phew... i think

well, this post is about a week late, but by sunday my life got so busy that posting on this seldom read, slightly-secret blog did not seem like a high priority.

so, the "phew" is i'm not pregnant. i didn't even have to take the test because by saturday night i began to notice the early traces of what was by sunday definitely not implantation bleeding. i went through a lot of emotions as my thoughts traveled from "i think i might be pregnant" to "i'm definitely not pregnant." fortunately, despite a bit of depression, none of these feelings were outright sadness. i was mostly glad because as i waited for my ., i realized just how bad the timing would be... i would be about 5 months pregnant when i went out to look for a job (generally, not a draw for future employers). assuming that i could even get a new job, i would only have about 3-4 months of working at full salary before the child comes... so not a lot of savings. additionally, my sister-in-law is 5 months pregnant with her first child, so how would i tell them without feeling like i'm a follower or trying to take some attention for myself. even worse, i would be the follower, so i likely wouldn't get as much ooh-ing and ahh-ing from my folks as i would ideally like (selfish, i know, but at least i'm self aware enough to admit it). so, all told, i was really not excited about the timing, and it really is a good thing that i am not pregnant... yet.

that leads me to some of the less pleasant parts of not being pregnant. the first is that i thought i was. and i know i'm not the first, but it sucks to be wrong. you think you know your body, and here it goes playing tricks on you. the second is that it made me start wondering if i could make babies. i know it's really premature, and i think i've read too many of the infertility blogs, but it seemed like the timing was right in terms of when my . started, so i don't know why we wouldn't have conceived. it's also not the first "close call" we've had. but, as mil wisely advises, it's not just a matter of timing... there are other things at work. i believe i read somewhere that even when the timing is perfect, there's only a 25% chance of conception. so, i should really just chill. and i will... until the next time this happens, of course.

symptom checklist

10. Tender, swollen breasts - check
9. Fatigue - check
8. Implantation bleeding - no
7. Nausea or vomiting - check
6. Increased sensitivity to odors - maybe
5. Food aversions - eh
4. Frequent urination - nothing new there
3. A missed period - waiting
2. Your basal body temperature stays high - huh?
1. The proof: A positive home pregnancy test - waiting on that too (mil is preaching patience... i figure i should give the old . a fighting chance first)

so, yeah, the bottom line is i might be pregnant, i might not. woo-hoo!

I heard that sharing your internal monologue on a blog is a sign of pregnancy.

internal monologue

i'm glad mil and i have this secret little blog of ours... if only for self-indulgent ramblings like this. about a week and a half ago, i began to notice a rumbling in my tummy that wouldn't go away. for a brief moment i thought about how mil and i have been less than religious about birth control in recent months and wondered to myself if this might be the early stirrings of pregnancy. i quickly pushed the thought out of my mind. this is far from the first time i've felt an oddly-placed twinge and imagined it the first quake of parenthood. as the week went by and the rumbling continued, i couldn't quite put the thought to rest. it kept springing back to life.

this week the slight queasiness is joined by an odd taste in my mouth... sort of like the lingering taste of morning breath combined with the slight metallic feeling of having just brushed your teeth. of course i've read enough blogs to know that odd tastes are part of the list of early symptoms of pregnancy, and i've read about the super-sense of smell that develops, and occasionally i'm sure i have that too. but then again, i've read so many of these websites, and as a psychology major, i know the awesome power of suggestion. i can't trust myself. as soon as i firmly believe that i am, in fact, pregnant, i start second-guessing myself. i am still getting cramps... my boobs don't hurt too badly. (but, then again, they usually hurt more at this point in my cycle.) coffee still tastes good. it's all in my mind... as surely as it has been the last five times i've felt this way.

anyway, i'm confused. i feel like i should know myself better than this. lately, whenever i say something like, "i've been really clumsy lately," mil has taken to responding, "i read somewhere that clumsiness is a sign that your pregnant." i've gotten that bad, people. only a day or two till i should get my ., so i guess i shouldn't have to wait too much longer to find out. then i can look forward to the same thing happening next month... yay!

Sometimes you feel like a nut...sometimes you don't

Hi, my name is Abe Froman.
You're Abe Froman?
Yep.
The sausage king of chicago?
That's me.

