I'm not going so far as to say they paved paradise, but there is a point to be made

I'll move on to other, non-pregnant topics soon, I promise. Or at least intersperse these posts.

In case you are already all, golly geez heckfire! Is this all we're going to hear about for the next, well, ever?!

But look at this. Look how little my waist was, a scant few months ago. Look how lithe and happy I was! I took it for granted! I didn't even think I was that thin!

Clearly, it's like that Joni Mitchell song.

I know I'm barely preg, and I've gained maybe a pound or two, but man, my pants are tight. Not just in the stomach. But in the ass as well. My thighs are pulling the material so my pants do that weird whisker thing. This! This seems really unfair.

So I realized. It would be a lot more convenient if I could be pregnant in my ass rather than my stomach. That would feel all kinds of familiar to me.

Because I am one of these people who carries weight pretty much exclusively in her ass and thighs. I gain weight, it heads straight there. I'm used to having a butt. I've spent years dressing to flatter a little waist, not much in the breasticle area, and an ample ass and thighs. I'm good at that.

This dressing for more boobs and an ever-thickening stomach? While still trying to manage the ass business? When that's expanding as well?

What am I supposed to wear?

Aaaaarrrggghhhh!

The pregnant

First of all, and really mainly, thank you for all your lovely comments and congratulations! You all are just the best - so kind and thoughtful and enthusiastic.

I really was worried about posting about it, and I want to hug you all. You made me feel really good. Particularly in a period where I generally feel like crap pretty much all the time.

Plus it is such a fucking relief to be able to talk about it.

Nick is really excited. I'm excited. And terrified. And exhausted and bitchy. And a number of other things.

You'd think the knocked up would be an easier thing to post about than a lot of the other super-personal information that I share. But it was scary. Because I've been holding my breath, ready for it to just go away at any moment. And it still could.

I'm at nine weeks, which means four to go till thirteen, which is the end of the first trimester, and apparently when your risk of miscarriage drops significantly. But you just don't know.

And did you know that this whole business is 40 fucking weeks? More than nine months! More like ten! Did you know this? I did not.

I felt kind of tricked. A whole extra month. That's almost as long as an elephant - they're pregnant for 13 months, I think.

Honestly. But anyway.

I was trying very hard to wait until that point. And then, sometime last week, Nick got comfortable with the idea of talking about it. And the truth is, you really don't know what's going to happen. And it's just easier for me to live life out loud.

I hate keeping secrets. I mean, I can keep other people's to the grave. But my own exhaust me.

And this is something I think about in some way practically every single minute. Mostly because I'm so fucking tired. All. The. Time. And my pants don't fit. And I can't drink. And I get out of breath walking up one flight of stairs. And I briefly and irrationally loathe my husband for something completely ridiculous approximately once a day.

Like, suddenly I'm all, "Does he have to pour his tea that loudly? Dickhead."

Or something equally stupid. I'm not kidding.

It's even worse with strangers.

Anyway, I still have a fuckpile of work. January is shaping up to be craptacularly busy in the work department.

Clearly the preg-work combo is doing nothing for my epheral attempt at profanity reduction. It has kind of gone out the fucking window at this point.

The good news is, I just don't think it would bother me to have profane children.

Conveniently and hintfully illustrated little personal item

I just came across the documentation of the North Dakota sticky buns on the camera.

Also, I have some news. And I've been trying to figure out how to present it. Because it makes me incredibly happy and nervous all at the same time.

Maybe you'll just guess.

So the sticky buns. You open the oven and you get the smell of baking bread and butter and caramelized sugar all together and it is seriously amazing.
They come out at like a zillion degrees. And the pan is heavy. I think it's all the butter and pecans and sugar and just general million-calorie deliciousness. You have to flip them fast, so the caramel doesn't all run out. Nick offered his assistance in this area.
And here they are all hot and incredible. Like little pieces of caramelized crack.
And also? To use a phrase Betty dislikes more than "bun in the oven"?

