2 months old

Dear X,

Today you turned 2 months old. I can hardly believe you have been our outdoor baby for two whole months. At the same time, it seems as if you've been with us forever; I can't imagine my life without you. Your mommy and I have been so busy with you and our crazy lives that I missed writing down details of your first month, so this note will have to serve for the first two months of your life. Since your birth, you have changed so much I'm not sure where to begin. Perhaps I'll just mention all the amazing things you can now do, with notes about when you started doing them if I can remember.

At two months old, you are working very hard on figuring out how to roll over. You lie down on your tummy on Clancy mat and think really hard for a few minutes and then push really hard and try to make it, but you aren't quite there yet. At about six weeks old, you finally got chubby enough to be able to wear your cloth diapers, which you look really cute in! In the last two weeks, you've starting smiling at us and are now spending parts of each day practicing your winning grin out on all your family. Today, when Aunt C, Uncle D and Cousin S were kissing you goodbye as they begin their trip to their new home across the country, you smiled sweetly at each of them, making them feel loved as they started a difficult new journey.

You are such a sweet, easy child, but you are starting to show us that you have a stubborn streak. You have needs and you want us to know about them right now! You've gotten more talkative in general, and your favorite sounds seem to be "nguu," "kkkk," "aaaaa," and "maaa." In the past week, you've started opening your hands and holding on to things if we give them to you. You particularly like touching your black Sheepie from your Aunt E because it is so soft. You really enjoy standing up when we hold you and push really hard with your legs and lock your knees. Your favorite toy, from what Mommy and I can guess, seems to be Clancy, your stuffed lion that hangs from your play gym. You like it so much that we bought you Baby Clancy, so that you can have a Clancy to take on trips with you.

In your first two months, you have already become a frequent traveler. We went to Washington, DC with Uncle when you were 5 weeks old, and you got to see Mommy give a conference paper at an academic conference. We went to our hometown for Thanksgiving and stayed with your Nana and had Thanksgiving dinner with Nana, Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle T. This past weekend, we went back to the town where your Mommy and I grew up and you had your theatrical debut as the Baby Jesus in the Christmas Pagent at the meeting that I grew up in. You did a wonderful job, no crying at all.

We take you around NYC all the time and you are already used to taking the subway and buses. You went to your first movie in a movie theater last week when Mommy and I took you to my work's Holiday staff gathering. You are charming with all the new people you meet and don't seem to worry about other people holding you. Everyone who meets you can't stop talking about what a lovely baby you are.

Many more thoughts to come next month,
Much Love,
Mama

Good Morning, Son

Input:

Thirty-six hours of labor after rupture of membranes
One round of Stadol
Twenty hours of Pitocin
One epidural
Three hours of pushing
Three applications of the vacuum extractor
One hour of post-birth suturing
No cesaerian section

Output:

X
Born 10/22/2008, 4:42 AM
Six Pounds, Ten Ounces
Nineteen and a Half Inches Long





X was born at 4:42 AM, after 36 hours of serious, hardcore labor. He had been presenting funny, which made the labor very difficult. In part because of the difficulty and length of the labor, he had to go down to the neonatal intensive care unit for a while. This photo was taken right before he and I left Kate to get stitched up.

X was on CPAP (not a ventilator, but lung support) for a while.

Then they moved him from a warmer to an incubator, and took out all his tubes but the IV. (He eventually took out his own IV, because he is a badass little baby.) He got transferred to our room late last night, and we were all discharged this afternoon.

Market Failure

We got a bunch of baby clothes at X's second shower last weekend.  In fact, we've totally avoided buying clothes, since we knew people would buy them for him, and we're saving our money for things that people won't think of.  (Although now Kate's aunt and uncle are buying us a breast pump.  Who knew people were that awesome?)

There have been several failures in this process.

The first is that we've gotten a lot of clothes that scream OH HAI I'M A BOY.  Now, that we got a lot of blue is not a problem.  Frankly, we would have picked out a lot of blue clothes ourselves.  Puppies?  Totally fine.  Trucks?  Um.  OK.  He can like trucks if he wants.  Athletics?  They do realize that he's more likely to be a ballet dancer than a football player, given his family conditioning, right?  A full-scale cowboy outfit, complete with matching hat and boots?

Well, OK.  That one's a little awesome.

In any case, we got clothes that came from the boy side of the store.  Now, I object pretty much on principle to having a boy side of the store, and to the assumptions made in how clothes get assigned to that side.  But, we'll live.  

But there's another thing.

X has a onesie that says "Mommy loves me."  Actually, I think he has two.  And he's got a third that says "Favorite things: Mommy.  Hugs.  Kisses."  They are tremendously cute.  I love them.

Of course I do.  I'm Mommy.  

In most families, these outfits are countered with "My dad is my hero."  (Yes, I saw that one at Babies R Us today.  Seriously.)  "I love my daddy."  "Daddy's little man."  (I may be making that one up.)  But we don't have a Daddy. We have a Mommy and a Mama and an Uncle, and only one of us is getting served by the onesie industry here.

I almost want to write on the "Mommy loves me" onesie with a Sharpie: "Mama, on the other hand, is a little sick of me by this point."  

Uncle's vote is that we're shopping at mainstream/white stores; white people say Mommy, while black and Latino people say Mama, so if we headed out of the mainstream and into stores particularly targeting communities of color, we might be able to find Mama-themed attire.  Or, at least, Mamá.  He might be right; I'll start digging.

But, in a quest to fix things, I went on makeaonesie.com today and ordered these:

(Extra points if you get why the butterflies on the Uncle one are funny.)

I know there are much bigger lacks we'll be experiencing as queer parents.  But this is the sort of silly little area where accommodation of different family styles could be useful.  Not all mothers are Mommy.  And if someone wrote that on a fucking onesie, I'd buy it.

Dana Scully Never Took Newborn Care Class...

Incidentally, the title of this post should be said to the rhythm of "Hitler never played Risk as a kid" from this clip.

Dana. Can I call you Dana? Apparently everyone else in Season 9 gets to, including Mulder for fuck's sake, and since I am suffering through these episodes, I think I'd like to claim that right.

