Sometimes everyone in my house conspires against me sleeping. The cat, who hates for me to be asleep at night and is the most determined to keep me from sleeping, will do everything in her limited but potent power to end my rest. At approximately 3:30 this morning she decided to clean herself right by my head while I was coming out of my second sleep cycle. This is a cat who rarely cleans herself, by the way. A cat cleaning themselves is actually pretty loud when it is right next to your head. You can hear their scratchy tongue make scraping noises across their fur. Some cats kind of grunt when they really get into it. My cat purrs and smacks her lips. It's important that I was coming out of a sleep cycle because it means that I was more awake than if it was mid-sleep cycle and more prone to realizing that I must urinate. I poured that cat out of bed, got up, and stumbled to the bathroom.

I do not wash my hands when I pee in the middle of the night. I wonder how many people do. I don't because I don't want the stimulation to wake me up more in the night.

Last night, or this morning, rather, I drank some water after peeing. I did this because I think I am dehydrated lately. I got a leg cramp in the middle of the night one time last week. Anyway, I made my way back to bed and looked at the clock along the way. I was very excited that it was only 3:30 because that would mean that I would have another 2 1/2-3 hours before the wee one would wake up. I laid down and my husband rolled over and got out of bed. He was awakened and realized he had to pee, too. He didn't tell me this but I know it anyway. I got comfortable and started to feel the pull and drag of sleep taking me in when he returned to lay down. CREAK. His side of the bed makes loud noises when getting in and out. He settled down and I adjusted myself one more time to be in my favorite sleeping position which requires two pillows and the complete covering of my hands so that my cat is not tempted to nibble on them, another trick to wake me up. Then...SNORE a few breaths in and out and I am drifting back to sleep...SNORE...a few breaths...SNORE. Sigh. I put my hand gently on my husband's side. I said, "You're snoring." He said, "Okay," and changed positions.
I laid awake for half an hour listening to his sporadic snoring and thinking about other shit. Every once in awhile I would elbow my husband but it was useless. Every third or fourth breath is a snore and there is nothing I can do.
Getting up, I grab my pillow and book and make my way to the living room. The cat is eating her crunchies and looking triumphant. I am up.

I expected there to be some recent posts from some livejournal friends but there wasn't. I was kind of bummed about it because I haven't been posting either. I was hoping for some inspiration.
Well, I am bored at work so that means I have nothing but time to write. It looks like I am busy this way because my hands are furiously pecking a way and I am scowling.

My grandmother is visiting my uncle, her son, and seems incredibly uneasy on the phone. I think she knows that she is losing her mind and it makes her uncomfortable to be in a different place. She is going to her daughter's house next and I can hear the trepidation in her voice every time she talks about it, which is a lot because she forgets that she already talked to me about it a few minutes before. Poor Grandma. I try to be patient with her but she repeats herself and doesn't remember things that I told her or doesn't remember them correctly so I end up repeating myself a lot too. She is my last living grandparent and I am incredibly fond of her. She is the nicest person but is kind of a ding bat. The thing I don't know is if she has always been a ding bat or if it is truly because of her age that she is this way. As a kid I always took for granted that she, like all adults, knew what they were talking about. Now, as an adult, I'm amazed at what she and others don't seem to have even a simple grasp on, like geography. Anyway, going further with this will make me seem like a brat so I'll stop, especially because I don't know everything either.

A mother’s love for her child is unconditional and absolute. A mother is supposed to die for her child if called upon, like in Harry Potter. This is what you are supposed to believe. And why not? It is a beautiful sentiment. But it isn’t always true. My mother doesn’t love me because alcohol has poisoned her ability to love. I want her to quit drinking but she cannot or will not; I’m not always sure which is the case. So because I want her to quit drinking and she cannot or will not, I continue to be unloved by my mother. She cannot love me while having a relationship with alcohol. It is as though alcohol is a person and there is no room in her life for anybody else.