I'm knocked up!

Practicality above all

I wore a nightgown under my dress to work yesterday.

See, I think I've left you with the impression that I am utterly impractical. And I am not. I realize that I sometimes look ridiculous. But there are often extremely practical reasons behind it.

And here's the thing. It seems to me that you are either a slip person or you aren't. I am in the latter category.

I own two slips, both from my mother, and both longer than most dresses or skirts I own. Plus, for the most part, I don't wear a lot of sheer stuff. So I feel very little need for them.

But I got this new black knit dress, which is really kind of fabulous. And it's just long enough that it grazed the top of my boots, so I don't have to wear tights with it.

But it turns out that while it's not sheer, on particularly dry days like yesterday, it's really clingy. Particularly, and oddly enough, in the crotchal area.

This didn't happen when I tried it on, but I was wearing tights and it was a really rainy day. It clung, but to other, more flattering places.

And the last thing I want to wear is a dress that features my hoo-ha. So I went casting about for slips.

Mine, as I mentioned earlier, are just too long.

The only suitable thing I could find was a nightgown. Which worked perfectly. And kind of amused me.

I commuted to work in my boots, which was fine for the six-block walk from Nick's office. But impossible for all the walking errands I had to do after work. For those, I needed my Dansko clogs, which I'd left at work the night before.

Now, here's the thing. Since I didn't have tights on, I had one of two options with the striped wool socks I was wearing. And these socks, they are great. They're Smartwool, comfy with really funly colored stripes. They are perfect under boots.

It turns out they look idiotic with clogs. But it was too cold for no socks.

My two options were as follows: Pull the socks halfway up my calves, as high as they will go. Pretend it's a look I am aiming for. Or - and this is the one I chose - fold them down to ankle height, thus minimizing the number of visible colors on the socks.

I probably don't need to tell you that I was already a vision in a turquoise wool coat with a slightly paler blue hat. They look fabulous together. They look less fabulous atop screaming white calves. And brown purple green orange stripey socks, tucked into black clogs - although they were significantly less visible outside in the dark.

Though I did catch several people looking down at my feet while stopped at streetcorners.

I wanted to lean over, wiggle my eyebrows, and say, "And I'm wearing a nightgown underneath all this fabulousness."

Pinkstravaganza! Or, a girl after my own heart

My friend Marta - of the lesbian shoes, among other things - will occasionally accuse me of having influenced her daughter in utero.

Although I would like to take a moment here to say that I do have some practical shoes. In fact, we have the same pair of Dansko clogs. For some reason, though, mine are taken less seriously. Hers are lesbian shoes, while mine are "Lisa's bi-curious footwear."

Anyway.

We met while she was pregnant, and we worked for a terrible, vile, horrendous, make-Canada-smaller, harpy. You know how fast friendship bonds are formed in wartime? It was like that. The misery of working there drove us to consume many, many pounds of M&Ms.

So when Marta's daughter was born, there was no indication that she'd be any different from her mother. But as she aged, she showed a distinct preference for all things sparkly. And shiny. And high-heeled. And pink.

Marta blames me. And the M&Ms.

Whenever Marta wears anything remotely resembling heels, her daughter just gets all breathlessly happy. Marta is certain that, left to her own devices, she'd spend a week in my shoe closet. She wouldn't even need a babysitter.

What I am getting to here, though is this. I got a very preppy belt for Christmas from Nick's sister. It's pink with shells on it. It is nice, but the kind of thing I would never, ever wear.

And the only person in the world I know who loves pink more than I do is Marta's daughter. She put it on immediately. She loved it.

And the next day she arrived at the breakfast table dressed for school in an outfit she felt would best feature The New Belt. According to Marta, it wasn't worth an argument. She went to school in the clothing featured above.

I laughed so hard when I saw that picture. And then, then I thought back to a variety of things I've put together.

We're not so different, she and I.