of the cameras for me just as I was going to ask her if I could buy it from her. Imagine my joy!
   
   
7. (Body over Mind) Despite the fact that I am in general easily embarrassed, last week I wore a bright green wig studded with seaweed and plastic fish to a party and then to a dance club.
   
   Photo credit: Karen's friend Karla
   Ellen is the one flexing her muscles.
   
8. (Yes, I mind) I am not surprised. Horrified, but not surprised.

Rather than tag 8 people, I am tagging 1. Debbie honey, it is all on you. (Edited to add: And STEPHANIE!) Anyone else want to do this one? Let me know (email or smoke-signals preferred). Instead of tagging, I am asking you to tell me what blog you are obsessed with these days. Even in the dog days of summer, I am sure you've got something that's dug into your brain, like a weevil on crack. Or meth, 'cause crack is so last century.

Oh yeah, and would it kill you to click here a few more times?

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

The fact that my sexual awakening peripherally involved Steve Guttenberg I have gradually accepted.

Gary Shteyngart
Summer Movies: Immortality

I am sorry for your loss

My grandmother just died. My sister is getting married and my grandmother died. This is not so bad as the previous sentence might suggest. My grandmother lived most of her life in New York, while my sister and I grew up on the west coast. We did not see her or my grandfather often, and (given her "nothing is right, and you can't fix it" tendencies) visits were not very gratifying. When I lived on the east coast, I was an hour drive from her apartment, but saw her less than I saw my other grandmother, who lived a short plane flight away. This is less a testament of my lack of grand-daughterly feelings than an expression of how much more I felt for my maternal grandmother than for my father's mom.

I have a lot of stories about my grandparents, mostly ones that paint my grandmother in a less than flattering light. I pull them out in discussions about difficult relations, often trumping others with my grandmother's prickliness and self-imposed martyrdom. It doesn't feel right to share those in the wake of her death. I should be remembering that she was the youngest of nine, devoted to her parents and to New York. She was strong-willed and tougher than you'd have thought, looking at her shrunken frame. She ran a business. Even after she sunk into dementia, she smiled at pictures of Ada. Living for so long she lost so many people. I didn't know her well enough to gauge whether she had been different as a young woman, whether the disappointments of life had turned her into the woman I knew as a child.

My sister and I were never close to our grandmother. Rather than feeling the loss of this woman, we feel for our father. Losing a parent feels unbearable, at any age. My sister thinks it may be better for him to have it over. A relief. My grandmother's slow slide from ornery to senile has been hard on my dad. Still, I feel a little bad that I am not feeling more. What if no one mourns me when I go? It is ridiculous to think that by crying for my grandmother I protect my future dead self, but selfishly I do.

Just before my sister walked out the door to track down some last minute wedding details, she hugged me and said "I am sorry for your loss." I repeated the phrase, hoping it might mean something.

On Fertility

(First: I'm not pregnant, and not trying to get pregnant right now. I have just had some conversations that got me thinking about this.)

There are two schools of thought regarding how open you should be when trying to conceive.

School #1 – tell no one.
You never know how long it is going to take, and if you tell people you are trying, they’ll just want to know if it has happened yet. Even if it has, you might not want to tell people until the mysterious and powerful first trimester has passed. For those who are more private about their personal lives, this is a great way to go. It works less well for someone like me who lives through discussion.

You might not be able to tell if you only know me from the blog, where I am not quite as self-revelatory as I am in person, but I am a sharer. Plus, like many women, I like to talk with friends and strangers about important things. I like input. I might not always take the advice, but I want to hear it. On the up side, this gets me a lot of feedback that can make me feel better about my situation. As a consequence, I know a lot about friends’ and strangers’ fertility. Once I started to say, “well, we had Ada through IVF” I got a lot of interesting stories in return. The couple that had only one egg implanted but ended up with twins anyway. The people who never tried but got pregnant. The people who tried and never got pregnant. People want to share those stories, and it is nice to hear them. But I was talking about NOT telling people.

