Ft. Lauderdale/Boca Raton

Boca Raton=Mouth of the rat. I've learned much. FAU is made of concrete. It's full of nice folks though who may or may not want to hire me. I saw a comorant, a blue heron, a lizard, a coonti plant, a dutch pipe vine, a monarch butterfly, and several turkey vultures.
I do love big birds.
But pink buildings--not so much.
I've never been this hot. I've been sweating since I got off the plane?
How much red wine can I drink at dinner???? Less, than I want, I presume.
This is a good job--grad students, 3-2, non-adversarial department....The chair is one of the funniest, smartest people I met. Plus, man can he eat. He's my metabolistic role model. In fact, as a teacher, a writer, and an administrator, he's a role model for all.
But this part of Florida is super-suburban, expensive, and humid.
I don't know. I had a gut feeling for a moment.
I'm off to the other two interviews on Wednesday. I fly all the way back to SLC and then to Atlanta. Which wouldn't be so bad but for the very bumpy skies.
I feel like a sponge--absorb, absorb.

Exercises in Futility

This week has been nothing if not one step forward, two steps back (The Dow Jones and I may run on syncopated paths).
For instance, today I went to the eye doctor, loading the heavy Zoe in the bucket and driving through rushhour traffic, only to find the office closes at 1. Great. Then I went up to campus to find the latest issue of the Chronicle which has an article written by one of my interviewers at Florida Atlantic. The new issue just came out--supplanting the issue I needed.
So, I was inspired by Unhip's blog to really exercise. I emailed all 78 legislators and asked them not to support HB 45 the Bear River Development act:

Please don’t support the Bear River Development Act—HB 45. This $1 billion water project promotes waste, discourages conservation, uses funds poorly, and threatens to destroy one of the last wild waterways in the west. With a bit of conservation—by which I mean less irrigation, not less “drinking water”—we can easily compensate for the amount of water that would be appropriated by this bill that provides no healthy vision for the future.

I kept it short and pointless since it will fall on 70% deaf ears. I end this week by embracing my (and the Dow Jones) path.

Home, underrated

As it looks more and more like I may actually be moving (I'm hoping to jinx it by writing it in ink--or pixel), I keep thinking how very underrated staying in the land of your birth is. Since I was seven, my parents made it clear to us that had the economy been different, we would have been raised in NYC. Every slight made against me or the twins would cause my mom to rail against this backwards town. And it's true. Everytime the legislature convenes I say to myself, "we're out of here." But I do think that the imperative to leave can be a overrated. The opinion that to be truly career-oriented and grow- up requires that one leave town. And, I subscribed to that when I lived in Portland. But I also think appreciating what is here becomes evident only as the moving threatens. It's important to me that Zoe grow up around people who think she's truly unique, not just another baby; that Erik and I can go to dinner at the drop of a hat because her grandparents will come over at a moments notice; that her cousins are close enough to be like siblings; that when she looks outside she sees amazing land.
But there are enough drawbacks--bad legislature, bad restaurants, bad smog, bad legislature, the bad house being built next door destroying part of the amazing land, bad jobs--that we should at least seriously entertain the notion of going.
I can come back for summers, I'm reminded.
Zoe can visit her grandparents for weeks at a time, I'm told.
But having left home and come back, I feel like I know exactly how much I'll be missing--

Friday the 13th

Usually my Friday the 13ths aren't marred by disaster so much as dissatisfaction.
To note:
No new interviews. Which is OK because I'm really happy with my two, but I got SO addicted to NEWS in December, I'm going through withdrawals.
The lot next door just got surveyed for building. From what I can tell, their back door will open directly into my living room.
The cats think the new carpet in the basement is a brand new litter box. We've barracaded them upstairs but me thinks one or two of the cats may have to find a new home.
Erik is on call tonight which means he doesn't want to have people over. I haven't just hung out in weeks. I would like to relax with his folks or some friends of ours.
I ordered the wrong soup at Big City Soup.
No mail.
No email.

OK, apparently this 13th is marred by NOTHINGness. And a litany of small complaints is NOTHING. But, if something truly horrid happens, I'll keep you posted. And if you have any horror stories, I'd love to hear them. Because I'm horrid.

Door to door sales

I have a soft spot in my heart for Rugby because it was the only game anyone at Reed was any good at. So, when the kid from Westmini's CHAMPIONSHIP RUGBY TEAM came to ask me if I'd buy a raffle ticket, I said, sure. In fact, I bought 6 for $10 (what a bargain--$3 for 1!). I never win. I may come in 2nd. I may occasionally even get a prize for coming in 2nd, but I just don't catapult myself (or luck neglects to catapult me) over the top.
Still, I keep trying. Perhaps my number will come up (I hope not the "when your number's up" of my mother's Woody Allenesque take on fate) this time. What will I win? I don't know. I didn't really read it. Something about Vegas. Or Park City. Two nights.....
So, I suppose my point is, if you'd like to get $10 from me, come over and show me a nice picture of young folks (at Reed, Rugby was co-ed) with lots of bruises and soft buttons and hand me some tickets. Don't bother tearing off the part that you keep. I won't even notice until you leave that I have all the parts and the raffler has no idea how to contact me should I win. Which I won't, in good spirit. In fact, were it not for this post, I would have forgotten about it already.

looming

2nd interviews loom. What to do? Take Erik and Zoe so I don't have to pump & go? Buy real estate in upstate new york? Write pro and con list and make sure I realize that it gets below zero in both Michigan (GVSU) and NY (Alfred)?
The real question: what to wear? I already wore my power suit. Plus, it's two days of interview. Even if I re-suit on the first day, should I differently suit the next?
When will I write again since all I do is make travel plans.

How does this philosophy work of "what should happen, will happen?" Where is free will? Is there any free will when grandparents of a six-month old are involved?
Where are the west coast jobs? Is there anywhere as beautiful as Utah? Does better politics trump beauty?
How many questions can one ask to the ether???

pre-decision decisions

Though I have no idea if I will actually get any job offers, I am in complete arrest because I cannot decide what I want to do.
So, I leave it to my blogging friends to help me decide. If I have any left, since it's been so long since I've posted.
Here are the job interviews thus far:
Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, MI. Teaching load--3/3 (creative nonfiction)
Susquehanna State University in Selinsgrove, PA. Teaching load--3/3 (poetry)
Alfred University, WAY upstate New York. Teaching load--3/3 (poetry)
Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, FL Teaching load--3/2 (creative nonfiction)
Westfield State College, in Western MA Teaching load--4/4 (poetry).

If you know any one at or anything about these places and want to give me a little insight about what jobs sound best, I'd be happy to hear.

Long weekend

No cooking for me. This may be the first Thanksgiving since I was 19 that I didn't cook at all. Well, I went from house to house making proper gravy, but otherwise, no mashing, no probing, no stuffing, no sauteing. It's really kind of sad. I'm thinking of having a make-up turkey dinner soon.
Weekend was full of correspondence, writing, seeing the very very bad (bad in a good way Act, 1, bad in a bad way, Act 2) Mamma Mia and eating at the delightful Martine. Why doesn't every meal out consist of 7 little dishes? I love to taste things. When I move to Napa, I'm going to eat at the French Laundry every day. Also, this will happen when I win the lottery. But, if I do win the lottery, maybe I'll start my own French Laundry in Salt Lake. I'll call it the Mormon Clothesline to avoid charges against copyright infringement. I'll serve tiny gallettes of funeral potatoes, bread cubes ala sacrament, ambrosia salad--one marshmallow, one cubic centimeter each of madarin orange, grape, pear and peach, deep-fried chicken wing atop inch of mashed potato & cream gravy, ahi tuna casserole--seared ahi, homemade potato chip, mushrooms in cream sauce (aka, can of cream of mushroom soup).
Now I'm hungry. On Wednesday, Erik and I did cook. We made green chile sauce from anaheims from the last farmers market and 1/4 of a habenero from my garden. Too spicy to eat. Today, I mellowed it out with a can of tomatoes. Now, it's red chile sauce. Still hot, but not killer-death hot.
Tonight, I'm driving all the way out to the south Trio for dinner with cousins. And, considering my last Trio experience, I'm not too excited.
I also must go to the Avenues Bistro for a pity dinner. Terrible review in the Tribune by the new food critic. She was absolutely right. Maybe this town's restaurants will get in shape if someone kicks them in the butt a bit. I can't help. I feel sorry for all those chefs.

Salt Lake City Restaurants

I like to go out to eat. I like to cook too but I get a lot of my ideas for what to make from restaurants. Since this week was my birthday week, I happened to go out to many restaurants--from cheapish to expensiveish. Plus, I made a dinner of Striped bass with balsamic reduction, beet reduction, spicy turnip greens and swiss chard on a palette of diced sweet potatoes (mucho butter involved).
The best dinner:
Bambara. Scallops with truffle butter reduction, fennel slaw and pureed parsnips--all my favorite foods together and I didn't have to cook it. Much wine. $$$$$$$
Worst food:
Trio. Usually good but this time Trio Club with absolutely no flavor. Dry chicken, dry bread, dry tomatoes. Even the bacon was dry. Yuck. No wine. Sad. $$$$ (for what it was).
Mediocre food, best time:
The pub. Cheese enchiladas. (Felt guilty eating that much cheese but covered them in super spicy salsa, which let's me believe I'm "cutting" the cheese with spice. Oh the way I can wish away calories. I wish I was lactose intolerant) Just Erik & Zoe & me and great conversation about San Bernardino. 2 glasses cheap wine. $$

Which meal was BEST? On the one hand the scallops haunt my palate. Each flavor perfectly balanced--sweet and savory, buttery and sharp. On the other hand, the relaxing atmosphere of the pub and the easy conversation made for a great night. And we saved a lot of money. How to value these things? When I go out next time--go for the unique and complex flavor or comfort of our go to place?

The saddest part is that Erik & I drove all over the city looking for a new, fun place to eat. We found nothing. We can either spend $$$$$$$ or go to the pub. Perhaps I'll save my money for Wahso in Park City--featured as one of the top 10 restaurants in the world according to Fodor:


Nov. 7, 2005Park City restaurant named one of best 10 eateries in the world By Debbi TaylorStaff Writer One of Utah's most unique restaurants has been named as serving some of the world's best in the Fodor's Choice Winter 2006 list. Fodor's says the Park City restaurant Wahso offers a "not-to-be-missed experience." Wahso, one of five restaurants owned by Bill White, joins a list of top 10 restaurants in the world that also includes Bukhara, Delhi, India; Casa da Feijoada, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Casa Picasso, Ambergris Caye, Belize; Chef Mavro, O'ahu, Hawaii; Chez Pascal, Antigua, Caribbean; Findlerhof, Zermatt, Switzerland; George's at the Cove, La Jolla, Calif.; Hunter's Vineyard Restaurant, Blenheim, New Zealand; and Per Se, New York. http://www.slenterprise.com/topnews.html

Trista's Right

This site needs more pictures. I worry about people tracking down Zoe and stealing her. But I've decided baby-theft is more an impulse buy than a premeditated investment. Plus, since she's disguised here, I don't think I run too much risk.

Don't need a weatherman

Winter is coming--eventually. Even with global warming, it will still get cold and snowy for at least a couple days this year. Egg and I spent all day winterizing the backyard. We mulched plants and dug up sunflowers. I'm going to make habenero salsa with the beautiful orange peppersI salvaged from the impendng (we hope) freeze. The mums were red and some weird flowers Erik planted were orange to match the peppers.
When I came inside to save Zoe from the Cleo dog who knocked the baby over in her bouncy chair, there was a wasp buzzing around. A bee in November. Ah well, the peppers will get hotter, the tomatoes more red as the summers get longer.

Happy Halloween

I am going as "Stucco'd with quadruped and birds all over" from Leaves of Grass. Or, as my nephew Cameron says--a zoo.
Zoe is a lamb, or maybe it's a bunny, but she's definitely a quadruped.

I love Halloween.

Erik's going as KUTV's gift from god. I thought a bit obnoxious but funny nonetheless.

Today--the job letters are mostly done.
QW meeting tomorrow to see why we still don't have more money.
Begin new business.
Start a new novel.
Figure out what to do about my Walmart boycott--see, they've gone "eco-friendly"--minimizing packaging, cutting energy costs, buying clothes made from organic cotton (although also made with a 9 year-old's organic fingers). It's probably all a marketing ploy but what if it does effect some consumerist consciousness? Will I have to enter a Walmart? I'm afraid of getting hit on the head with falling prices.

schedules

I'm giving up the ambivalence about going on the job market by remembering:
I need an adventure.
I want my own students. There's something about TAing and working for peanuts that makes me feel a bit removed from my students--like there's always a graduate director in the room.
I need a 401K.
I get summers off.
Erik doesn't want to do camerawork for news the rest of his life.
Erik might start working nights.

Erik always has a somewhat awful schedule but when he works nights, I go crazy. And as those of you with babies know, the baby is one kind of creature by day and another more scary creature by night. I know that will change but it's A LOT easier at nights.

I'm not so good at getting it together in the morning either. By the time I read the paper, walk the dog, check the blogs, make breakfast, it's time to make lunch. I'm more of an afternoon worker and if Erik leaves me with Zo right at the time I usually sit down to work, I won't be able to get anything done. Plus, it's just depressing being home alone every night. The last time he had this shift, my friend Steve was still in town and we went into deep debt drinking red wine and going out to eat at every good restaurant in the Valley. Steve and I went to restaurants far and wide--out in Draper at some huge French gig, out west to a great barbecue place, up canyon for good salmon. Mostly we went to Greenstreet. But, the point is, Steve and I went out more than Erik and I ever did--I don't have that Steve friend because he's got one of those jobs I'm thinking about trying to get. And, even if he was here, I don't think Zoe could go with us.
So with Zoe and sans Steve, the idea of Erik being gone every night instills me with a deep panic.
Say what you will about professorships, no one has to get up before 7 or work after 5.

As I think about moving, I allow myself to watch "Sell this House" where Roger and Tanya Memme go in to people's houses and fix, in a weekend, what's wrong with a house so they can sell it. Usually it involves paint and new linens. But it's an amazing transformation. The hard part for me to swallow is the price of the houses. One in Scottsdale AZ should sell for $700,000. One in Glendale, CA, $650,000. And these are nice, but normal houses.
Who can afford a $700,000 house? The average appearance of the potential buyers make it appear that everyone can. Our housing market, though booming, isn't skyrocketing like everywhere else in the rest. I'm not sure how Erik and I could make enough to buy a house anywhere in, say, California. I guess this is how the Midwest will lure us. Or even the East Coast.

So. One more pass over the job letter and touch up the CV and call it a job search. I already feel the job thing has taken me away from what I want to do:
Hang out with Zoe.
Cook.
Write.
But this writing of the letter and imaging all the consequences of the is the lame part--anxiety-making, self-doubting, and time-robbing.
I still plan to cook Chili and bug Zoe.

Update. The current episode of Sell the House has a house for sale for $125,000-well, it's a townhouse.... I am grading while I watch. Well, in between blogging and checking my email too....No wonder it takes me all day to grade.

job market angst

Before I launch in, I want to register dissatisfaction with Blogger. Why name each post? I like the idea better of a daily log. Now I always feel I have to be "on point."

Anyway--the angst.
I don't want to have it. I went on the job market last year with some success but I hated the rigormorale--the mock interviews and the angst of my friends, amplifying my own, and the desire for external approval, and the fear that I might actually get a job and have to do something about it.
This year, although I thought because I'd suffered it last year, I'd feel old hat about this, is worse. Nearly all my friends are going on the market. Competition and friendship bite. And nothing else is new this year--I have no book. I have a few more publications, thankfully in Nonfiction, but so do my friends.
The truth is, my ambitious streak, at least in terms of professionships, is kind of thin. I always wanted the job that supported my writing. Somehow, I think I misunderstood the likeliness of this happening. With the market such as it is, I'd be lucky to teach 3 classes a semester. Which is one more than I'm teaching now, plus service, plus administrative work.
Full time. The thing I'd spent my life avoiding.
The truth is: I want to write. But. I want to write in a community/atmosphere that supports/appreciates writing. Hence the teaching idea. In retrospect, maybe I didn't commit myself properly to the professorship project. Publications and Editorship are not enough. I think I needed a bit more work on--well, what? Scholarship? Academic papers? Talking with my professors about Donne? Fellowships? Teaching more diverse classes?
I fear it's my nature to care more about liking my days rather than shaping them to advance my prospects. But, if I suffer for that lack, am I actually liking them?
Ah, the suffering is short, the days of wine and song are long.....
OK. I'm off to drink some wine and forget about how I screwed up my career.
If I did.
Maybe my real career is something else.
Or maybe this is where everyone's at.
But.

on babies etc

Babies: Much recommended. Most fun thing ever. Zoë is pretty squawky. I think she spends too much time thinking about her bowels. She expresses herself mostly through farts and burps but she's also been known to slug you across the face with her wild swinging arms. Her main talent--snarling. Everyone else says she smiles but I'm pretty sure she has nothing nice to say about the state of the nation, and, more pointedly, the state of her bowels. She also does not like it when Box the cat tries to sit on her. Which he tries to do every day. This also makes her squawk. At her age--2.5 months--she could be cooing. I consider these squawks coos. Though again, more an expression of gas than joy.

Since having Zoë I have gone mostly blind and have contracted MS. My arm falls asleep every night but Erik attributes that to me trying to nurse with my left hand and scroll through Blogs with my right. The blindness--I've heard your eyesight changes, but really, I walk into class and just blink at my students until they come into focus.But that's the only drawback. Zoë wakes up at 2 and 5 and then 7:30 (basically)--which is about how often I used to wake up anyway. Now I just have to feed a tiny barracuda for 20 minutes each time. And I go right back to sleep, unlike my insomniac wakings of before.Bonus to having two parents--two separate babysitters--one on Friday night, one on Saturday.

Erik is pretty goreat about the wee lass. I'm trying to convince him to take Fenugreek. Apparently men on the Mormon Trail took fenugreek and could actually breastfeed the baby. If he could breastfeed, well, I'd take Wednesdays completely off. As it is, I pump, then teach, then work on the Mag then drive home as fast as the stop sign-heavy Avenues will allow and drag my forty pounds of drooping milk into the house. Invariably, Erik will have just fed her, so I pump again.Evenings, when Erik usually has her, if Zoë makes the slightest peep, Erik apes for Zoë: "Mom, can I have some milk?" Helarious. Also, any time I sit down to eat something, she decides she's starving. I try to convince her that for milk, I must eat mucho, but she doesn't care. She looks at my fat butt and says, I think you can probably stand to skip a meal or two.I'm almost back into my regular clothes but I think it's a lie that you can eat anything and breastfeed.

Endangered species

Who needs 'em? When it comes to Walmart versus the spotted owl, why not choose the one where the price is right? Or maybe, with the new bill the house just passed, you can make money off the damn owl. I own its rotting old grown habitat. Perhaps the government can buy my land. I think I'll set the asking price at $50,000/acre. The govt. can afford it. Especially with the way we're making the poor pay more. And the more they pay, the more poor we create. Heck, maybe I can charge $100,000 because the govt helps those who help themselves.

Following the intelligent design model, the intelligent designer (whose name shall remain upspoken) spotted owls are less complex a model, therefore, worth less.

The only value is that which useful to humans. And making money for those humans. I suppose having the whole planet covered in Ivory homes will be profitable.

I wonder how to quantify the value of wilderness and diversity of species--perhaps I should say to those who complain that wilderness is only for backpackers and hikers that we won't go there either. That they're for no one. That the idea of the place is all humans get. And that is a lot. Being able to imagine a place separate from humans is what helps us to understand what it means to be human.

Perhaps only by hanging a price-tag on wilderness and habitat is the only way to decide what it's worth. So how much for the spotted owl? How much for the Amazon rainforest. Bill Gates has a lot of money. Can he buy it? And then put a big electric fence around it to keep the poachers and land-clearers and Republicans away. Until they can pay up.

Nonstop work or no work?

I can't tell if I'm never working or always working. I woke up at 1:15, 4:59 and 8:16 to feed Zoe. Up for good at 8:45. Made coffee, fed the cats, fed the dog, made 4 slices of the Avenues' cranberry pecan bread. Read the paper. Fed Zo at 9:30. Found Cleo's collar and leash, put Zoe in her kangaroo carrier and walked ourselves to the park. Came home, watered outside plants. Came in, cleaned up wineglasses from last night, read more newspaper. 11:17 Tried to convince Zoe she wanted to be naked in her crib. 11:35 gave up, gave her an apricot oil massage, fed her until 12:05. Recycled newspaper. Started to think about lunch. Got out a chicken breast and went outside to start grill. Grill wouldn't start. Came in to get lighter. Zoe fussy. Took Zoe and lighter outside and stood in front of grill, gas on. Thought better of lighting it and put Zoe on the grass next to Cleo (good babysitter, Cleo). Lit grill, came in. Put Zoe in swing. Grated parmasan. Made a fake Caesar Salad dress (lemon juice, mayo, worstchestershire, parmasan, garlic clove). Grilled chicken. Tore up lettuce. Looked at blogs while chicken cooked. Blogged a short depressing blog about New Orleans. (Blogs--like newspapers, but worse. I've read the entire alittlepregnant.com twice). Checked email (not much. One from Burger. It's Sunday of a labor day weekend). Got chicken off grill. Let it rest. Read some more blog. Cut up chicken and tossed salad. Ate while reading blogs. Found Cleo. Gave her a bit of chicken. Turned off swin for Zoe. Found bar of chocolate. Ate some of it. Blogged this.
I wanted to do today:
Send out manuscripts.
Writer more on the wolf piece.
Finish new QW website.

Must put down chocolate to even begin to do work. Now I feel like taking a nap.

Perhaps it's the blogs/newspapers that seem like I'm doing something (I like to call it research in my day planner) when I'm not. Perhaps I should limit the research to an hour a day. Of course, I'd probably just fill that time with more research, like watching the Discovery Channel or reading the New Yorker.

Now I've eaten most of the chocolate and thought about how I must have missed Lynn and Sylvia's half marathon. Guilt for the chocolate and for not cheering on my friends. Go friends I say from here as I look to Zoe to see if she's hungry. Someone has to get the calories from the chocolate and it had better not be me. See. Even eating chocolate can be considered work. I'm metabolizing for my baby!

OK. Really. Now I have to breastfeed and type if I'm going to get a stitch of work done today. I need one more arm. Or perhaps a well designed sling......

End of the world

I keep thinking about the dogs and cats left in the houses. And global warming. And the way that now that catastrophe has struck, everyone's shelling out the cash but when New Orleans asked last year for 2.7 billion dollars to reinforce and modernize the levee system, it was deemed too expensive. Now people are wading through a soggy cemetery trying to get some place dry. 10.5 billion dollars later, the government comes to the rescue--throwing MRE's and bottled water to the masses. At some point, this wait till it's broken approach will fail even more ridiculously. Part of me looks forward to seeing how bad it gets. No oil. No heat. No trucks to bring groceries. No water where it's needed most. Too much where it's not needed at all.
Perhaps I can go into business, try to entrepreneur my way into watching Utah turn temperate forest or plush agricultural center or buying property in Western Nevada as I wait for the waters to rise.
It doesn't look good for you if you're poor. But it doesn't look all too rosy for the rich either. Think of all the walking they'll have to do. Think of the Hummer becoming the primary residence. Sure, we'll all be starving too, but at least natural (or the oxymoronic manmade nature) disasters democratize us all.

From Impossible to Possible

A word on girl pain: cramps are not so bad for one reason--you know they're going away. Although it feels like some hand has reached through your spine and twisted your uterus as if they were trying to squeeze the last drop out of the juice of a lime, you know that hand will eventually let go. That too is what is do-able, supposedly, about giving birth--it too has an end point. The contractions I was having early on were no worse than bad cramps. But these lasted long. And, as far as anyone wanted (except me, in the pain, and even I wanted to hold out a bit longer--like an hour), the "cramps" could have lasted eight more weeks. I knew that I wouldn't make it ten more days in this much pain. I kept looking to see if the windows opened. I could jump. And my house is only three blocks away. If I was there, well, then maybe I could stand the pain. Maybe the nurses would quit coming in to take my blood pressure or wake me to give me more pills that did who know what to me or the unborn fetus?

Anyway, back to the narrative.
So I ask the resident to check me again, this time with her fingers. They MUST be missing something. But I can't really argue. My jaw is clenched shut tight and I don't have a lot of energy. Erik is so strong. He is totally focused on me making me try to relax. But again, I'm not sure how to relax. It isn't supposed to be happening. And according to medical science, it's not. So whatever relaxation techniques I'd like to employ are psychologically prohibited--either by my desire or by "fact." The resident goes away--I think she'll be back in a minute with permission to find out what's really going on but she doesn't come back.

I get up to pee and find that bending over pressing my feet one by one into the floor as if I'm walking helps a little. Just being out of the bed helps. As does being off the monitors. One time, I kept me and the baby off the monitors for almost half an hour. The nurse came in to protest, but when she saw me, she quickly left me alone.

My mom came in and brought Arby's. I couldn't quite concentrate/relax enough to eat. Plus there was a question about whether I was "allowed" to eat. Being in such intense prelabor. Not that I wasn't going to eat or drink. I'd gone through 4 of those big gulp size hospital jugs of water in the past eight hours. Hence the peeing. The water and the peeing were the only things I were really in charge of in terms of my body or the hospital. The water quenched my thirst, the taking off of the monitors to get up to pee quelched, by its small token of rebellion, some of my desire to jump out the window and run away.

By 6:30 or so, unbeknownst to me at the time, Erik was starting to panic. He called my sister Val and told her that I was in so much pain and had been all day and that no one believed me and he didn't know what to do. One problem with having a "team of midwives" is that there is no one midwife on whom you can call. Plus, since we were in heavily hospitalized way, the midwives weren't likely to hold any sway over actual patient care. But still. Erik had no one to call except Val who had had a baby just a year ago, had been involved all along and had planned to be our Doula had we ever enough time to take another hypnobirthing class.

(Strange to note, though. This is when I hork down an entire ARBY's roast beef in fifteen seconds. Thanks mom.)

So Val races from Holladay to Downtown in ten minutes. She rushes in and is shocked by the attitude of my nurse, who is ARMY-trained for sure. Her hair is so short I can see most of her scalp. When I tell her how bad it hurts, she grunts as if to say--let's amputate your leg without anesthesia and then we'll talk pain. Plus, you've already morphine you baby.
And although at the time I thought she was a horrific nurse, in retrospect, that kind of hard-ass attitude probably kept me calm. Others nurses, who may be more disposed toward empathy, would probably have made me think I was in so much more pain than I could handle. ARMY nurse does tell me that clenching will make it worse. I should try to open up and breathe through them (indicating she does think they are contractions and yet can't contradict the doc?) and RELAX. Although the word relax makes me tighten up like a poked anemone, I do try what she says and find that I can kind of ride them in a surfing kind of way. A cold, hard, coral ripped surf, but surf nonetheless.

And even my screams don't daunt her. Val and Erik are looking at the nurse as if to say "can't you hear her." She looks at me and with only a look, I get the distinct impression that I should be quiet. But I keep screaming every time I get a little cramp. I imagine my leg being cut off as some kind of solace.

And again, Erik is being great. He tells me to remember the fish pond we hiked past on our honeymoon, backpacking in the Wind Rivers. Although there was no discernible tributaries, the pond ran as clear and deep and anything I had ever seen and was full of trout circling.

Finally, even the nurse is convinced by my screaming that perhaps the resident, who had come by 3 hours ago and left the distinct impression she'd be back in a minute with a solution, should actually be summoned.

Suddenly, things change. I no longer feel cramps (albeit himalayan sized cramps). Now I feel weird. Like there is an alien body inside me, trying to come out. It wants to come out through my belly button, throat, butt, vagina--anyway it can get out. It's like the baby doubled in size, started doing jumping jacks and tugging at my kidneys. This s something foreign and now the real screaming begins. I don't even feel bad. I tell Val--I feel like I have to push. I feel like I have to poop.
The nurse goes to get a bed pan.
And thank God for Valerie who translates for the ARMY nurse. No. She says. She is having PUSHING CONTRACTIONS. And Val, who had an epidural with her babies, still knew what the hell I was talking about.

The resident is summoned. The speculum is brought back. I lift my hips and think, if I had the energy, that I would visegrip the resident's head between my knees if she doesn't check me with her goddamned fingers. But she emerges, looking convinced. I'm so sorry she says. You're fully dilated. I see the head.

what the hell? I could have been visualizing that turtleneck this whole time. Been thinking of the unwrapping of my uterus as a beautiful present. Instead, I'd been holding it in, clenching my jaw, my gluts, my abs, such as they were.

I fall in love with this pain. It hurts so bad I scream. The nurse tells me to be quiet and I scream louder. I arch my back. Erik shows me his thumb. He says look at the rivulets on the print. See the piece of skin forming a hangnail. Look how big the nail is, how round the pad. Erik is brilliant. I am fully hypnotized by his fingers. And he learned all of this in one scant class.

But no more time for practicing hypnosis. The resident is hustling into her scrubs. The nurse is throwing scrubs at Erik. He's putting on a blue hairnet hat and I'm thinking, wow, I guess we're going to have a baby now.

They ask if I'd like my midwife to come in now. I did want one of them to come. And Angela was on her way. She was one of my favorites because she was the most beautiful of all the midwives. And again, I'm on my barge, being ferried down the watery halls to the OR.
Babies born this early have to be delivered in the Labor and Delivery OR because it's right next to the NICU.

The lights are too bright and the resident has brought a student, also named Nicole, to come watch. Whatever I say. Learn from my mistakes. I'm screaming and arching and scaring everyone within a block radius out of having a baby (which, being in Utah, is probably a good thing for population control). Angela arrives and finally, someone I trust is here, although I really have met her only once, and she says that instead of screaming, put my scream into my push. I'm told to bend my legs--ARMY nurse holds one and Erik holds the other--and I'm supposed to squeeze out this tiny baby. No problem, I think. Finally, I have something to do. Finally, they believe I'm having a baby. Finally, these fifteen years of practicing my Kegel muscles will come in handy. I'm so thrilled with this pain. I push so hard I think my ear drums will burst. I hope I'm not pooping on anyone. I push from the top of my lungs down through my toes. I do this about eight times. They hold a mirror up for me to look.
I see a gigantic baby come out covered in white and red. She is huge. Of course, I don't have my contacts in, so I can't really tell. Her Apgar is a ten. She screamed right at first. No need for oxygen. She's breathing and crying and red as a reindeer's nose. The placenta is easy to birth and I am suddenly in no more pain. Except the ARMY nurse is kneading on my stomach to get my uterus back in shape. I tell her, do it as hard as you want. At least now somebody believes me that I'm having a baby.

Zoe was born that Saturday night at 8:54 p.m. She weighed 4 lbs and 7 oz. She spent three weeks in the NICU and has been home for 3 weeks. She's very mad now because I'm typing instead of feeding her. It's good to have a loud baby--I always believes she's here.

Disbelief/Not Believed

or: Good Reason part II

They won’t give me anti-contraction medicine—not that they think I’m having any contractions—but they will give me morphine. I think this is not so good for the baby but better than dying. Which is what I’ll do if I have to wait in this much pain to reach the 34 weeks where they’ll induce me. I imagine they won’t give me an epidural every twelve hours for the next week and a half either. As I start to clench my jaw and grip the bed rail, I wonder how pre-labor can be this painful and how anyone who is in real labor can do it naturally. We’d had exactly one introductory hypnobirthing class. I loved the images—to think of the uterus as a turtleneck just slipping over the baby’s neck, to imagine the uterus as a beribboned package and unlacing it, to think of a snowcapped mountain as a reserve of endorphins, let them drip onto your brow, through your cheeks, across your jaw. But I can’t really embrace these images. The baby isn’t supposed to come now—I don’t want to encourage it by visualizing a positive birth. I’m not really having contractions. No birth is what I’m shooting for, but I figure imagining the endorphins to be a universal visualization tool--I make it to my shoulders before I’m clutching the rail of the bed like the cold steel will provide a good role model.
Erik gets up every half hour or so to check on me. All I want to do is get up and walk but I was told to stay in my bed—and I do what I’m told because I don’t want anything bad to happen to the baby—or to think it was my fault for walking my baby into birth this many weeks early. I get up a lot to go to the bathroom, even if I don’t have to because that’s allowed. The morphine seems to do absolutely nothing but it must have had some effect because I made it through the night.
Every four hours, the nurses come in to take my blood pressure and check my contractions with a portable machine. Still, they see only little blips—tiny little hills along a mostly-flat line. I look like Nebraska but I feel like Colorado.
By the time the resident visits again I won’t let go of the bed rail. I arch my back every seven to eight minutes.
By three or four that afternoon, I ask the resident to please check me with her fingers. Double glove or something, I ask, but this can’t go on. She says, truly sympathetically, that she just can’t. They wheel me back to labor and delivery, just so she can check me again with the speculum. Fortunately, more morphine comes with this. Unfortunately, morphine is overrated. How is it possible? All this time I’ve waited for a reason to need morphine and it happens at a time when my opiate receptors are completely disinterested in receiving any opiates. Again, the promise of my needle-drug days dwindle. I imagine snow-capped mountains melting down my forehead.

To be continued again....my, it takes a bit longer to write for some reason....