This has not saddened me in a long time but as Mother’s Day approaches and I now have my own child, I can’t help but reflect on this issue. I am consciously trying to keep the feelings about my mother separate from the relationship I have with my child. I don’t want to burden my child or my relationship with her with feelings about my own mother. However, I can’t help but wonder what effect my feelings about my mother will have on Sadie. I will try to make sure that there are mainly positive things for her as a result of my feelings. 

I am truly excited for Mother’s Day for the first time ever because for once it means something to me. The idea that I have this, which is admittedly a Hallmark holiday, to share with my own child is so amazing to me. I know that she won’t be making me a macaroni necklace, or something like that, but it will be enough just to hold her in my arms and lavish my love upon her.

Sometimes I want to walk down the street and see beauty, order, and smiling faces instead of filth, chaos and people doing naughty things. 

I know that I have never really been cool. There is "nerdy cool" and maybe I fall into that category but I'm certainly not "classic cool" if you know what I mean. Now that I am a mother and am hauling around a baby with all her life-sustaining gear, I am apparently not only not cool I am a complete idiot-dork. This was made obvious to me yesterday at All City Coffee in the neighborhood of Georgetown. It is the neighborhood where my husband works, which is why I was there to begin with, and can be defined as industrial hipster Mayberry. There are some cute shops and really good restaurants and this coffee shop that I mentioned. I thought I would hang out there until my husband was done with work as I was driving the car that we share and had planned on going to Costco with Jordan once he got off of work.
I approached the coffee shop pushing the car seat/stroller contraption and carrying what I consider to be a really cool diaper bag but is a diaper bag nonetheless. A guy with steel grey hair and heavy rimmed glasses was a few paces in front of me and entered the coffee shop but couldn't be bothered to hold open the door for me. I guess he just didn't see me or maybe he did and wanted to make sure he got his cup of coffee before me in case they ran out or something. As I entered this coffee shop the silence slammed into us and immediately caused Sadie to awake from her rare car seat nap and start hollering. Like most newborns, she is uncomfortable with silence, especially when sleeping. I popped her favorite pacifier, what we sometimes refer to as her BFF, into her mouth and looked around expecting to see at least a few people look our way with smiles. Instead, we got an eye roll and a sneer.
The guy ahead of me gave his order to the barista and while I waited for my turn to order I quieted Sadie down. Or maybe it was the sound of steaming milk that quieted her down. Regardless, she was quiet, which is exactly what we needed in order to blend in. I gave my order and looked around to figure out where we were going to sit. Pretty much every window seat was taken by people who were gazing into their lap tops instead of out the window. I sat down at a table next to a couple who seemed like they had been deep in conversation. I would have sat elsewhere but with the stroller it was kind of my only option. They apparently hadn't hashed everything out from their conversation and they were so obviously pissed off at one another.
I sat down and readied Sadie's bottle for when she realized we weren't leaving the quiet place for awhile and she was hungry. A guy in the corner had taken over the one and only couch and stared off into space over the top of his computer and clearly was not doing anything. Why couldn't he do nothing at home so that I could have the couch? I gave Sadie her bottle and sipped on my cappuccino and creepily observed people as they came in. A guy with tattoos all over his body came in and another guy in the line asked him how business at his tattoo shop was going because he heard that tattoo parlors were recession proof on NPR. The tattoo guy said that business was exactly the same as last year. So apparently people will spend their dwindling discretionary income on tattoos. Another guy came in with his Jack Russell terrier and proceeded to attend to the dog's needs in pretty much the same way I was tending to Sadie's. The difference was that people smiled at him and his dog while Sadie got the stink eye. I can honestly say that while the dog was cute, Sadie was and will always be much cuter. It was so weird to be in a place that was so hostile to babies. Usually, Sadie brings a smile to people's faces, even the most grumpy seeming people. She couldn't touch these hipsters, though. Perhaps if I had dressed her in the hot pink Ramones onesie Jordan got for her, she would have at least gotten a smirk.
I have learned an important lesson from this experience. Just because I have a cute baby does not mean that we are welcome everywhere, especially hipster coffee shops.