As I mentioned, I am a sharer. That said, since conceiving Ada the hard way, I have several times gotten annoyed at people who announced they were trying to get pregnant, as if just announcing it would cause the blessed event to occur. Should I congratulate you for having sex? I mean, isn’t sex it’s own reward?

As petty as it is, I have been annoyed at what felt like crowing, even before the fact, about a success in an area that was such a challenge for Chris and me. I haven't felt this way with friends, but I do think that with people you don't know so well, maybe holding back on the "we're trying" could be a good idea. (Blog posts are exempted, since by definition a personal blog is the place for that kind of thing.)

At this point let me reiterate:
(1) I am not pregnant.
(2) I am not trying to get pregnant.
(I know you are thinking about it, so I just wanted to remind you.)

School #2 – tell everyone.
Once Chris and I started trying to have a baby, it was hard to not think constantly and compulsively about fertility. Because we were trying and I was thinking about it, I told people. And then it went on for months, which turned into years. So I stopped telling people we were trying. And then we found out that we needed IVF to conceive. I wanted to talk about it, but the stakes felt too high. What if we spent all the money, injected me with hormones, had eggs extracted, fertilized and implanted, and it didn't take? Did I really want to tell people about what was going on? So I only told a limited group of people. ("Limited" is a relative term. In my case it meant more than four people, less than everyone I knew.)

It was hard not to tell people, particularly when I was hopped up on hormones and in a very stressful meeting at work. More than once I wanted to interrupt a meeting with "I'm crying because of the injections, and the stress, not because you are an asshole. For two years you've been an asshole, but it didn't make me cry before now." But I didn't want to tell coworkers what was going on, lest I have to tell them it failed.

Once we found out the IVF worked, we kept mostly quiet out of a superstitious fear that telling people would cause the embryo to flush itself out of my body. Well, I kept quiet. Chris said he would, but then he kept telling people. This actually made me love Chris even more. When a quiet guy like Chris can't keep his mouth shut, he must be very excited.

The thing I got out of the whole process is that I should have no fear of telling people about our fertility struggles. In fact, the whole process made me want to tell people about it. It was hard to be struggling with fertility and thinking you are the only ones. But we weren't the only ones. Once we knew what was keeping us from conceiving, I started talking to people about fertility again. Although I didn't tell too many people that we were actively doing IVF, I told people we were going there.

Once we'd finished with the IVF itself and we were really, truly on the way to having a baby, I happily told all kinds of people about our struggles, IVF and whatever else was on my mind. Until then I kept a private blog. I wrote to myself about what I was thinking and feeling, and once I was ready to share it, I added it publicly to this blog. I get found by people searching for IVF information, and what I really want these searchers to know is - You are not alone. Whether you tell people or keep it to yourself, you are not alone.

For me, talking is good. Not talking has its place, but since I am not good at it, I won't beat myself up for sharing what others might keep to themselves. It feels too good to share, and I can hope that it helps someone else once in a while.

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

She told me of her engagement as we waited for the first dim sum carts to stop by our table, and I congratulated her.

"That's really great," I said. "I'm so happy for you." And I was.

I myself had little to report, aside from the recent implosion of my relationship.

"What happened?" she asked.

I told her that she hated my dog, which was more or less the truth of the matter.

Jerome E. Copulsky
Modern Love: In the Dressing Room, Relationships Laid Bare

Happy Two

Ada has just gotten the concept of birthdays in a real way. When we told her we were going to have a party for her, she replied hopefully: "with cake?"

Yes, with cake. Today is her birthday, and while I got ready to go to work, Chris sat with Ada watching old sesame street videos on youtube. She could barely be bothered to say good-bye when I left. Although a part of me is sad that she'd more interested in Bert than in her mother's comings and goings, getting to this point has been a long road, so it is also nice to see her her with interests outside of whether or not I am holding her.

Ada, I love you and am already prouder of you than you'll ever know.

Minutes After Her Birth

At Six Months

A Year Old

18 Months

Last Week, Almost Two

Things To Love About Portland (Airport Bathroom Edition)

On my way through Portland International Airport on a recent trip to Texas, I saw this in my pre-flight trip to the bathroom:



Where else would an official informational notice include reference to "#1" and "#2"? (Yes, I am that immature.)