Well anyway....another day quickly fading away and I have a lot o crap to do. Exams and lab reports and MCAT studying....it's nuts I tell ya....NUTS.

gloomy sunday

i'm home. listening to billie holiday. knitting a bit here and there. picking up the paper every now and again. stealing bites of chocolate when i feel so moved... i can't quite pick myself up. i should be doing homework. i know. there is plenty of reading on my syllabus and papers due at the end of the week. but nothing is rousing me from my self-pity. i really just want to see mil. he has a way of making the mundane seem special. sitting around finishing up a paper or reading an article doesn't seem quite as dull when he's around. he'll distract me with kisses or cuddles as the mood strikes, or he'll just put some classical music on and read along with me. unfortunately, these days there isn't much time for those random moments of affection -- the mcat class, the study group, and other pre-med occupations pull him from me most of the weekend. so, i spend a lot of time with the bird. it's just not quite the same...

I used to work at a very large music store in times square. I worked there for about 3 years and it was pretty freaking cool. Basically got to listen to music all day and cell a bunch of crappy music to people who didn't know any better than buying an album at a store in times square. I recall very fondly the shirts that we were required to wear while "on duty". They were black, had the logos, and said STAFF on them in multiple places and yet people still came up to us and asked if we worked here. I was pretty sure that all of those people must have been freakin blind. One time I was sitting on the main floor organizing a section of understock when a very large guy with a scraggly bad 80's metal hair came over and said "hey do you work here" and I said "no, I'm just here on the floor for fun" (I must have been in a pretty bad mood) at which the gentleman replied something to the effect of "You don't talk to someone from brooklyn like that, I'll beat your ass you little SOB. Don't you f**k with me....yadda yadda yadda." Now anybody who knows me knows that I am a pretty skinny guy and there is no way in hell that I would have ever been able to take him, however, this store employed a great many large security guards who happened, very much, to love busting people and it did cross my mind (somewhat like Mike Newhouse's logic that before anything gets out of hand we would be pulled apart (obscure movie reference#1)) to throw at least one punch at this loser. "Loser" is loosely defined since my life at that particular moment had me on the dirty floor of a record store with no other goals in life and little or no possibility of any kind of advancement. So no I did not do anything I walked away with a red face as the gentleman was still talking crap about me and hid out in the stock room because this guy freaked me out. You can be sure that, despite my disdain for anyone else that came into the store who asked a question like this, I didn't make any smart ass remarks.

I once worked a 24 hour shift to prepare for a sale that was coming up. I don't think I have ever seen that many stickers in my life. The fun part was when we ran out of stickers that had a particular sale price on them and we had to grab a sharpie and roles of blank stickers and spend 20 minutes writing out the same damn number 1000 times.

Overall I had a good time there despite the lack of pay which I didn't fully realize until I started a new job where I got paid every week what I got paid every two weeks at this store.....man that was a cool cool feeling. A feeling I have recently come to miss. Money....damn you money...

Such is life. I am wondering what it was that Mr. Whittington said or did to make the vice-president shoot him. I would personally like to thank Mr. Cheney on behalf of comics everywhere for providing such rich humor for the next few weeks. QUoted from the NYT article by Elisabeth Bumiller and Ralph Blumenthal..."Everybody forgets, Dick is from Wyoming, said J. Robinson West, a longtime friend of Mr. Cheney who runs [guess what he runs!!!..yep] an energy consulting firm in Washington. "What do you do in Wyoming? You fish and you shoot."
so is this guy saying that becuase dick is from Wyoming he should be free and clear to just shoot people? Don't they also tie gay men up to fences in Wyoming?
So I get in my car and drive on highway 85, pull out a gun and start shooting at people and when I get pulled over and arrested I can simply claim that I am from Los Angeles and that's what we do there? The implications are pretty endless...anyone can now rape a girl and simply say that he is in the NFL and that's what they do. Yep I like to cross the line every now and again.....

Well anyway...that's it for now.....have a nice weekend ya'll

so...

clearly, this is taking off... :)

happy valentine's day

i thought it might be fun to try something new... two folks who are bad at posting regularly = one blog that's updated semi-regularly, right? sounds like it's worth a try... so here goes.