So anyway. Dana. I know your baby, who you are unable to remember to call by his name, apparently, is in terrible risk from Teh Evilz, in whatever form Teh Evilz are taking at this point in the conspiracy, which I realize none of us know or will ever understand.

But I'm a little more worried about you killing your baby at this point. Honestly, woman, have you read nothing on infant safety, SIDS prevention, and newborn development?

Let's start with this:


Notice how William's face is turned into the blankets? This is prime territory for rebreathing, which eventually causes suffocation. Soft bedding in the bassinet is a definite no-no.

Even though he appears to survive it.

Your mother has the right idea; she's clearly attempting a swaddle here. However, her technique is off; with his arms free to wave around, and the blankets behind his head, he could very quickly undo the swaddle and, again, get into smothering territory. In addition, the looseness of this swaddle doesn't provide the psychological comfort factor that swaddling should provide. So, good attempt from Maggie Scully, but it simply does not pass muster.

Plus: when the hell is this kid born that he needs to have so many blankets on him? Not that time seems to travel at the same pace in the X-Files 'verse as the rest of the universe, but it was not the dead of winter when he was born, which was apparently 48 hours ago; Xena D'Anna Shannon McMahon wore a cute slutty dress in a convertible and didn't appear to be freezing in the teaser. Overheating is another prime SIDS risk factor. Get the kid some of those cute bag things, already.

Hmph. By the internal timeline, William is...four to five days old here, depending on how many days elapse during the events of Nothing Important Happened Today I and II. Pacifiers are not recommended until two months of age because 1) newborns will try to nurse the pacifier and drop it 2) if newborns want to suck they need to be eating, due to their extremely small stomach size 3) nipple confusion and problems establishing breastfeeding if pacifiers are used too early.

None of this is to mention the fact that you gave birth less than a week ago and you are running around looking fabulous and fighting Evilz. You have brushed, washed hair, a shirt without milk stains on it, and literally the hottest coat you have ever worn in the entire series. AND, your whoever-he-is just departed for points unknown, so you are a single parent for the moment. WHY ARE YOU NOT HAVING A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN? Are you superhuman? (Oh. Possibly you are.)

So anyway, Dana, I know things are very stressful. I feel you, I really do. But can I put together a reading list for you? Sit down and have a little talk about baby safety? Please? For William's sake? That is his name, right?

(Screencaps from Chris Nu's site.)

(This nitpicking brought to you by Realbirth's class package: take 5 childbirth classes, and add breastfeeding class and newborn care class for SuperCheap! They're actually really great, NYC-ers; we highly recommend them, especially Erica Lyon, the founder who taught one of our childbirth classes and our newborn care class, and Jeremi, our teacher for regular class.)

(Also brought to you by my lovely wife's screaming at the TV last night, obviously.)

A Trip to the Beach

This weekend, X went to the beach.




His family can be pretty boring at the beach. Especially when they have the new issue of Buffy Season 8. (Best. Comic. EVAR.)



Mama got a new bikini for the occasion. (Mommy thinks she married a hottie.)


X got to swim in a pool for the first time! He really liked it.




Then he went to his first funeral: his moms and uncle buried their kitty, Vodka, who died a year ago.



Then he came home. He likes the beach. He's going back next weekend.

He can dance if he wants to.

It's official. Willa's a he.



And he likes kicking himself in the head. My mother suggested the Simpson Gene. Our donor had hair, though.

At 22 weeks, he weighed 1 pound, 2 ounces. And his legs were measuring two weeks ahead of date. Ha!

While we could keep calling him Willa, we've started calling him by his outside name, and it would be nice to be consistent. So, for Intarwebs purposes, he'll be called X.

No, we won't tell you what it stands for. But, well, you know us. Guess.

Fatherhood

I took these tests yesterday.

32 As a 1930s wife, I am Poor Take the test!

77 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

I have to say, I'm a little surprised. Folks who know me in real life know that I pull off a credible pre-feminist housewife routine, though with a heavy layer of snark on the side. I can my own pickles and put up local produce. I throw dinner parties with the nice china (although lately we've been too lazy to dig out the dinner table so we've been having them on the living room couch). I care about other people's emotions more than my own, I craft, and I like there to be flowers on the table.

It's been a long standing joke about Kate and my relationship that I really, really want to be the butch one, but I fail miserably at it. The best example was our previous roommate calling me the butch one while I sat, legs neatly crossed, doing needlepoint with something in the oven, while Kate sat at the other end of the room, legs splayed, hand down her pants. All it was missing was the beer, folks.

But the thing is, with the baby on the way, I'm sensing something happening. It's not that I'm getting butcher, it's that I'm starting to feel like...a father. I didn't believe this would happen before--I was firmly convinced that my experience was going to be of mothering, just one that didn't include the experience of birth. But I'm not feeling nurturing; I'm feeling protective. I'm not feeling like caring; I'm feeling like providing. (Which is singularly ironic, given that I make about $25K less a year than the wife.) I wonder how much of this package of emotions comes with not being the one carrying the kid around: I can't care for or nurture Willa right now. What I can do is feed Kate, run lotion on her belly, pick out her clothes, make her lunch. When Willa is kicking her in the bladder at bedtime, I can lean my head on her stomach and sing REM songs until she falls asleep, or kicks me in the nose. What I can do now is protect and care for my family, which our culture assigns as a task to fathers.

Maybe some of it is watching the process of growing a kid at a distance, being second to feel the kicks, being the one next to the one going through it. I wonder what is structural, what is cultural, and what is personal in all of this. (And to what extent I feel like a father because I overidentify with a certain fictional character.)

So, readers: do you feel like a father?

(And feel free to share your scores on the tests above. A friend of mine got a -9 on the wife test, which I thought was a little awesome.)

Basketball

We hate the Lakers.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Their terrible color combination. That they were so mean to the Sixers in that first finals we ever watched. Because no group of professional athletes should have such a poor free-throw percentage. That they seem so culturally and athletically dominant. (I also hate the Cowboys. If I managed to care about baseball, I might even dislike the Yankees, though I'm not sure of that, entirely.) Anyway. We hate the Lakers. A lot.

I started this. I saw it was the conference finals, and somehow now we've got five hours of ball a night on the TiVo, which is seriously screwing with my three-week X-Files backlog. (It's season 6. That is, it's the shippiest season until season 7. And then season 8, which wins the shippy awards because, you know, they have a baby.) I just had to watch three whole episodes on fast forward (stopping only for "Dear Diary, today my heart leapt" and "I lack your feminine wiles" and assorted other goodness) and delete this week's Top Chef (which reruns three times in the next 24 hours, so I'm not anxious) in order to see the Lakers not win tonight. WHICH WILL HAPPEN. BECAUSE WE HATE THE LAKERS.

Anyway, it's been a wonderful week of basketball. Every evening, my wife will come over to the couch, and we'll sit curled up under a blanket, her leaning against me, both of us holding onto Willa, who kicks along happily. Kate feels her all the time; I've felt her, but I get distracted by Kate's pulse, which is close to the surface along her belly. I explain to Willa what I know about basketball, all of which was learned from watching the game. I'm still not certain what the rules are for various fouls, in particular why it's not a foul every time someone gets shoved around. (I think I came up with a good moral lesson in the structure of fouls: "Every time you foul somebody, it's wrong. But sometimes, you do it anyway, because it'll make something else better. Still, you have to take your punishment, because it's still a wrong thing.") We've decided we need to actually know the rules of the game before she comes out, so this time next year, when she's sitting on my lap for real, I can explain it to her. And she'll sit there, in her tiny little New York Liberty shirt, and learn to hate the Lakers. Because, really, she should.

Things We Have Done in the Past Month

• Told Kate's grandparents. Upon hearing one of our girl names--which happens to be the name she and Kate's mom share--she said that's what we were calling the baby. Regardless of sex. OK, Nana.
• Told my great-aunt. She thinks we're awfully young to be having children. And it's too close to the wedding. But she's happy. (I love my great-aunt.)
  
• Told the first of our friends. They're all freaking out appropriately, given that we're one of first among our friends to have kids. (The other kid came eight years ago, right out of high school.)
  
• Heard Willa's little heartbeat for the first time. She sounds like a horsey. We heard it for the second time today.
• Willa has become visible to the outside world.
  

• Kate felt the first kick. Last night, when she woke up at 3:30 AM. And a bunch more today. We have bought her soccer shoes already.
• Kate's also had gas so bad she's thrown up. Twice.
  
• Incidentally, I've been writing like a demon. I'm about 7 pages from being done my last semester of coursework, and being able to start in on my dissertation. Whoo-hoo!
• We've been on the road more than we've been off it. Visits to our families, going to a conference and staying with family while there. Thursday we leave for Kate's five-year college reunion. I'm considering making her a t-shirt that says "Yep, it's a bump."
• And I really cannot tell you how many times I've watched this. Or this. Or this.
  

More detailed posts to come. But we wanted to touch base.

In Which The Commune Has A New Favorite TV Show

Why, oh why, fuck why did I not start watching Battlestar Galactica until now? Holy shit. HOLY SHIT. People, it's good. So good. It's actually better than Buffy, and that is something.

Plus, BSG and The X-Files share so many elements that it's blowing my mind. Like hot hot hot women named Starbuck? Badass redheads with a cancer problem? Major male characters who see ghosts, and later are set up as Jesus figures? A major pairing full of not necessarily resolved sexual tension but a lot of cuddly goodness? Teh Evils stealing people's ovaries? Half-human babies as the key to everything? Clones with superpowers? So much awesome there is in this show, people.

So we've watched the entirety of the first three seasons in the past week. As I write this, we are watching Friday's episode. We're going to have to start actually waiting a week between episodes. We may die.

So, anyway. Anyone want to talk about BSG? Please?

Also, I hereby publicly tag the wife to write about our weekend shopping.

Hello there, Teh Intarwebs!

Hi, everybody. My name is Willa.

This photo was taken when I was 11 weeks and 3 days old. My mama went for an Ultrascreen test at the hospital where I'm going to be born (with my mommy for moral support). From what they say, we all went into a little room, and Mama lay down on the table. The nice technician had really good aim, so that the moment she put the sonogram wand on Mama's belly I popped right into view. Mommy immediately started crying. (She's like that. Funny, she's not even pregnant.) I put on a nice show for them all, kicking my long legs, patting my face, and jumping up and down. Actually I put on such a nice show that I gave myself the hiccups.

After a little while, Mama and Mommy got annoyed, because the technician said I wasn't in the right position. I got called recalcitrant, and ordered to move in the right position. Then Mama coughed a lot, which was really annoying, and so I stayed because they were annoying. So Mama and Mommy went for a walk, and Mama even jumped up and down, which was fun. Apparently the tech liked where I was this time, so they were able to get the photo for the test.

Mama and Mommy have been running around being silly since they got the pictures. They keep calling me by my outside-world name, and crying, and emailing these pictures to my grandparents. They even have photos on their cell phones. Silly moms.

Anyway. They just wanted me to say hi. So hi!

When TV speaks the Truth

As heard last night on How I Met Your Mother (which is basically one of two sitcoms I actually like, the other being Scrubs, and HIMYM is better now than Scrubs is) last night:

Ted (to Barney): Dude, do not pretend you're not a guy who keeps a list of all the girls he's slept with.
Marshall: I have one. It's called my marriage license. (He and Lily high-five.)

Me (to Kate): Hey, we have one of those! And our parents signed it, too!

My mom and brother's hands and our marriage certificate.

Every so often, Kate and I find ourselves talking about this time last year, when we were six week from our wedding. Every day it was an insane jumble of callingtherestaurantcallingtheloftcallingtheseamstresscallingourmothers that never seemed to end. We both have dreams, every now and then, that we're having another wedding, and we wake up and clutch each others hands. "I dreamt we were getting married again," we say. "Oh, God, let's never do that. Never ever."

But the wedding itself? Perfect, for the value of perfect that includes needing insane stories to tell about it. And now, look at us, eleven months later, settled and happy with a baby on the way. God damn, we're conventional. And we never have to have another wedding again.

More wedding photos here if you want them.

Reading the X-Files: Mulder and Scully's "Partnership" and the Question of Queer Marriage, Empedocles (8X17)

(I'm going to be doing a few of these as I'm studying the show closely for a paper I'm writing; they're close readings of intellectually compelling moments in specific episodes. For the blog, I'm going to stick to moments about pregnancy, fertility/infertility, parenting, and queer stuff. Hopefully you'll find them interesting.)

There are a million things I love about the X Files:

1. The incredible hotness of the protagonists.
2. The gonzo way nothing ever makes good sense but somehow it is always AWESOME.
3. That there are spaceships and hot girls with guns .
   
4. That the government simultaneously is evil and full of good people who want to save the world.
5. Did I mention the hotness? Oh, I did? Let me say it again. THE HOTNESS.

Tell me you don't kinda want to make out with at least one of these people.

But what I really love is the relationship between Mulder and Scully. Here we have a smokin' hot vibe between two gorgeous people who are totally devoted to each other, which is simultaenously not a standard heterosexual love story. Despite the fact that we get teased about it plenty, we don't get any mushyness until nearly the end of the serious--the first kiss comes in season 7, and it's not even unambiguous that they're involved until season 8, and then just barely. Instead, we see the World's Longest, Smartest Seduction, consisting of moments of comfort and protection as the world is ending, a never-ending procession of banter and flirtation, and a lot of time spent in hospital beds. They reverse typical gender performances: Scully is the scientist, the rationalist, the hard-edged one, while Mulder is all feelings, hunches, instinct. They are equally likely to do caring work for each other, as well; this is a relationship built on equality and cooperation, at work and (presumably) outside of it.

And it gets really interesting when they're having a kid.

The expectant parents and a large pizza.

(OK, ten-second recap: Scully's infertile due to alien abduction, Mulder stole her eggs from the humans who work with the aliens, they try to conceive via IVF and fail, she *magically* gets pregnant with a baby that may or may not be an alien hybrid implanted by the bad guys and simultaneously he gets abducted by aliens, he is returned dead and they bury him, then they dig him up and he's not dead anymore. There's no explicit proof within show canon that they've ever slept together up to the point we're talking about, but there are significant hints, and there has been no definitive statement about the parentage of the baby. Does that make sense? No? Go with it, Scully, as Mulder would say. Just remember the writers were probably high at the time.)

The episode I'm talking about here is Empedocles (TWoP recap; Episode Transcript). This is the second episode after Mulder has come back to life. In the previous episode (Three Words), he has said he feels cut off, out of place, doesn't know where he fits in, and it's clear he means with with regard to Scully and her pregnancy. There is no on-camera discussion of the paternity of the child, although a minor character later asks him about his possible involvement, which results in a Serious Mulder-Scully Mutual Look (if you've ever seen the show, you know what I mean). By my reading, they seem to be on the same page, and that page is that Mulder is most definitely 'involved.' However, his exact relationship to Scully and the baby is left purposely unclear, in part because of doubt that the baby is really human. Three Words ended with Scully driving getaway vehicle for Mulder's bust into a federal data facility: that is, everything normal except for the Scully Waistline Situation (she's at about 7 months, and looks fantastic, as Gillian Anderson always does, even in the early, puffy-hair-and-white-tights phase, and the strange, long-hair-and-sad-looks Season 9 thing).

The scenes from Empedocles that I want to analyze here are 3 and 4 in the transcript. Mulder shows up on Scully's doorstep unexpectedly. They engage in supercute banter: Rational!Scully has an attack of pregnancy brain, Mulder posits the pizza delivery boy as a possible father for the baby, there is a significant double entendre around the phrase "nice package," etc. The attitude is light, lighter than usual for them; the vibe is definitely more couple than friends, but, as with everything on this show, it's not perfectly clear.

There is this exchange:

SCULLY: I feel like I'm stuck in an episode of Mad About You.

MULDER: Well, uh, yeah, but small technicality. Mad About You was about a married couple and we just work together.

SCULLY: Yeah, well, you know what I'm talking about.

MULDER: I do, I do.

This is the show's greatest fiction: they "just work together." People, these folks are in six kinds of lurve. They've called each other best friend, soulmate, touchstone, only person I can trust, and a million other things. He was the executor of her living will as early as season 2. They tried to have a kid together, and then succeeded (I believe). When his body was discovered and then again at his funeral, she was treated as a widow. These people? Are. So. Totally. Together.

But what they are isn't named. The only word they ever use to describe who they are to each other to the outside world is 'partner.' The word was given to them by the FBI, but, of course, it has a double meaning: it's what most queer folks, and a growing contingent of radical folks in heterosexual relationships call their significant others. Mulder and Scully aren't married; in fact, it's meant to be unclear if they are even in a romantic or sexual relationship. (But they so totally are.) The name they have for it is ambiguous: they "just work together." But when Scully says, "You know what I mean," look what he says: "I do, I do." I don't think it's irrelevant that he responds to her assertion (that they've become a quipping sitcom couple, complete with bad pizza man jokes) with marriage words. In that moment, whatever the world thinks, the solidity and commitment of their relationship is established. They're partners. Just the type for whom the word means forever.

Then, crisis. Scully doubles over in pain, clutching her belly. Mulder rushes to her side, orders the pizza guy to call 911. We cut to Scully being rushed into the hospital on a guerney, Mulder holding her hand, the nurse knowing her name. (It's been a dramatic pregnancy.) Mulder corrects the nurse on the gender of Scully's OB-GYN, and we get this exchange.

ER NURSE: Who are you? The husband?

MULDER: No.

ER NURSE: Then you wait outside.

Scully is whisked away, and Mulder is left alone, looking desperate. My beloved wife, at this point in the episode, said "Come on. Everyone knows the right answer to that question is yes." And we know this, because we know if we were ever somewhere without our legal paperwork, the question would be "Are you her sister?" and the answer would be "yes," without a doubt, because there is no way we would be separated. Scully and Mulder, partners-which-means-everything, are separated here becasue they don't have the magic words. Partnership, that safe word that can mean "we just work together" or can mean "we aren't telling the government we're fucking" or "we disagree about the structural utility of the institution of marriage" or "we are too busy saving the world to pick out a china pattern" is here shown to be socially less, to be entirely insufficient at the moment of crisis. He can't do anything but stand there.

Although it isn't explicit, I want to read a critique of the dominance of 'marriage' into this moment. No one watching this show has any doubt about the fact that Mulder should have followed Scully into that ER. After all, they seem to spend all their time in ERs together. It's like date night in X-Files-land. Because this is a "personal" crisis (e.g., neither of them has been shot, abducted by aliens or serial killers, or attacked by goo), the badge-flashing routine doesn't work here, so they are forcibly separated. Because their "partnership" does not map on to our conventional notions of how relationships should be patterned, an injustice is done in that waiting room.

What is the solution here? Is it for Mulder and Scully to get married? Emphatically, no, at least in my opinion. (OK, if they show up in the movie that's coming out this summer wearing wedding rings, I'm not going to be upset. In fact, I'ma squee like the crazy mushy fangirl I am. Not that it's gonna happen.) They don't need to be married. No one needs to be married. Mulder and Scully don't need the approval of God and the District of Columbia to establish who they are to each other. All they need is a Crown Victoria, a pair of Sig Sauers, and an alien invasion to fight.

The solution I would articulate would be to allow people to determine their own words and practices. The question would be "Are you the next of kin?" The metaphysical state of marriage would be reserved for those who desired it (like myself, which I should talk about sometime). The legal state of becoming a family would be available to any arrangement of individuals who agreed to care for each other, regardless of whether their relationships were romantic, sexual, or biological. Mulder and Scully can just be Mulder and Scully (and potentially extraterrestrial fetus makes three). But in a world of compulsory heterosexuality and the sanctity of marriage, Mulder stands on the wrong side of the ER doors, waiting with the pizza men of the world for something to change.

Notes on California

• I've never in my life lived anywhere but the northeastern US. Frankly, I doubt the rest of the country exists most of the time. So it says something Deep and Significant that, within 24 hours of getting off the plane, I was picking out real estate. I really freakin' love the Bay Area. North Bay more than South Bay, but, really, the whole thing. I'd move here in a hot second.
  
• We spent a subtle chunk of our time here checking out potential places for me to teach eventually, in a sneaky way. Today's trip to Palo Alto to wander around Stanford got canceled once we saw how long it would take on the train, but we did get to see both UC Santa Cruz and San José State. The Verdicts: Santa Cruz looks a little bit like if you went to college in a summer camp. I would be worried about possible bear attacks as I walked between classes. That much nature intimidates my urban self. San José is cute, and there is a decent used book store that is apparently run by people who like to make a ruckus--they got arrested trying to pass out fliers at the main campus bookstore.
  
• I've always said I want to raise my kids in a city, mainly to protect against the white-middle-class hegemony of the suburbs, as I experienced them, in addition to my deep loathing of sprawl. But what we've been seeing out here aren't the suburban-sprawl monstrosities of my youth, precisely; they're nice small towns, with walkable centers and functional public transportation systems, located along the outer edges of cities. None of the towns I've seen out here have been entirely car-unnecessary, but they are more car-optional than the town we grew up in; while one might want a car, it wouldn't be necessary for trips to the weekend farmer's market, or the book store, or going out to dinner, if one picked where to live with an eye towards walkability. In addition, Santa Clara County (where we are staying) is roughly 30% Asian and a quarter Latina/o; the suburban town where our friends live is 14% Asian and 13% Latina/o. By comparison, the county where we grew up (which includes one majority-black small city that is geographically and socially isolated from the upper-middle-class suburbs) is 18% black, 4% Asian, and 2% Latina/o. So, is living in ethnically diverse suburbs that are not patterned around sprawl ethically distinct from living in other sorts of suburbs? Is what I want urbanity, or do I just want not to need a car and to raise my kids away from monolithic whiteness?
• It's spring out here. It's tortuous how beautiful it is. And both strawberries AND asparagus are in season already. Seriously, have I mentioned I would move here in a heartbeat yet?
  

Willa By The Bay

Escape From New York Pizza,
at the intersection of Castro and 18th, San Francisco, CA

We decided to celebrate Willa graduating from embryo to fetus by taking her to California for the week.

OK, so it's my spring break, and it was our turn to visit some friends who live in Silicon Valley. Kate survived her first pregnant flight quite well--and without her usual Valium fix to conquer her fear of take off and landing, or even a Benedryl to put her to sleep. Turns out Continental serves palatable gluten-free meals, although their vegan meal left something to be desired (a truly uninspiring veggie burger).

Willa and her mothers are faring well in the lovely Bay Area sunshine, enjoying time with our friends, the brilliance that is the Ferry Terminal Market, and three hours of time change. I'd say blogging might be spotty...but we're staying in the most techno-dense house I've ever been in, so we're probably going to be blogging just as much, because why not?

Also I have a post mostly written about the X-Files. So that'll be coming soon.

Sympathy: A Guessing Game

OK, folks, it's a game. Guess which of these women is pregnant, and which one is merely copying, based on this list of symptoms.

Wife #1:

• Nausea
• Involuntary Napping
• Cravings for Hearts of Romaine (no other lettuce will do)
• Aversion to Bananas and Coffee
• Fuzzy Brain
• Sore Breasts
  

Wife #2:

• Insomnia
• Cravings for Chocolate (especially Mounds Bars)
• Mood Swings
  
• Compulsive Cleaning/Nesting
• Inability to Focus or Complete Regular Tasks

Guess correctly, and you will win...applause? Internet applause?

OK, it's probably not that hard to tell, but I'm finding it amusing. My sympathetic pregnancy is in full swing, y'all.

On fathers and pants

So, it's been almost two weeks since the internets have heard from us. We're fine, our lives are just crazy and getting used to this pregnancy thing is really weird. Over the last two weeks, both our fathers have been in the hospital (different ones, although they are within ten miles of each other) for various serious ailments. We went home this past weekend to be helpful and it made us so tired that I'm not entirely sure that either of us has recovered. Of course, there is the physical tired (which my newly pregnant self isn't coping with well, considering the level of exhaustion I've been experiencing to begin with) and there is the emotional tired, which is more difficult to address but after dealing with our families in crisis is always pretty damn high.

On a non-family of origin note, a few weeks ago, Emily had made a RSS feed on craigslist for maternity clothes and discovered a women from the next neighborhood over given away for free two bags of maternity clothes. At the time we laughed about taking in these clothes SO early, tempting the Gods, etc. And yet, my pants I wear to work have been getting quite snug by the end of the day, causing me to put on pajama pants the moment I get home (many thanks to my mother-in-law, who bought me two new pairs for Christmas.) In a bout of cleaning this afternoon, Emily made me take off my pants so that she could wash them. A very good thing for all involved, but it left me pantsless, which caused me to do something that I've been putting off for a while, trying on all my pants to see which ones still fit. It was kind of sad, two pairs I cannot button, three pairs are quite snug, two pairs will be good for a little while and that's all the pants I own. Laughing at my exertions, Emily suggested that I try the maternity pants in the bag we got. Figuring why not, I went to the dining room and tried them on...and they felt comfortable and fit. This has completely knocked me for a loop. I was kidding when I tried them on. I'm not quite seven weeks pregnant. I have gained 1 pound. Why do maternity jeans fit more comfortably than any other pants? This is feeding into my slight paranoia that I'm having twins. My grandfather was a twin, so I'm not completely making this fear up. My first midwife appointment is until I'm 9w3d, so I have a long two and a half weeks before I get this question answered. Oh my.

The Morning Sickness Cometh

I've been having these waves of something that isn't quite nausea but isn't quite heartburn. I've gotten used to them and I seem to be able to fix them by eating something small right away. I was hoping that this was the worst it was going to get, but, nope, not so much.

I woke up this morning at 6am(my alarm is at 9am) with a really deep sense of nausea sitting deep in my stomach. It felt like the worst heartburn ever and I couldn't fall asleep again and no position was comfortable. I thought it might be bathroom related so I stumbled down the hall, waking up the kitten as I turned on the bathroom light (for some reason she was sleeping on a pile of dirty clothes on the bathroom floor). The bathroom visit not having resolved the issue, I staggered slightly blind in the early morning dark to my purse where I vaguely remembered having left some peanuts. Peanuts recovered I went back to the bed, spent two minutes shoving peanuts down my throat and then was able to collapse back on my pillow and sleep another three hours. So, apparently protein with salt is my morning sickness solution, at least for the moment. I hope this doesn't get worse.

The Circling Sharks are Howling at the Door

I feel bad that I seem to have stopped posting in the last week. A lot of it is that I'm REALLY busy at work and I'm so tired that I'm having to take several naps a day and go to bed early. But there is a little bit of me that is kind of scared to write about being pregnant, because then it will get taken away.

So instead, I will take a moment and talk about my co-workers. I have a wonderful group of co-workers who I enjoy working with and have good personal relationships with most of them. They have been pretty involved with the TTC process, including one co-worker who had the day that I was testing this past weekend on her calendar in the office. (Yes, we are all the entwined in each others lives.) Em and I have agreed to tell a very limited number of people IRL about this pregnancy until we get to April and except for my immediate boss, that means that my co-workers are now waiting with no info and a LOT of questions.

Hence the metaphor of the circling sharks howling at the door. Three of my co-workers have flat out asked me what the test said. And I've replied, as per Emily's instructions: "I have no comment at this time." Which they are totally (and rightly) taking as a YES. I really don't know how I'm going to navigate this next two months of them theoretically not knowing, while I go to the bathroom constantly and look ill every time someone makes coffee.

So, any thoughts on how to pull this off?

Photo Friday: Stop and Eat the Roses

We have a problem with bringing fresh flowers into the house. That problem's name is Wicket. She has a disturbing habit of deciding that, where ever we put those flowers, we clearly intended a cat to be there, because the only purpose that flowers could have would be as a cat snack.

She also feels this way about houseplants.

And leftover Thai food plates.

And water glasses.

So, whenever my lovely wife does something romantic and sweet like finding me fire and ice roses (yes, we have 'our flower,' and I don't care that it makes me a big sissy dork) for Valentine's Day, I get about ten minutes of cooing and burbling about them, and then three days of "WicketgetthefuckoffthediningroomtableIseeyoutheregoddamnit." And when we leave the room, we have to lock the flowers in their own room so we won't come back to shattered glass, electricuted electronics, and one very happy cat with vaguely rose-scented breath.

In fact, she's sitting on the couch staring at them right now.

William The Transsexual Parakeet: A Story (With An Important Payoff)

Kate and I do this thing. She makes me tell her stories for her. Not just things that happened that we both know about: she makes me tell her childhood stories, her college stories, all of them. I'm the storyteller, which is hilarious if you consider that she's the one who wants us to blog every damn thing. Wants me to blog every damn thing, more like.

But anyway, today I'm the storyteller. And this is her story, but I'm telling it for my own purposes. So make of that what you want.

Anyway, when Kate was seven or so, a shed got delivered to her house. And in that shed was a tiny little parakeet. She and her mother and her little brother (who was about four) spent a good deal of time trying to catch that parakeet. Actually, Kate's mom did most of the work, aided by the ever-well-behaved Kate, and disturbed by the less-well-behaved brother, who desperately wanted to pet the pretty birdy. But, in the end, the bird was captured and brought inside. Kate's mom refused to let the kids name the bird for about six months or so, until she had exhausted every possible avenue for finding its original home. After all hope was lost, the kids named him William.

Several years down the road, William became sick. So he was taken to the vet, for the first time ever. At the vet, it was revealed that William was, in Kate's words, Williamette: they had a lady bird on their hands. William/ette's condition did not improve substantially, and about six months later s/he Flew To The Great Shed In The Sky, so to speak.

So, it is in honor of this bird, who managed to live for a time in both genders, who appeared without warning and shocked everyone by sticking around, that we christen the Non-Hysteri-Keet.

Blogosphere, meet Willa. Willa, meet Blogosphere.

Why Willa, and not William? Well, because we've basically decided that it's too hard to play the gender-neutral pronoun game all the time, and that our personal default pronoun is female, so she should have a vaguely female name. However, we picked Willa in part because it references the chromozonal question mark: Willa might be William might be Williamette, and all is well. We'll know when we know, or we won't, and it's fine.

(Oh, and alternative sources for the name include this and this. Look, the one walked the line between genders and wrote one of my favorite novels, and the other is a mysterious production of parents who shouldn't have been able to procreate AND had magical powers as an infant. Either way, it's good.)

What, you want a real story of yesterday morning's positive? Well, maybe I'll tell you. But not today. Willa's mama is demanding dinner, and her mom has some Guy Debord to read. The world continues turning, but it's one Keet heavier round these parts.

Valentine's Day Massacre (Kind Of)

Since Em tagged me to talk about the enormous NOT PREGNANT we got Thursday morning on the CBE digital test, I suppose I should actually talk about it.

We knew at 9DPO that it was too early, but wouldn't it have been so cool to find out we were pregnant on Valentine's Day? Oh well, not to be. I make it sound so matter of fact. In actual truth, I went a little nutty for a few hours. I sat on the couch and almost cried and felt like sitting in the corner and not going to work. However, work is crazy and I pretty much can't take days off at the moment and if I take a day off every time a piece of technology tells me I'm not pregnant, I worry I will soon run out of sick days.

Work was also not very pleasant. I called Emily ever hour and told her how I didn't feel well and she was very nice to me. Later in the day, my hysterical symptoms picked up again, which is leading me to wonder if in fact we did just test way too early. We have decided to wait two days and test again on Saturday. So I guess we shall soon see.

Happy Freakin' Valentine's Day

To quote the renowned C.G.B. Spender:

"Life... is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. You're stuck with this undefinable whipped-mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while, there's a peanut butter cup, or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast, the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits, filled with hardened jelly and teeth-crunching nuts, and if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left is a... is an empty box... filled with useless, brown paper wrappers."

--From "Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man," Episode 4x07, The X-Files

I'd just like to say I bought a good box of chocolates. Mostly caramels and turtles and truffles. Kate appears to be enjoying it.

Oh, and that test this morning? A negative, which at 9 dpo is not shocking. And so drama-causing that I'm tagging the wife to tell y'all about it.

The Hysteri-Keet

We're calling her the Hysteri-Keet.

HK for short.

No, we don't know yet if Kate's pregnant. We won't know until tomorrow at the earliest; she'll be taking an early pregancy test just because it is the first possible day, and it's Valentine's Day, and how amazing would it be to find out we're having a baby on Valentine's Day? Most likely, we won't know until next week.

But her symptoms have been so pronounced that we've been joking about her hysterical pregnancy since last week. This is an example of the traffic game: we can't talk about her pregnancy, about an actual embryo, until we know we actually have one. So it's a hysterical pregnancy we've got here, and we wanted to be able to talk about it by name.

So we named her. She'll get a new name once we know if she's real or hysterical. Kate's thinking of calling her Gabby or Zoey, after her childhood parakeets.

What have we learned about the Hysteri-Keet in the past week? She likes salads. And pasta. And spice cake. She makes her mama feel positively evil around 9PM every day. She demands naps. And every night, we snuggle up in our bed, which is the one place where we've agreed we won't play the traffic game, and I wrap my arms around my wife and our little hysterical daughter and say goodnight.

I have no brain, so Title Goes Here

It seems like forever since I last posted. It's actually been a week. I don't have any reason, except I've just been feeling really weird. As Emily note a few days ago, I've been having A LOT of phantom symptoms. The ones that seem to be staying with me are bloating, heartburn and crying jags. I'm having noticeable cramping today, although until today it had been four days or so. I'm 6 or 7 DPO depending on how one counts it, so I don't know what's up with me. Some women may cry at tissue commercials (Em is one), but I'm a bit of a stoic. I don't usually cry until pushed beyond my limits by something actually deeply sad. And here I am, feeling suddenly as if weeping is the only thing to do and then an hour later making jokes about the crazy lady who is clearly taking me over. It's just so odd.

From the beginning, Em has been against POAS before I've missed my period, but today when I was doing one of our many daily phone check-ins, she asked me when the earliest I could test was. We bought a 3-pack on CBE Digital tests from Costco.com when we were ordering our next batch of OPK's, so the first day those early response tests might work is Thursday. Thursday is also Valentine's Day. We don't put much stock in the Hallmark holiday, but it kind of makes me want to go wild and use one just for fun. I guess we shall see.

My closing question: Has anyone else had this many crazy symptoms all at once? Em is starting to get concerned. I'm just bemused.

Photo Friday: Our Commune- An Organization

Our Commune- An Organization

From the Photo Friday site:

or·gan·i·za·tion

1.
c. A structure through which individuals cooperate systematically to conduct business.
d. The administrative personnel of such a structure.

4. A group of persons organized for a particular purpose; an association: a benevolent organization.

5.
a. A structure through which individuals cooperate systematically to conduct business.
b. The administrative personnel of such a structure.

We may not be organized. But we sure as hell are an organization. We have both cats AND hot shirtless boys. Come on. What more do you want?

Originally uploaded by brooklyn.kittens

Symptoms My Wife Has Had In The Last 3 Days

• Nausea
• Dizziness
• Heartburn
• Bloating
• Warm Stomach
• Diarrhea
• Mood Swings
• Cramps

She would like to say that she realizes she's insane.