What a dork I am, taking pictures in an airport bathroom. At least I remembered not to use the flash. (There is a pun lurking in there, but I'm taking the high road.)

I Blame Debbie

This is all Debbie's fault. And by "this" I mean the fact that I created a scrapblog in yet another shameless attempt to win my way to Blogher.

Why, you ask, why would I spend time and energy on this little project? (Why, other than the vain hope of winning airfare, a hotel stay, and admission to Blogher?) Well, I really had no plans to go to Blogher. Ok, I'd had the stray fantasy, but really it was not more than that. And then a couple of months ago Debbie asked if I was going to go. Or wanted to go. Or had thought about going. Since the answer to at least one or two of those questions was yes, she saw the one little chink in my otherwise flawless "I am not going to Blogher" armor. Since then, about every two weeks she's asked me whether I want to go. Her methods, though varying, are nefarious. She and her roommate have room for me. She thinks I'd have a good time, that she'd have a good time with me there. She'd buy me drinks. Plus the assorted ego-stroking comments that didn't hurt my sense of self, if you must know.

Most recently, I talked by phone with Debbie while I tooled around the Dallas airport's skylink. (and really, for anyone who has been to or lived in Dallas, is there anything in the rest of that city that matches the coolness of this nifty airport tram?) But I digress. The point is that Debbie brought this whole Blogher thing up again. It is working on me a little, her nudging. I still haven't bought a ticket, but it is because of her intervention that I have been forced (forced, I say) to do things like build a scrapblog in order to enter a contest. Apparently every view of this silly thing gets me an entry into the their contest. So I did it. I spent a portion of the evening fiddling with the site.

So take a look. Please. I need all the help I can get.

It won't be a complete waste. You'll see some pictures from my trip to the beach. You'll note that, in true Oregon fashion, a mid-June coast trip required sweaters and pants all around. The cloud-cover did break a bit, but when the sun managed to poke through we were all so blinded that we were physically unable to take pictures. Just as well, lest more people see our pasty white skin.





(P-man, does it count as shilling if I am doing it for my own selfish interests? In case it is, I apologize in advance. Now click anyway.)

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

I don't think that I can take it
'cause it took so long to bake it
and I'll never have that recipe again

Jimmy Webb
MacArthur Park

One of my favorites

My sister and I have been spending a lot of time on the phone lately. Karen is getting married next month, so we are chatting about that, but recently we have also talked about why our parents are the way they are, whether she should go to China, and what happens to friendships over time.

The other night we were talking late into the night, and while thinking of some moment from our shared childhood I decided to look through some old photos. I found one of my all time favorite pictures, one that makes me laugh whenever I see it:

I love this picture for so many reasons. I love the layout, the fact that despite all the available room my family is crowded into a corner of the frame. I love the early 80s outfits, hair and glasses. (Having recently seen old pictures of Phil Specter, I wonder at my mom's 'do.)

Even more than all these other things about this photograph, I love my sister. I love that she's not looking at the camera, but instead sticks her bottom lip out at something unseen and unnoticed by the rest of us.

I dragged this photo through the scanner this week to share it with Karen. She is one of my favorite people and I hope she knows how much I love her and how excited I am to be part of her wedding. It is all I can do not to cry just thinking about it. But then I look at this picture. And laugh.

Fine, and you?

Have you seen this? It is a project (called We Feel Fine) that searches blogs all over the world for sentences that contain the words "I feel" or "I am feeling". You can look at random phrases, make montages with favorite phrases, or search for the saddest, guiltiest or sexiest cities. Oh, and you can click on a sentence and find the blog from which it originated.

I found this:






Strangely addictive and fascinating. And someone found me through this. How do I feel about that? I feel fine.

Random quote and unrelated photo of the week

Saying that men talk about baseball in order to avoid talking
about their feelings is the same as saying that women talk
about their feelings in order to avoid talking about baseball.

Deborah Tannen
You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation