The dog days of fall

I am terrible at blogging regularly. But here we are.

And I am quite lonely. The Holidays® are approaching and we will not be doing anything for Thanksgiving. Maybe we’ll attempt a pie; I think that’s the least we can do. But there won’t be any family, there won’t be any decorations. There probably won’t even be a food coma – not that that will stop me from napping. Oh believe you me, it will not. I guess it’s just that I had thirty solid years of pretty perfect Thanksgivings that I apparently took for granted.

So I am trying to focus on Christmas, when we’ll be home for two weeks and will have time to see all of our people and do The Holidays® right, and my parents’ house will be a cozy, warm, softly-lit Christmas paradise like it always is. That image is basically getting me through right now.

They say motherhood, the early days at least, can be really isolating – just you and your crying baby, awake at 12am and 2am and 4am and God knows when else. That’s probably true, but I think pregnancy itself can be isolating too. I don’t have another woman to share any of this with, so I’m forever posting and scrolling around on my Facebook due date groups looking for some small piece of camaraderie/sisterhood/something. I pester my friends who are moms with tons of questions. I try not to talk about it too much with my friends who aren’t moms, lest they think I’ve become totally consumed with this nameless, amorphous creature that belongs more to the future than to the present.

What I’m reading: Just started “Over the Top“, JVN’s memoir, after finishing “The Witches Are Coming” by Seattle’s own Lindy West. She’s one of my favorite feminist thinkers, so her book of essays was a treat. I also recently finished Watchmen, the original graphic novel, and am now understanding, and consequently enjoying, the HBO version much more.

What I’m watching: Watchmen. Not much else? The Man in the High Castle too, but I feel like the gap between seasons has been so long that I’m not as invested as I had been, because I don’t remember some of the finer points. We also got Disney+ of course, and V’s first priority with that has been watching all the Star Wars movies, and I sort of dip in and out of that.

What I’m annoyed about: Oh God, so so many things, I am so glad you asked…

• apartment maintenance for some reason put two big stacks of orange cones right next to our parking space in the garage, between our space and the door that goes outside, making passenger-side access to our car extremely difficult for, again, no apparent reason but storage
• I think I need new walking shoes? Something to better support these tired bones in my quest for near-daily constitutionals
• the impeachment hearings – like, I am very glad they’re happening, but it really feels like an Al Capone/tax evasion situation, you know? Because we know dude has done sooo much worse than try to get a foreign government to get dirt on a political rival, but maybe that’s all we can actually *get* him on? At least for now? I just would really like to see him brought to account for, say, racist housing discrimination, and/or rape, and/or probably a million kinds of financial fraud, and/or literal Soviet puppetry
• I have felt very minimal, if any, movement from Baby Nagappala, which isn’t technically concerning at 22.5 weeks with an anterior placenta but sure is annoying when the Facebook due date groups are abuzz with posts and videos of belly kicks and punches and somersaults
• the Packers – when they lose it always puts me in a mood.

What I’m looking forward to:

• Christmas in Wisconsin, obvs
• I’m thinking of booking a maternity photo session if I can find something reasonably priced. It seems worth it to commemorate this time, especially if I can be commemorated looking all glamorous and ethereal. Especially since this could be my only pregnancy – who knows.

I will leave you with some highly relevant pregnancy memes that describe my current life.

Mandatory side sleeping: the second majorly painful sacrifice expecting moms must make (after avoiding alcohol). (I would kill for a mimosa.) (But I know some FB moms who are planning on chugging a beer right after delivery and it’s like…I think you might have a problem)