Fighting Back

(A note: I had fogotten that I started drafting this until I came on to do the 06/20/2020 update.  I'm going ahead and posting it because I still like it, but keep in mind, when you get to the next entry and I make reference to my "eight month silence", this was nor originally here.) (because I have so many readers that care so much about my blog consistency...  >_<)

My maternity leave is rapidly dwindling down to nothing, which means that I'll soon need to get back into Working Clothes.  Since tomorrow is Cyber Monday, I decided today would be a good day to put on my big girl pants (as it were) and try on my old work wardrobe to see what needs to be supplemented (and then buy it on discount tomorrow).

It was... not a fun experience.

I'd been feeling pretty good about my body, overall.  Strong and healthy and feeding a baby, and all that, looking pretty good in the clothes I've been wearing (a mix of leggings and the pair of wide-leg Goodwill jeans I picked up a month or so ago paired with a variety of larger-than-my-"normal"-size shirts, and the occasional sweater.)

But, uh, my professional work wardrobe isn't really... "forgiving".

First I tried on the blazers, and was pleasantly surprised that I can definitely keep wearing them, so long as I don't try to close them (nursing boobs are nursing boobs- what are you going to do?)  Then I pulled on one pair of pants after another, none of which are going to work, but I'd expected that (to be honest, the fact that I could even fasten any of them was an unexpected victory, unsightly bulges aside).  Most of the shirts are right out, too (see above re: blazers), but again- expected.  I didn't try any of my sheath dresses, because I am not that great a fool.  But what I did try was a wrap-dress that normally looks quite respectable on me- closer to the business casual end of the spectrum, but pretty sharp.  It fit, but... I looked in the mirror and felt lumpy, frumpy, and the furthest thing from professional you could imagine.  Jerk Brain had a few nasty things to say about my image, I tell you what.

I felt defeated.  And I wanted to cry- not just over how I looked, but over how I felt about how I looked; I talk a good talk about the importance of strength and health over being svelte, yet there I was, being shallow AF about my appearance.

But then I took a deep breath, told Jerk Brain where it could go, and said,

"Self, you're going to have to put in some effort, that's all."

So I took the traitorous dress off (what happened to universally flattering, wrap dress?), and took the time to take down my slept-in-it hair, comb it out, and dress it attractively.  Then I washed my face, put on lotion, and brushed my brows.  I'd planned on putting on mascara, but decided I didn't really need it, so instead on went the glasses, my favorite armor-leggings, and a SERE hoodie that my brother gave me.  And then I added lighting-bolt earrings, just to give myself that extra little ornamentation.

I looked back in the mirror and felt better.  Still not professional, obviously, but definitely not frumpy.  And tomorrow I'll order two new pairs pants based on my new measurements (or maybe I'll order some more maternity pants- you're not the boss of me, society!) and I'll keep rocking my sweaters for as long as the cold weather will let me get away with it.

Power Pose

I'm Parental Leave right now, but due to the nature of my business (and, uh, my personality) I have a really hard time staying completely Hands Off.  One of the ways I am keeping a toe in the game (who... who is writing these metaphors?) is by staying involved with my networking group (this is aided by the fact that I am allowed- nay, encouraged- to bring the Youngest Spawn along).  Well this past week we had a fun little "challenge" during our meeting, in which we were to swap 60-second "elevator pitches" with one of our peers.  We had about two weeks to prepare, and I was pretty excited to do my Bit.  So excited, in fact, that I volunteered to go first, and my attempts at humor were a great hit (or else my friends have gotten really good at making Pity Laughter sound genuine).

The next person went, and then the next, and we're all cracking up at the impersonations and different twists on the familiar presentations, and it's great good fun.

And then we got around the table to the gentleman who had taken on the role of Jenny O.

He stood up as he normally does but then- then a giant grin split his face as his chin went up, his chest went out, his legs took a dynamic stance and he slammed his fists onto his hips, proclaiming loudly "I'm Jenny Owens!" and I about died laughing (as did the rest of the room).

Try not to judge me too harshly, Gentle Readers who know me in Real Life, when I tell you that until that moment I was actually unaware of the percentage of my life spent in various Power Poses.  I've been to my fair share of Corporate Rah Rah Events where they talk about the importance of Power Poses to confidence, and encourage you to get up and get into one, and I've always complied and thought, "Yes, it would be good to do this more often," without realizing that... uh... I do.  But as soon as he started his impression of me something clicked in my brain and I realized, Oh my gosh I do do that!  Later on one of the others in the room laughed and informed me, "Basically you're Wonder Woman at all times!"

I think I can live with that.

Leisurely Thunderbolt: Another Birthing Story

August 18th, 2019

It's 0330, and I'm awake.

Not because of contractions, or anything like that- it's nearly two weeks to my due date, and I haven't had much in the way of Braxton-Hicks this time around.  No, no, I'm awake for your standard old middle-of-the-night-pregnancy-pee-break.

I've gotten to the point where I can more or less take care of things in a sort of half-slumber (it's great practice for when the Spawn actually comes along and needs feeding and such), but when I get back into bed I pause- does that feel... wet?  The question wakes me all the way up, and I pop back into the bathroom.

Oh.  Well would you look at that- I've lost my mucus plug!  Huh.  Didn't have that experience with TLG.  Well, no worries- mucus plugs can come out weeks before the baby.  I mean, I saw my doctor on Friday, and he seemed pretty sure there wouldn't be any action this weekend, so I clean things up and head back to bed (for real this time) worry-free.

It's Sunday, but Nathan is only playing one service this week, so I get to sleep in a bit, which means I don't get up until closer to 0800 than 0700.  Heavenly!  But then, around 0830, I spring a leak.

Huh, I think.  I... I think my water's broken?  But it's hard to tell, because it's not a gush- it's just a trickle.  And really even that trickle is hard to pin down, since I'm wearing a liner.  But eventually I do confirm it for my Self (by walking around sans pants for a while, whee!), and so I let Nathan in on The Situation.  "It's possible I'm going to need you to stay home from church," I say mildly.  Mildly, because I still haven't had even a twinge of a hint of a contraction.

Nathan looks a touch skeptical, and I can't blame him.  "Yeah?" he asks

"Well..." I hedge, "The internet says I ought to call my doctor and see what they want me to do, so we'll go with that.  You can probably head to the service- if they want me to come in I'm perfectly capable of driving myself since, you know... no pain."

"Cool," says Nathan.  "Keep me posted."

I call the doctor's office, and they tell me that they'd really like me to come in within 3-6 hours of my water breaking, regardless of whether or not I have any contractions.  The doc explains that studies have shown once you go past a certain amount of time with ruptured membranes but no contractions, the chance for C-section starts to go up, and they'd rather I not have to have a C-section.  Turns out I'd rather not that, myself, so although I grumble about induction, I tell Nathan that we'll be heading to the Birthing Center sometime after noon.

Then I call my Mom to tell her what's happening, and she just starts laughing.  See today, August 18th, is my Oma's birthday, and my Opa has been saying for nearly eight months that this baby will be born on the 18th.  I kept telling him, "No, no, that's like two weeks early... maybe the 22nd but certainly not before!"

"You tell him this is all his fault!" I growl.  But it's a loving growl.

It's a little before 1pm when we pack TLG into the car and head to BurgerVille to grab some on-the-go lunch (this isn't my first rodeo; I know they won't let me eat once things Get Started, and I also know it takes a hell of a lot of energy to birth a baby, so I'm Fueling Up, damn it).  We waltz into the Birthing Center around 1:30pm, and I am still 100% Contraction Free.

Well, it turns out that when you show up to the BC not in the throes of Hard Labor there's a lot of  testing and paperwork do be done before they'll take you to your birthing room.  I get it completed while Nathan manages to keep TLG from braining himself on hospital equipment more than, like, twice...

Eventually we make our way down to my room (I get to walk without assistance!  So novel!) where I change into a gown and they start my pitocin drip at the lowest possible setting.  It's about 3:20pm, and things are very boring, especially for a three-year-old, so I soon take pity on Nathan and TLG, and send them home.  As for me?  I work on some embroidery.  Yes, embroidery.  That's how not-having-contractions I am.

My contractions finally show up around 4:20 (after they've upped the pitocin a smidge), and for all that Common Knowledge is that "oh pitocin contractions are so much worse than natural contractions!" I am here to tell you that statement, in my personal experience, is some grade A bullshit.  They feel exactly the same level of excruciating, so I guess I'm glad I'm not one-upping the worst pain in my life?

Mom shows up not long thereafter.  This is a bit of a coup for her, having completely missed the entirety of my labor with TLG, despite flying in over a week early (her plane was literally landing as he was being born).  She and the nurse sit with me through a couple contractions, and then the nurse asks if I'm ready for my epidural.  At first I'm ready to refuse, to wait a bit longer, but then I think, "...but why tho?"  For real.  Why in heaven's name should I continue to be in pain like this?  I think back to them trying to give me an epidural through my continuous contractions.  Nope.  Far better to get it now, while there are still breaks.

It's about 6:20 when the anesthesiologist comes in to give me my epidural, and immediately I can tell he has a much better bedside manner than The Other Guy.  As a result (and possibly because I'm not forced to hold still through contractions) the process is smooth and as painless as possible (although we still have to do the roll-to-the-the-side trick).  It takes effect and the doc checks on me- I'm 100% effaced, but only 4cm dilated, so she decides I'm still a ways out, and I send Mom home to relieve Nathan on TLG duty.

As I lay there alone, calmly watching my contractions on a monitor, and listening to Little Brother's heartbeat, I muse to myself what a different experience this is from the last time, when I was pushing as soon as the epidural took effect.  The chance to just sort of... chill during labor is... a bit surreal.  But nice!

The doc checks on me again around 8:40, and declares me 7cm and fully effaced, but the baby is still stubbornly at a -1 station, which leads to her saying, "I'll come check on you in about two hours if there's been no action."

The nurses keep telling me that I should let them know if I feel an increase in pressure, and a while later I don't feel an increase, per se, but I feel a definite shifting, away from my rectum and towards my bladder.  When I mention this they hook up a catheter to empty my bladder, and that's that.  Nothing to see here, move along.  They ask me again about any increase in pressure, and I say, "I mean, I feel moderate pressure, but nothing like what I'm feeling during the actual contractions."  

And then... the quality of the pressure changes again (still not increasing, just feeling different) and I'm getting awful heartburn before each contraction, which strikes me as super weird, but I do the sensible thing and call in a nurse so I can request some heart burn relief.  And then for some reason I cannot quit understand, I reach down under the covers to feel around, and it seems to me that my labia are, like, unusually distended, and in fact it sure does feel a hell of a lot like what it felt like when they asked if I wanted to feel TLG's crowning head.

I say tentatively to the nurse, "Um, I think maybe the pressure is increasing?" even tho' it isn't- I just want her to check me, and don't want to look like an idiot if I'm wrong in my suspicions.  She glances at the monitor and sees that the baby's heartbeat has disappeared, so she goes to move the monitor- and can't find him at all.  Then she lifts up the blankets at the foot of the bed, lets out a shocked gasp along the lines of, "His head is out!", and slams a button on the wall.

Suddenly there are four or five very serious, fast-moving, efficient people in the room, swarming around me, and one of them says, "This is happening right now!" and by the time Nathan has made it the eight feet from the couch to my bed, the baby has been born!

And then the doctor walks in, looking very shocked at the situation at hand.* 

But my eyes are all for my new son, who is a dramatically darker purple than his brother was, and then they're toweling him off and putting him on my chest and he's red as a red, red rose, and softer than a moth's wing, and I coo and call him my Sweet Velvety Thing.  Later I will take note of his lovely dark hair, so like his father's, and his adorably cleft chin, so like mine, but for now all I can do is love him unreservedly.

*(Nathan later jokes that we should get a discount since we didn't have an MD do the delivery.)

6 Weeks

Yesterday marked six weeks since I gave birth, and I cannot help but acknowledge that milestone with a profound sense of gratefulness that I do not have to go back to work today.

I remember hitting this point when TLG was small (back when he was still Neeps), and thinking, "How on earth could I be expected to leave him, when he's still so small and helpless?"  Now, Little Brother is much less small than TLG was at this age (like, shockingly less small, who is feeding this child?), but still... how could I be expected to leave him?  And yet that's exactly what my Mom (and countless other mothers) had/have to do.  And it sucks.  So I just really want to appreciate the fact that I have this freedom to keep my career on track and also spend the first few months of my child's life extra-bonding with him.

The Lady and the Milktiger

Once upon a time there was a Young Lady- twenty years young, to be exact- who was, for the first time in her life, going to live alone.  She was an introvert, so this wasn't as daunting as it might have been, and anyway several of her best friends were living in the apartments across the hallway and directly beneath her- but still, it was going to be odd, to come home to an empty apartment every day, and so she decided to get a cat.

She went to the animal shelter with her grandfather, and when they got there a small, pale orange kitten yowled at them, and reached out and popped the Young Lady's grandfather on the head: they took to one another immediately.  The Young Lady, however, diligently walked through the entire shelter and saw all the available cats and kittens, before coming back to the noisy one, who was still "talking" loudly to anyone who would listen.

It would be nice to have someone answer when I say hello, thought the Young Lady, and so she adopted the kitten, whom she dubbed "Milktiger Kink" for his stunted, kinked tail, and the fact that his markings made him look like nothing so much as a tiger cub who had been dipped in milk.

She called him Kink for short, and brought him home to the little one-bedroom apartment, where he did, indeed, fill it with noise.

Kink, as it turned out, was a bit of a hellspawn.  An evil, demonic hellspawn that gave the Young Lady (and others) a number of scars over the course of his kitten-and-young-adulthood.  But the Young Lady had claimed responsibility for his life, and that meant sticking with him, no matter how bloodthirsty and vicious he could be.

Fortunately for the Young Lady, Kink finally mellowed out around age seven.  How much this had to do with her moving him 3000 miles cross-country so she could get married, the world may never know.  But the fact remained that Kink eventually settled down into a perfectly reasonable, non-attack-cat, who shared his human with first a husband, then a second cat, then two rats, a dog, and eventually two small humans who could be a little hazy on the concept of "gentle"- and not a one of them was ever so much as bloodied.

And then one day, about eighteen years after he'd come into her life, the Lady noticed that Kink seemed to be... going blind.

And she knew that the Downward Spiral was beginning.

Or, rather, that it was Accelerating- after all, it had been nearly a year since they'd had to start giving him fluids, and changed his diet to support his kidneys.

So the Lady took Kink in for his annual check up, and the doctor confirmed what she'd feared: he had gone completely blind, his blood pressure was high, and his kidneys were failing.

There were things that could be done to extend his life, the doctor said- but the Lady chose not to do them.  Instead the Lady chose to bring Kink home so he could have a few final days of cheese and tuna and goodbyes to family and old friends.  And then, two weeks later, she took him back to the doctor for his Final Visit.

Because the Lady had claimed responsibility for his life, and that meant sticking with him, no matter how painful.

Good With People

It's been way too long since I put any fiction up, so I thought I'd share this little bit I wrote back in May.  It was a story seed that arose from a discussion about the sorts of people you'd want on your Team in case of Zombie Apocalypse (my Special Forces brother is 100% my Team Leader, so I'll be just fine), and after listing a variety of specializations (hunter, gardener, spinner, carpenter, etc), I was feeling like I'd more or less be dead weight.  The only thing I might have going for me is, in the immortal words of Martin Blank, "a certain... moral flexibility".  Which immediately got my writer's brain a'spinnin' about how White Collar Peeps might survive the Apocalypse, and I sat down and pounded out the following.  And then left it there, because I didn't actually have an idea for a narrative, just the characters for what would essentially be a glorified fanfiction of myself (in which my stand-in is way more bad ass than me, and those inspired by others in my life are slightly less so, so as to make more room for my stand-in's bad-assery).  I recently had a conversation that kicked off a tentative idea for what the point of the story might be (hence this was back on my mind again) so we'll see.  I'd like to do NaNo again this year, all 50k words since I'm on Parental Leave, so maybe I'll use that time to dive deep on this one...

Anyway, enjoy this unearthed noodling, and hopefully there will be more fiction in the near future!

***

The Apocalypse happened about fifteen years ago, while my mother was pregnant with me.  I don’t remember life Before, and my brother- four years older than me- doesn’t really, although occasionally he’ll surprise me by having a personal familiarity with something like “milkshake”.

We don’t live “near” anyone.  No one does, these days. Well, some people do, people trying to rebuild the Cities, but Daddy says they’re short-memoried idiots.  But there’s about a handful of us families that look in on one another, none closer than about five miles, and we all get together about once a month for trading and courting and that kind of thing.  Mama says they’ve all been carefully vetted, they’re all the “right” kind of people, by which she means sensible folk. My brother says dryly that the Apocalypse did a pretty good job vetting our species in general, but talk like that always makes Mama angry.

“There were a lot of good people who died, a lot of smart people who just got unlucky,” she’ll say.  “Not to mention the smart people who got lucky enough to survive, but were a hell of a lot worse for us than the dumb ones who died.”

Daddy says we were smart, and that’s why we made it through the Bad Years.  Mama says we were smart, but also lucky.  “Being smart just lets you take advantage of good luck when it comes along,” she says.  “And good luck comes more often to those who don’t count on it.”

“Smart, and lucky, and ruthless,” Daddy will say, and kiss Mama.  Mama says nothing. I know she considers being ruthless part of being smart.  And I know she considers the biggest piece of luck having been married to Daddy.  Daddy is the one who knew how to survive in a world suddenly stripped of modern technology.  Sure, it was theoretical knowledge, knowledge he’d gleaned from a passionate interest in history, but between the two of them they turned theory into practice, and even refined it in places.  And Daddy’s the surer shot when it comes to hunting anything on the move. Mama has said multiple times that we might have survived without him, but we never would have been so comfortable.  Daddy always says we’d have done just fine.

“There’s no stopping your mother, boys,” he’ll say.  “Once she puts her mind to a thing, it gets done.”

Daddy used to work with computers, before the Apocalypse.  People would have problems with their computers, and he’d use his to fix them.  He’s explained it to us a couple of times, but it’s sort of hard to understand. And Daddy says there’s really not much point in trying to understand, because we’re not likely to get computers back on any sort of a widespread scale anytime soon, and even if we did, they’ll be different.

Mama was something called a financial planner, which she says was even more worthless than what Daddy did.  “I made a lot of money helping people prepare for retirement,” she says. “But when the Apocalypse made money obsolete, it became apparent that all I really did was tell stories.”

Mama is good at telling stories, tho’, and she’s a super-good planner, so I’m sure she was good at her job, even if there’s no such thing as “retirement” anymore.

Mama had a passing interest in history, but not like Daddy.  She always liked art and literature and philosophy best, which she says are all very important things to individuals and societies, but not very good for building shelter or putting food in our bellies.  She’s much better with people than Daddy is, tho’. Better at charming them, better at bargaining with them.

Better at killing them, when it needs to be done.

It's Hard

So remember when I was all, "Why did I think having a newborn was 'boring torture'?  This is fine!"

...I remember now.

See, once that initial New Baby Adrenaline is past (ie, once you've had 2+ weeks of no more than 2 hours of sleep at a whack) it starts to get really, really hard.  I'm in that place right now.

It helps that I know it will pass- in fact I know it will pass in just another month or so, and while it will still be hard, it will be a different kind of hard, one considerably more well-rested (mostly).  And it helps that when I posted about wanting sleep more than anything, several friends reached out just to say, "You've got this."  And it helps when my husband reminds me that he is perfectly capable of cleaning the kitchen himself, and to take a freaking nap already.

The Golden Angel and the Dark

I am now the mother of two boys, both of whom, for the moment, are rather Angelic.

please disregard my inability to sketch baby heads.

I know this is not a state of affairs that is likely to last for the next 12-18 years, so I figure I'd better enjoy it while I can.

You may recall that TLG was not originally on board with getting a Little Brother, but that we eventually brought him around.  Well he has stayed around, and he is stoked as hell about LBB.  He helps me with diapers, lets me know when I need to feed Little Brother (you know- in case I hadn't noticed the grousing infant) and bestows millions of kisses upon him.  For his part, LBB is still kind of indifferent to TLG, although he did smile at an appropriately-timed moment in response to TLG tickling his feet, so who knows.  Strangers things, Horatio.

When we got the anatomy scan of LBB the tech switched it over to 3D, so we got to see LBB's facial features- and we were pretty shocked by how much he looked like TLG.  Once he made his Exterior Debut, however, two Main Differences jumped out immediately:

1) He has his father's dark hair
2) He has his mother's cleft chin

TLG was born with sort of medium-brown hair, and it shocked exactly no one when, after he rubbed that initial fuzz off, the new growth came in golden.  Blond/e babies are fairly ubiquitous in both of our families (Nathan notwithstanding), so it was more or less expected that any child of ours would follow suit.  LBB is the first grandchild on either side (that's one in fourteen, mind you) to come out with truly dark hair, and we're hopeful he'll grow up to be as black-maned as his father.

As for the chin- I'll admit, I was a bit wistful when TLG showed absolutely no evidence of my ancestral chin-dimple, and in fact I spent probably way too much time staring at the aspect in question, attempting to will an indentation into existence (and possibly also poking at it in an attempt to encourage one to develop... don't judge me...)  So when I first saw LBB from not a crown-down angle (visibility is limited for that immediate, skin-to-skin contact) I literally let out a little gasp of delight and squeaked, "He has my chin!"

See, the beautiful thing about TLG is that he blends our familial features so perfectly that it's really hard to consistently say, "Oh he looks like so-and-so!"  More often it's a certain expression he makes that has us going, "Oh yeah, he's related to Cousin _____ for sure."  But with LBB it's like he's taken specific traits that are immediately identifiable as one or the other of us, and arranged them in the best possible way.

Other differences include:

-LBB has a wider mouth (but whenever he makes a moue it looks exactly like TLG's, especially in conjunction with their identical noses)
-LBB has a wider jawline, which right now codes as a rounder face
-LBB is built on longer/narrower proportions than TLG, and in fact he may end up being a throwback to my paternal grandfather, judging by his feet

Granted it's been all of three weeks since LBB emerged, so we'll see how it all pans out.  But in the meantime- genetics, man.  Some crazy stuff.

Baby Chewed

I have to admit, I'm pretty happy to have my body back.

Now, when I say "back", I don't mean it in the glossy-mag, "Get Your Pre-Baby Body Back!" way.  That, as I have covered before, is more or less impossible, because bones.  I just mean I'm happy to be able to take a full breath, eat a full meal, fully empty my bladder, and not be constantly running my belly into objects.

Also it's nice to see my ankles again.

Which is not to say I'm not eyeing by body with a mind towards getting it back into "fighting-trim", once I'm cleared for/feel up to exercise beyond gentle yoga and slowly meandering around the block.  I've definitely been taking stock of New Changes, and working to restructure my mental image of myself to encompass said changes.

One of the New Changes is a fine display of new stretchmarks (or "tiger stripes", as I like to call them).  I already had a decent collection on my breasts and hips from making it through Puberty (and carrying excess poundage through my early twenties), but (much to my surprise) the TLG pregnancy didn't really result in any new ones.  This time around, however, I carried lower than I did with TLG, and as such I've acquired some new, raspberry-colored tiger stripes on my (still quite rounded) lower belly.

So I was staring at those in the mirror the other day, and at my not-perky-but-heavy-with-milk breasts, and the silver on display in the roots of my hair, and the phrase, "baby-chewed" kept going through my mind.

And I felt inordinately pleased.

You see, "baby-chewed" is not my phrase.  It's a phrase used multiple times by Robert Heinlein when describing older mothers (including grandmothers and great-grandmothers).  His characters describe them admiringly, as beautiful with their soft stomachs and pendulous breasts, as being very attractive and desirable, because their bodies have been lived in.  These women are also very intelligent and accomplished, of course, because that's how Heinlein characters roll, and it's clearly stated that these inner qualities are a large part of their beauty.

(Heinlein also had a thing for redheads, which, uh, might also have had in influence on the more shallow end of my Personal Beauty Standards...)

This attitude regarding the beauty of a lived-in body (in spite of other, somewhat problematic aspects of his writings) was a very healthy one for a prepubescent girl to be exposed to, because it embedded itself into my psyche at an impressionable age, and left me feeling a lot more comfortable with/looking forward to Signs of Aging than our culture deems Appropriate for Women.  For example, I remember being thrilled when I finally started getting crows' feet, a reaction which puzzled more than one person of my acquaintance.  But I like having evidence of much I smile!  And now I'm feeling pleased with my new tiger stripes silently proclaiming that this shell of mine has carried life multiple times.

Love the skin you're in, people- the more lived-in, the better.

Tomorrow's To Dos

Back in the mid-80s, when my brother was born, my mother was working full time at a bank.  She saved up all of her sick and vacation days, and managed to get take six whole weeks before she had to go back to work.  Ah, the days before the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Fast forward to 2015, when TLG was born: I was able to patch together short-term disability, sick days, vacation days, and (by the grace of Washington State) unpaid days to give myself four full months off.  Of course, by the final few weeks I was actually paying my company rather than receiving a paycheck (in order to keep my benefits), but for our family the expense was worth it.

Not too long after I returned to work, my company realized that their Parental Leave Policy wasn't exactly in line with their espoused values re: maintaining a work/family balance, and changed it so that primary caregivers get sixteen weeks off- fully paid- to bond with a new child.  At the time I was glad to see them make the change (if a bit rueful that they hadn't done it six months sooner), but now I'm absolutely ecstatic about it, because here I am, reaping the benefits.

Of course, the situation is slightly different this time around; in 2015 I was the Admin Guru, whereas now I'm the Financial Advisor, and therefore have a lot more flexibility with my job (in other words, I can work from home as need be).  So even tho' I technically have four months wherein I'm not required to so much as look at the stock market, because I have a sub in place... realistically I don't have it in me to keep my fingers out of work for that long.

I'm nearly halfway through my third week of Parental Leave, and I've already dipped a toe back in (primarily just checking my email every other day).  I must say, it's nice to be able to do it on my own terms, rather than because I have to.  And honestly, I'm pretty physically/mentally/emotionally wiped out by about 1pm, so I'm not good for anything else just yet, anyway.

Unfortunately, my deeply-rooted psychological desire to Be Useful and Productive doesn't care that I'm still physically/mentally/emotionally recovering from Giving Birth*, and so in an attempt to keep myself sane, I've developed the following Coping Mechanism:

Every night, after writing in my journal, I make a short To Do List for the following day.  Sometimes there's just one item on the List (Saturday: attend nephew's birthday party); today I had eight (one got added after I did something I decided I deserved credit for); but most days it's three-to-four easily-achievable items.  So when I get up in the morning, at my Peak Energy for the day, I can tackle those tasks, and get the satisfaction of checking them off.  And then if I get nothing else done that day, it's okay: because I finished my To Do List!  And if I do get additional items done, well... I add them to the list and check them off and feel ultra accomplished.

I'm not sure how long I'll keep this going- maybe until I hit the six week mark.  Maybe forever?  It really is doing wonders for my mental health, which is especially important right now while I can't get in a good workout.  We'll see.  In the meantime,  I'm going to wrap this entry up, so that I can check off the final item for today:

_X_  Blog

*(and Jerk Brain makes it difficult to accept "keeping infant alive" as An Accomplishment, although obviously it totally is)

Second Thoughts

(or, rather Thoughts on a Second)

Well here we are, less than a week from my Official Due Date, and I've got an already-week-old newborn laying next to me on the bed.

(Turns out all that week 37 nesting wasn't jumping the gun, after all.)

I'll get around to Little Brother's Birth Story in the next month or so, but in the meantime I wanted to ruminate a bit on how The Second Time Is Different (At Least for Me).

First of all, let me assure you, Gentle Readers, that I absolutely do love Little Brother as much as I love TLG; I do not see him as a threat to TLG's resources; and basically everything everyone told me about how It Was All Going to Be Okay, was totally true.

So thank goodness for that!

Now that we have that out of the way, the main thing I've noticed is how much easier it is to enjoy the newborn stage.  I'll admit: I was kind of dreading having a newborn again.  I kept repeating the phrase, "Boring torture" to describe my recollection of the experience.  Fortunately for me that's not really the case this time around- due to a combination of factors, I think.  I'm just so much more chill, because I've been here, survived that- already learned all the diapering tricks, the nursing hacks, and how to recognize the all-importance Emergence of Patterns.  So I can spend less time freaking out about The Right Way To Do Things, and more time just appreciating his ultra-soft-skin and long, mobile toes.

The other thing is that, in retrospect, I'm pretty sure I was suffering from Postpartum Anxiety with TLG.  At the time Nathan and I were on High Alert for me to develop Postpartum Depression (given my history with depression in general it didn't seem like a stretch), but I didn't even know that PPA was a thing.  I just thought all parents felt like I felt- that literally any time I didn't have eyes on my child he was probably dead and it was all my fault.  I thought that all new parents would lay in bed, terrified to move because if they got up and checked then the baby would actually be dead, and not just... probably dead.

Yeah.  I thought that malarkey was normal.  That is not normal.  And the fact that I thought it was normal just goes to show how screwed up my brain had gotten.

I do not feel that way now, thank all the stars.  I think I now have actually normal levels of anxiety- I only check to see if he's breathing like once, maybe twice a day, instead of constantly.  I can sleep at night (in two hour increments, sure, but I will take it) rather than having a hideous "my child died in his sleep" movies playing on permanent repeat in my brain.

It makes for a much more relaxing experience all-around.

Pride (Words for a Memorial Gathering)

(As always, this is what I wrote, but not necessarily what I said.)

***

When I was young child, I felt sorry for the kids who had two "Grandmas".  How confusing it must be, to have the same name for two different people, always having to throw on a modifier to clarify who you were talking about.  I took smug pride in my possession of an "Oma", obviously the superior arrangement- just as German was obviously the superior ancestry.

Oma and I got along brilliantly when I was small: she taught me about important things like proper silverware etiquette, the best kind of bread to feed ducks, and how to behave in a sauna.  She would spend hours cooking and baking with me, or watching the dramatic performances I dragged my little brother into, or swimming with me in pools and lakes.  She would blow bubbles for me to chase, and we were special friends.  Our relationship was a simple one, and easy.  We loved one another.

As I got older, and began the transition into adulthood, it became apparent that I had a lot in common with Oma- and that commonality lead to, shall we say, friction.  Both of us smart, both of us strong-willed, both of us so certain we were right.  I struggled between wanting so badly for her to be proud of me, and not wanting to care at all what she thought.  She would bait me, and I would overreact.  Our relationship was a complex one, and not easy.  We loved one another.

I got older still, undeniably a woman by anyone's measure.  I brought Nathan into the family and I swear- I swear that was the best thing I ever did for my relationship with Oma.  She adored him, and her adoration of him made her think better of my decision-making abilities.  And I was more confident in my self and my life choices, less likely to take offense where none was intended, and more able to laugh things off.  Our relationship became mature, and good.  We loved one another.

And then, almost four years ago, I had my son, TLG.  Oma was getting older, more physically fragile- she couldn't play with her youngest great-grandson in the garden as she had with me, but she could- and did- admire him as he wore her own son's handed-down lederhosen; could give him little cars to play with; could blow bubbles for him to chase.  Their relationship was a simple one, and easy.  They loved one another- and it enriched my love for her.  I think seeing me as a mother enriched her love for me, as well.  Our mutual respect deepened, and we were proud to be called similar.

The last time I saw Oma, she was in a garden, surrounded by people she loved, and who loved her.  TLG was using Opa's cane as a wizard's staff, magically "turning" us into various animals.  Opa became an elephant, Nathan a newt- but then TLG turned to Oma (better known to him as Ur-Uma), and said, "Poof!  You're a lion!" and she smiled and laughed, tired from her recent medical ordeals, but delighted by his choice.

A lion, I thought.  How appropriate.  Not just because she was born under the sign of Leo, but because she was strong and fierce like a lioness, protecting and providing for her family, her pride.  Queen of her surroundings by sheer force of will- and the ability to roar when necessary.

She is gone now, which adds some complexity back into our relationship, but the love remains as strong as ever.

As does the pride.

Mini-Memorial

We are getting ready for bed, and I am explaining to TLG that tomorrow we are going to up to Olympia, to see Ur-Opa.

"I think he must be very sad," says TLG.

"Yes, he is," says Nathan.

"He will need a big hug," I add. "You can tell him you're sorry that Ur-Oma died, and that you love him. That might help him feel a little okay."

I go on to say that we will be dressed up nicely, because we will be going to a Memorial Service, where we will share memories and stories about Ur-Oma.

"Why?" he asks.

"Because that is what you do, when someone you love dies," I say. "You tell stories about them, and remember, and it helps with the sadness."

"Me too?" he asks.

"You can if you want to," I respond. "Do you have a story about Ur-Oma you'd like to share?"

"Yes," he says, with all the innate, unflappable confidence of a 3-year-old.

"What story would you like to share?"

He hesitates. "Um," he says, obviously thinking hard. "Ur-Oma died,"

"Yes she did," I say. "But did you want to share a memory about her?" His little brow furrows, and he continues to think.

"Hugs," he says at last.

"She gave you hugs?" I ask, just to clarify. "And you liked them?"

"Yes!" He beams up at me, pleased with his answer, and my comprehension. I smile at him, stroking his hair and thinking, it took me nearly two hours to write the tribute I plan on delivering tomorrow... but his is probably better.

Nesting With My (Big) Baby Bird

This weekend was devoted to capital-N Nesting.  Like, I even wrote it on the calendar, you guys- that's how serious about it I was; no work appointments today, by golly- I have a car seat to clean and install!

I made a whole To Do List, which is not in and of itself particularly surprising (To Do Lists are How I Roll), but I did have some doubts about my ability to get all the way through it, given my Extremely Pregnant and Slightly Anemic State.  But I did get through it, Gentle Readers- I did!  Everything on the list got checked off!  And what's more, I didn't do it alone- Nathan helped quite a bit, but (more importantly to this particular blog entry) TLG helped, too.

One of my main tasks was to wash all of the newborn-to-three-month-old-clothes that I'd saved from TLG's infancy (/since received in anticipation of Little Brother's arrival), and TLG stood right there with me, happily transferring all the tiny little outfits from the hamper into the washing machine, one after the other.  And then he later transferred them into the dryer, and finally back into the clean-clothes hamper  He is delighting in his impending role of Big Brother, and it makes me so, so happy to see him so happy.  I can only hope the delight will survive Little Brother's actual arrival...

We are now 100% ready for Little Brother to arrive, at least from a purely pragmatic point of view: car seat installed, bassinet set up, clothes washed, diapers and wipes ready and waiting.  Really, when it comes right down to it, everything else is gravy, and since TLG got himself born at just shy of 39 weeks, I felt getting The Essentials set up before the end of week 37 was just good sense (please no one laugh too hard if Little Brother decides not to make an appearance until after his official due date...).  There are other things I'd like to get done before D-Day (that's D for Delivery, you know) but I'm not going to sweat it if I don't get around to them.  (#parentingveteran, amiright?)

Now, in terms of emotional preparedness... that's another topic, entirely.  I find it interesting that I seem to have greater affection for this unborn child than I did for TLG at the same stage, a feeling which I can only credit to TLG already expressing his pure and uncomplicated love for Little Brother.  He hugs my belly, kisses it, giggles delightedly when he feels kicks or sees movement, and talks excitedly about how Little Brother will be born this month!  I see his love, and of course I love what my child loves (hence my re-found ability to discuss dinosaurs at great length), so therefore I love this newest uterine pirate in a way I was incapable of fathoming during my pregnancy with TLG.  Plus, you know... after two miscarriages I believe I was holding myself at a Bit of a Protective Reserve, whereas now I know it's entirely possible this baby will make it!  Woo!

But even as I'm feeling all this warmth and affection for Little Brother, at the same time I also have very real concerns about my ability to love him as much as I love TLG, once Little Brother becomes a reality rather than an idea.  Intellectually I understand that hormones will eventually kick in and I'll love him unreservedly, just as I did TLG, but my heart worries I'll only ever see him as a threat to TLG's resources, and never be able to bond properly.

I'm told this is a common (and entirely unfounded) concern.

Here's hoping.

Listening to Sad Music So That I Can Cry

My Oma died today.

(Oma, of course, being the German word for Grandmother: in this instance my Mom's Mom.)

It wasn't a surprise at all- she'd had a stroke back in May, was hospitalized/in rehab for about six weeks, and we all knew that basically the goal was to get her well enough to come home to die.

And she did.  So at least there's that.

I got the call while I was at the playground.  Nathan and I had taken TLG and my best friend's son (whom we were babysitting this weekend) to run off some energy, and thank all the gods Nathan was literally standing right next to me when I got the call, able to put his arm around me and be a solid presence grounding me.

It was my mom, and her voice when she said hello- I knew.  And I cracked a joke because that's how we roll, and we both laughed and cried and then I had to lock that shit down because I had two little boys I had just told I was taking for ice cream.

I'm proud of my ability to compartmentalize- it is extremely useful is emergency situations.  But the problem is that it's a lot harder to unlock that emotional box than it is to lock it in the first place.

Even after we were back to our typical Family Unit of Three, with Nathan occupying TLG downstairs so that I could have some Alone Time upstairs... nothing.  Numbness.  And I feel like I can't talk about it with TLG until I can express honest emotion.  Right now I'm too detached, too clinical.  I a not a healthy model of grief.

Hence I'm now working on this blog entry, forcing myself to face and process things, and listening to sad music for good measure.  Sometimes you just have to artificially jump start the emotions before they'll flow properly.  Priming a pump, or something.  I don't know.  I don't have it in me to make elegant metaphors, at the moment.

And just like that, it's working.

Counting Down 65 Days

or: Yes!  I'm Pregnant Again!

All swanky at a Work Event.

Hey, remember how last time I was all, "turns out I'm really terrible about not mentioning the pregnancy while I blog,"?  Well that remains a true statement, hence the extremely extended silence.  But I let the fetal cat out of the social media bag this past Sunday, so here I am doing a write-up on the blog.  And it's important to me that I start blogging with regularity again, since it's so fun to look back at TLG's first year of life through my in-the-moment lens.  I'm trying not to shortchange this new one, whom we are calling Little Brother amongst our little family, but whom I'll call LBB (aka Little Baby Boy) on the blog (for now- the TLG -formerly-known-as-Neeps taught me the folly of expecting pre-birth nicknames to stick).

Now with that out of the way, let's hit the other Typical Questions

-My due date is August 30th (aka 65 days from now) but based on past experience, I'm laying money on August 24th or sooner.
-As you may have surmised, it's another boy!  We are freaking stoked, because (as I exclaimed during the anatomy scan) this means we don't have to learn a new set of genitals!  Winning.  Actually I have a funny story about this- TLG was dead set on having a little sister (he wanted to name her Rosie, of all things) so when we broke the news that Little Brother was, in fact, a little brother, he wailed, "Nooooo!"  I got it all on video- priceless.  But we talked him around by pointing out that I have a little brother (Uncle David, whom he adores) and Daddy is not just a little brother but the littlest brother, so now he's on board with the idea that little brothers can be cool, and more importantly, little brothers look up to big brothers, who get to teach them All The Things.  We'll see how long this enthusiasm lasts once the squirming larva is actually here, but for now I'll take it!
-Just like with TLG, we have no clue what LBB's Real Life name will be.  We have a list of names that we'll choose from once we actually meet him, but for now... LBB it is.
-Yes, this is the Last One.  Steps Will Be Taken to ensure it, I assure you.

There, that ought to cover it, for now.  Here's to our future adventures as a Family of Four!

Father's Day 2019

(How's that for a distinctive title?)

It's been somewhat of an Emotionally Weird Father's Day.

Let me explain.

It's been five years since I've had a truly Terrible Father's Day- that being the one that occurred right after the second miscarriage, and Nathan and Katie and I got lunch at Red Lobster and the clueless waitress said brightly to us (a trio of extremely quiet, mid-thirties people eating lunch at 2pm with no children in our midst), "Are you here celebrating Father's Day?"

(Read the room, lady.  Read the room.)

The 19 years preceding that, they'd run the gamut from "Crying most of the day," to "Hey who wants the day off because I will definitely take your shift and get some extra money out of this stupid made up holiday!"

But then TLG came along, and the game changed.  Suddenly it was a Happy Day again, with an actual reason to celebrate, and warm, tender feelings for my Lifemate in his role as Lifegiver.  It gives me great pleasure to be able to anticipate the made up holiday with joy and expectation, to be able to make it into a Special Day (or at least a day with Special Moments) for my mate.  The Specialness I had planned for today was helping TLG make a card for Nathan, taking him to the second service of church so he could see Daddy play, and then going out to eat wherever Nathan wanted (not Red Lobster...)  Nathan obviously left the house at his usual way-too-early time (since he plays for both services, and gets there early to run through things), so I was alone as TLG scarfed his breakfast downstairs and I ruminated my Costume Choices.

In the end I felt a very powerful call to wear an old shirt of my dad's leftover from his early Air Force days (Yep, a ~40 year old t-shirt.  It has exactly one tiny hole in it, the result of a too-enthusiastic cat.  They do not make things like they used to, that's for damn sure.)  I didn't put much thought into it, just "Yes, this is a good shirt to wear today, to remember my father in a non-painful way."

But then... someone actually asked me about the shirt.

"Okay, I have to know," says the kind substitute pastor gesturing to my back.  "Who is JP 13?"

"Oh," I blink, taken off guard by the question, and suddenly realizing it wasn't perhaps totally appropriate to wear a shirt that says, "The Hell We Can't" into my husband's church.  "JP was my dad.  And 13 was his..." I fumble for a way to translate into Civilian Terms.  "...class... thing."

"Class of 2013?"  The pastor eyes my obviously late-thirties-self with a smile.  "I don't think so,"

"No no,"  I wave my hands helplessly.  "Not the year.  Their class number.  Like a squadron.  It was from some training he did after he graduated from the Air Force Academy.  They... they got to design their own patches and..."  I stretch the front of the shirt out, as though somehow he hasn't already noticed, "They chose squeezing blood from a turnip.  Obviously.  And I, uh... I decided to wear it in remembrance of him today."  Sorry about the 'hell' thing, I add mentally.

"It's a wonderful remembrance," he says, and I like him that much more.

The conversation wrapped up pretty quickly thereafter, but the shock of it- of someone who doesn't know me asking, and me actually talking about my father- shifted my brain a bit.  So that rather than "Okay thought about Daddy for 30 seconds this morning now I can put all my focus onto Nathan," it became more of a balance between the two.  The bitter and the sweet.  And I'm not saying it's bad, or that I'm upset it happened.  But it added an emotional nuance to the day I wasn't expecting.  And I may or may not have teared up a bit at the end of service when Nathan was talking to the congregation about what it means to be a good father.

Anyway.

Overall it was an extremely good day.  We had (a very late) lunch at Thai Orchid, and then Nathan went to the guitar store for a few hours (because I firmly believe that Mother's and Father's Days ought to be about the parental figure in question doing something for themselves) while TLG and I hung out at home.  And now I'm going to bed, because I am of an age where Good Days include Early Bedtimes.

::sigh::

Milestones (and Their Observation)

In order to gear myself up to write an Epic Marriage Milestone Post, I (reconstructed and) listened to "There In Spirit"- aka our Wedding Soundtrack*. And then, excellent music piping directly into my ears, I read back over the blog posts tagged "musings on marriage".  And then I sat and stared at the screen for a while, stumped for something else to add... and then put all that aside and, you know, actually celebrated our Ten Year Wedding Anniversary.

Cheeeeeeese!

It was pretty low-key, as far as these things go- I've said before that a wedding is not a marriage: it stands to reason that neither is an anniversary (no matter what Big Diamond would like us to believe).  My Lifemate and I have been a bit too busy having an extremely full and chaotic life together to worry about making an Artificially Big Deal out of a party that happened a decade ago.  Which is not to say we made no deal of it- we played hooky from work, loaded all four of us into the car (yes, Isis got to come), and headed out on a three-hour road-trip to Newport for some fresh fish-n-chips and a visit to the Aquarium at the Coast, a treat we've been promising TLG for a long time now.

ROAD TRIP AAAAHHHHH!

Boy loves him some "chips".

TLG was pleased as punch to spy a megalodon.

Life sized.  For real.

When we left the Aquarium it was shockingly sunny and lovely out, so we decided to hit the beach...

The wind was up!

...where it promptly hail stormed on us.  But then, considering it rained on our actual wedding day, I chose to take it as a little wink-wink-nudge-nudge from the Powers That Be.

(And then tried real hard not to take it too personally when it stopped the second we made it back to the car after a half-run up a suddenly-much-longer trail...)

From there we went to get some ice cream ("Just what you want when you're wet and freezing," Nathan joked, but ice cream had been promised earlier, and therefore ice cream would be had.) (I had something called Oregon Trail and it was delicious) and then it was back on the road.

(we DID get this conciliatory rainbow on the way home)

We'd managed to time just poorly enough in regards to Rush Hour that a stop at the outlet mall was a welcome distraction, and I ended up getting a pair of long-needed winter boots for a very nice price (happy anniversary to me).  TLG fell asleep for the last half-hour of the drive, which means I got to just pour him directly into pajamas/bed when we got home, and Nathan and I actually got a chance to watch a movie together (it was Aquaman, and it was on the enjoyable side of okay).

Exxxxcellent

So yeah, I don't know that I have anything Truly Profound to say about being married for ten years.  No new insights, nothing particularly poetic.  Just...  I'm glad I married him.  Glad he's been there holding me for the best and worst days the past decade has held.  Maybe there really is something to the whole Entanglement thing, that my falling in love with him as a teenager had less to do with who were were at the time and more to do with the many years we'd spend as partners in the future.  ::shrug::  Or maybe I, art-major-turned-financial-advisor, really have a fundamental misunderstanding of theoretical physics.  Who knows it's a mystery I guess.

One last thing to share- the "traditional" theme for gifts for the ten year anniversary is tin or aluminum.  Originally I booked a lesson in tin-type photography for Nathan, but the people I booked through lost their classroom space, so we switched it to a family portrait done in tin-type.  I'll share that once we actually get it done... Nathan's mind was working along similar lines, and he got three of our Bonnie-and-Clyde-themed Engagement Photos (taken by my Katie!) printed on aluminum in matching heights, so I can make a nice display at my office (or in the new house- we'll see!).  (For the record, we would never go on a mass-murder spree.)  (And if we did, we'd be a lot smarter about it.)

LOOK AT WHAT BABIES WE WERE!

So there you have it- ten years of marriage in the books.  But now that I've already written an entire entry, I'm suddenly feeling the need to keep going just a little bit longer... so let's break those ten years down into smaller Milestones, shall we?

A little over one since I changed careers.  Three-and-a-half since our first child was born.  Nearly five since we lost Koopa.  Nearly six since we lost the first baby.  Seven since we brought Isis home.  Eight since we moved to Vancouver and bought our first house together.  Nine since our first trip overseas.  Ten since our Wedding Day.

But... that's not really where it began, is it?  Let's go further back.

Ten years and two weeks since we eloped to the courthouse, giggling like fools.  Eleven-and-a-half years since I packed up my life and relocated 3000 miles to see if we could work as a couple.  Nearly twelve since we had the conversation that would lead to said move.  Nearly fourteen since we decided we could never be together because of our different faiths, and had our first (and what I thought would be our only) kiss.  Twenty since I confessed I was in love with him and he told me he didn't think of me that way- but we stayed best friends anyway.  And twenty-four since we met and bonded over bouncing crawdad eyeballs in Freshman Biology.

So yeah.  We've had a lot of Milestones over the full course of our relationship with just-as-much-if-not-more importance than "a decade of marriage".  And I look forward to hitting many, many more on the way.  Cheers!







*I actually put together over four hours of carefully curated (and mixed!) music for our entire wedding/reception (oh hello there control-freak-nature), but for the Album Itself (which was sent to those of our Nearest and Dearest who couldn't make it to the Official Shindig) I pared it down to a mere Twenty Significant Tracks:

Heart Asks Pleasure First (Ahn Trio)
Sunrise, Sunset (from Fiddler on the Roof)
Wedding Day- Duet With Heidi (Seal)
Love You More (Alexi Murdoch)
And I Love Her (The Beatles)
Hairy Trees (Goldfrapp)
Wildflowers (Tom Petty)
Lucky (Jason Mraz feat. Colbie Caillat)
Alabama Chicken (Sean Hayes)
Wontcha Come Home (G. Love & Special Sauce)
Untitled (Interpol)
Bitter Sweet Symphony (The Verve)
Holding Out for a Hero (Frou Frou)**
Singin' in the Rain (Mint Royale)
I've Got You Under My Skin (Ella Fitzgerald)
Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
Gamble Everything for Love (Ben Lee)
Surfer Girl (The Beach Boys)
Delirious Love (Neil Diamond)
Let's Get It On (Marvin Gaye)

**I can't actually get this version on Spotify, so I had to pause my Official Soundtrack and pop over to YouTube...

A Woman Walks Through a Park

I'm on my habitual Afternoon Walk, a 20-30 minute affair that takes me through the neighborhood closest to my office, and includes a portion of a trail that loops around a local park.  I'm on the phone with my Mom, whom I haven't had a good conversation with in almost two weeks, so I have a lot that I'm blathering on about, both personal and business, all at a reasonable volume.

I'm not sure when, exactly, the blond man gets onto the path ahead of me- I'm not paying particularly close attention to him or any of the other half-dozen people in the park, most of whom appear to be itinerants.  But I do notice him walking, ponytail swinging, maybe ten feet ahead of me.  He takes a side trail out of the park into the neighborhood, the same one that I typically follow.

When I exit the park, now out of sight of the others, there he is- standing still, watching me intently.  It's a little creepy, but hell- maybe he's meeting a friend.  I walk past him, still talking loudly to my mom about mutual fund families (don't judge).  As I pass him (within grabbing distance, I now realize, but I wasn't thinking in those terms at the time) he says, "You're really pretty."

"Thanks," I say, somewhat curtly.  I appreciate the compliment, but I am, quite obviously, on the phone.

"What are you doing later?" he says to my back.

"Working," I say, with more of an edge of my voice.  It's 3pm and I am wearing a business suit.

"Hey, can I get your number?" He calls, now that I'm over a block away.

"I don't think my husband would like that," I say, not turning, but raising my left hand to let my ring flash in the sun.  One the other end of the phone my mother says, somewhat incredulous, "Are you being harassed right now?"

"Yep," I say, teeth gritted.  He doesn't say anything else, and he doesn't follow me, so that's the end of that, fortunately.

Sort of.

Because, you see, now I'm annoyed.  I'm annoyed at the guy for being so rude as to talk to me when I'm already having a conversation, but mostly I'm annoyed with myself.

Why did I even answer him when he asked what I was doing?  And if I was going to continue to respond out of some bizarre sense of politeness, why did I fall back on the coward's excuse of a male partner's displeasure?  Why didn't I just say, "No." like the independent, unapologetic woman I am?

Why why why.

I mean, I know why.  Because if you say "No" they want to know why not.  Always.  Or maybe they just call you a bitch, thereby jumping ahead to the exchange's natural end.  If you throw up a "hey-another-male-has-already-peed-on-this-object" excuse, they have a salve to their pride that lets them retreat gracefully (or sometimes they perceive it as a challenge, but that's another set of stories altogether).  So yeah, I know why I did it, but if anything that only increases my annoyance with myself: what the hell, O.  Way to take the coward's way out.

(Or, to put it another way, the safe way out.)

It's so hard, sometimes, to live up to our own ideals.  I'll just have to try to do better, next time.

(Because, sadly, there's always a next time.)

Judith Slays Holofernes XXX

I bore silent witness over the evening as Holofernes’s personal aid hustled drunken men from the room, one by one, until only the four of us remained.  And then he let himself out, shutting the flap securely behind him.

Holofernes leaned over and whispered something in my Slayer’s ear.  Her face colored prettily, but she smiled and said, in a condescending tone I’d never heard from her before, “Ku-Aya, remain where you are until you are called for.”  Then the two of them rose, each bearing their flask of wine, and retreated to what I assumed must be Holofernes’s bed chamber.

A sickness began to roil my stomach, but I told it sternly that whatever happened in that chamber was nothing more and nothing less than what my Slayer wished, and if she needed me, she would call me.  But she would not need me- warriors do not need scholars in the midst of a battlefield, nor widows their handmaidens in the boudoir.

They were not so far off that I could not hear, faintly, the murmurs and sighs of pleasure, the rustling and jostling of silks and skin.  I turned my eyes to the tent’s ceiling and recited a few particularly archaic Egyptian spells to myself in a futile attempt to keep my mind elsewhere.  The movements I heard became more frantic, and then- dear stars, it sounded as though they’d torn down the bed curtains in their passion. Now my face burned, and to this day I could not tell you if it was embarrassment, shame, or envy.

And then- silence.

“Ku-Aya,” my Slayer called softly.  “Bring us towels.”

My eyes flew open in shock, but I quickly shoved it to one side.  I was a maidservant, after all- although she’d never requested such ministrations of me during her husband’s lifetime.  I set my jaw and found the towels, wet one with perfumed water, and brought them into the bed chamber. As I’d thought- the bed curtains had been pulled down around them.  Holofernes, wrapped contentedly in the hangings, appeared be sleeping already, head burrowed in his pillows. My Slayer, however, sat straight-backed on the other side of the bed, naked but facing away from me.  I walked around to her, careful not to trip on any of the strewn covers.

Because I was watching the floor so diligently, I did not at first see what my Slayer held.  No, what I saw was a think trickle of blood making its way down her ankle.  I felt a surge of rage that she’d been so treated, and as my eyes flew up to her face I did see, at last.

It was a head.  The head of Holofernes, those cold eyes now blank with death, was cradled in my Slayer’s lap.

The fingers of her left hand were twined tightly through his black hair, in her right she held, loosely, a curved blade of bronze.  Both it and her torso were stained crimson.

“Will you wrap it for me while I clean myself?” she asked softly.

“I- I-” I stammered, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

“It is best done quickly, Ku-Aya,” she said gently, “So that we may be away.”

The realization that we had never been in more danger shocked me back to my senses, and I took a renewed grip on the towels.  “Of- of course, my Lady,” I said.

“Thank you.  Then place it in the satchel, and help me dress.”

My head was swimming with questions, but I did not ask them.  I felt… I felt that, Watcher or not, it was not my place to know.  All I needed to know- all the Council needed to know- was that the water demon was dead by decapitation.  It mattered not the specific circumstances. I took the head in one of the towels, then wrapped it in another, and did as my Slayer had bade me.  She, for her part, cleaned first the sword, and then her body, until she looked no more or less rumpled than one might expect after a night of drinking and… excess.  The sword she replaced where it had hung by the head of the bed.

“It’s a pity,” she murmured.  “It felt beautiful in my hand.”  She gave it a final, loving caress, then turned away, face unreadable.

Once everything was arranged so that no casual observer would take alarm, we removed ourselves from the tent, ignoring the sidelong, knowing glances of the guards.  As we had done every night, we walked out into the desert, me with our sack of provisions on my back. No one thought to stop us, just as no one thought to order a chaperone for us.  After all, if Holofernes himself had not thought it necessary, why should they?