I had a dream that I was pregnant again but I couldn't take FMLA when the baby came because I already took all 90 days alloted a calendar year with Sadie. Thank God I got that IUD put in a few weeks ago. No Irish twins here.

I had a revelation the other day. I was waiting for the library to open at 1:00PM, which is too late in the day to be opening libraries if you ask me, when I sauntered over to the community center. There were all these kids, little kids, playing in the gym. They had their caregivers with them and I thought that it was cool that there was a place for little kids to play and be social. I realized then that with stuff like this in the community I could be a stay at home mom. Until that moment I thought that there was no way. Obviously, Jordan and I aren't made of money so I really can't be a stay at home mom but it was nice having the thought that it would be okay if that were my situation.

I dreamed that I was a drifter and I witnessed a terrible, violent murder. A man with the movements and strength of an ape climbed this old house and tried to enter through the chimney. When he couldn't, he kicked the door down and then I was transported inside the house and I could see him beat up this old lady. Even though I was a drifter I had a cell phone. I called 911 but I had no idea where I was and it took forever for the police to come and I was afraid that he would kill me if he knew I was there. I think this dream is a combination of the images conjured up by novel The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy and the recent chimp attack. I woke up and I was breathing really hard and was very upset. I couldn't sleep after that.

Getting fitted for a bra is not something I would normally do. Well, that is a lie. I have done it before at Macy's where the "fitting" was a half-assed measurement with my clothes still on. Because it was half-assed I thought that I would never get it done again. But then I found myself at Nordstrom, or Nordy's, as it is sometimes affectionately called around here. People seem very fond of Nordstrom in Seattle, I guess because it was started here by a dude selling shoes to miners going up to Alaska back in the day.

I ended up at Nordstrom after enjoying a macchiato at another Seattle institution, Starbucks, where I had a free coffee drink coupon. My husband astutely understands the need I have for some variety in my day and so I left the two loves of my life to read a book and drink a free cup of coffee last night. Anyway, afterward at Nordstrom I was looking at bras not really knowing my boob size. My breasts have gone through some tough shit lately after being pregnant, breast feeding, and then not breast feeding. They will never be the same again. As I was considering which bra to buy, thinking I would just buy it and try it on at home and then return it if it didn't fit, this nice young sales lady asked if I had time to be fitted.

Next thing I know I am topless in a dressing room with this nice young sales lady. Thinking I had to explain myself I told her that I just had a baby. I looked at myself in the mirror as I said this and it hit me how tired I looked. I told her something I had been feeling for the last month, which is that I feel used and put away wet. She felt bad for me. Of course, I was way off on my size and because she was so nice the sales lady had her way with me. I bought two bras, one of them made in France, and spent $160. Maybe I was vulnerable and she saw her opportunity for a good commission. Maybe she just knew that I needed a French bra. Either way, my boobs look great in these bras, especially the French one.

I just wish they had a person who would help with jeans.

I'm feeling anxiety about not having a car available. Zipcar doesn't have cars at the community college any longer so signing up would not be too convenient.

I had a baby and now she is here. The labor was horrendous. 6 days of increasing torture culminating in a doomsday scenario of vacuum extraction, or else...C-SECTION. Ugh. As difficult as the recovery has been it would be way worse if I had had a c-section. The recovery has been surprisingly difficult. Water, blood, and hormones. They are all surging toward every pore fighting to get the hell out of my body. My body is rag, trying to wring itself dry. Eleven days later I am beginning to feel and look like myself.

Everything looks like breasts. I was preparing a rutabaga for a pot roast and all I could think of was how full and round it was. As I took out a bit of the leafy top, I was reminded of a nipple. My breasts have been attached to my body just sitting there for 30 years doing nothing. Now, they are everything. They are the difference between life or death for my child. They were failing me at first but now they seem to be on board with sustaining life but only reluctantly.