It Begins

I came home yesterday, tired. My exam had finished up at 6 on Monday; I had immediately shared celebratory shots of Absolut Citron with Uncle, which did a good job of counteracting the caffeine-and-all-nighter high I was running on. I took a nap, was awakened around 9:45 to knock up the wife, watched some X-Files, went back to sleep. Woke up in the morning around 11, watched more X-Files, rescheduled my chiropractor appointment so I could vote, went to therapy, went to my class (taught by a pleasant, easily distractable old man who really doesn't do anything to direct the discussion), got out early and went to that chiropractor appointment, got dinner at my favorite Mexican place, went to what I thought was the first Arabic class of the semester only to discover that, last week while I was cramming for the exam, they had all met without me. Got out of class at 10, walked exhaustedly to the subway, listed to my Lupe Fiasco/Shakira/Jay-Z playlist of the moment six times (or however many, I didn't pay attention except for mentally choreographing the trailer to the X-Files movie about colonization they're never going to make to the sounds of Hello Goodbye--there's lots of Dana Scully with AK-47s), wandered in the door, dropped my shit, and said hello to my wife.

Who promptly burst into tears.

She didn't feel well. She was having cramps. Her stomach hurt. Everything hurt. She didn't know why she was crying. She didn't know anything. She was just crying.

And as I sat there, holding her hand, saying everything was ok, petting her hair, telling her to call her mother if she wants to, and all of that, I thought: oh, shit. She can't be more than 24 hours pregnant. Honestly, at most there's a little fertilized egg in there trying to figure out whether it wants to implant. And that's if she's pregnant at all. And she's hysterical already.

And all of a sudden I'm realizing precisely what I meant when I told my therapist that I was going to have to deal with her hysterical pregnancies two weeks out of the month from here forward.

She calmed down. I held her and petted her and we laughed about the mood swings and I told her everything was OK. She's still crampy and bloated today, and I swear to God she looks fatter. (My wife, she is the opposite of fat.) Who knows? Maybe these are the best signs every and she's totally pregnant. Maybe her body is reacting to encountering sperm for the first time by screaming in horror. Maybe it's a psychosomatic reaction. But this is how it's going to be from here forward.

I think I'm ready. I hope so, at least.

Calling the Child

The sperm was finally delivered at 3:45pm on Saturday, after a phone call to FEDEX, being put on hold for ten minutes while they tracked the package down, being told that it was in Erie, NY (7 Hours from our house) and then having it arrive ten minutes later with no explanation to how that was possible or why it was almost four hours late. Sigh.

Having gotten negatives on the two OPK's I took on Saturday, I kept on testing on Sunday. Towards the end of the evening, all my signs were lining up and Em and I agreed we would do the first insemination at midnight after I peed on one last stick. That stick had a very faint line, but we decided to go ahead with the insem because the book I've been reading for months said that the worst thing you can do is wait too long, waiting for an OPK to read positive.

I had readied myself for this first time to be comical and badly done and a complete miss, so I was quite happy to discover that we appear to be good at this. We filled the bedroom with the candles in vases that we had used for the centerpieces for our wedding, brought our Quaker marriage certificate into the room, to represent the loving family and community that we were calling our baby into to and starting the thawing of the spermies. It went well, Emily was really skilled at using the syringe and I rotated like a turkey for an hour afterwards. After the first thirty minutes or so, we opened the bedroom door and let the cats in and told Jesus that he should come visit. And it felt so right, our little commune, the queers and the cats, all together, calling this baby to us.

I was slightly concerned that we had done the first insemination too early but when I tested at 2pm today I got a very strong positive, so I think we got the timing down pretty well. We're going to do our second insemination around 10pm and then we will officially be in our first ever TWW!

Waiting

Waiting is really the hardest part of ttc at times. At the moment I am waiting for two things. I am waiting to pee. I have to wait until 2pm in order to get an accurate reading on my CBE OPK. This is the first stick of this cycle, this cycle being the first time that isn't practice! The excitement is mounting.

I am also waiting for FEDEX. We paid a lot of money for Saturday delivery before 12pm. And it's 1:45pm and I am sitting here waiting for my box 'o sperm, and reloading the tracking site every few minutes. According to FEDEX, my box has been in a truck in Brooklyn since 9:11am. So where the #@$% is my delivery? Not that I'm obsessing or anything.

Photo Friday: Black & White

The Girls
Originally uploaded by brooklyn.kittens

This is my first Photo Friday. My girls are black and white to begin with, but I like the added touch of black and white cats in black and white.

What, You think I'm inseminating my cat?

I did something very exciting earlier this week. I called the sperm bank and asked them to take two vials of sperms out of our storage container and FEDEX them to our house. Due to my cycle this month, it has to be a Saturday delivery, which is more expensive, but you do what you have to do.

It was the next day before I realized that they are shipping us sperm and thawing instructions, but we are responsible for getting the syringes. Em and I met after work and went to a pharmacy nearby in Manhattan. No luck. They had 10ml or 5ml syringes, which don't work for us. We need a 1ml needleless oral syringe. I really didn't think this would be difficult to get at a pharmacy. So we pushed on. We took the train home and went to the local Walgreen. They too only had 10ml and 5ml syringes.

We pushed on to the RiteAid a few blocks down the street. And there is where the story becomes much more entertaining than previously. I walked up to the pharmacy counter and asked if they carried 1ml needleless oral syringes. The woman at the counter thought for a moment and then asked, "Why do you need it?" I wasn't expecting the question, so it took me a moment to reply, "For a home insemination." I tried to pitch my voice towards her so the three people waiting to ask questions weren't involved in my business any more than necessary. She asks, "Who are you inseminating?" And this is where I stood with my mouth hanging slightly open for a second, not quite knowing what she meant. What, I'm inseminating my cat? (Now that is something I would never want to do!) I told her that I was inseminating myself. And she freaked out. She kept saying, "Oh no! Do you have a doctor? Oh no!" I assured her I had a doctor who said that it was completely okay that I do this. "Don't hurt yourself," was her reply. In the end, she and the pharmacist took ten minutes trying to take apart insulin needles and I told them it was very kind of them, but I would look elsewhere.

Emily then brilliantly remembered that our neighbor Sean who runs the local pet store/animal rescue had given us 1ml syringes when we first adopted Sara from him and she needed to be dosed with medicine. So I headed to his pet store. I asked him if he had any 1ml syringes and he said he didn't have any in the store, but he walked thru to the shelter and came out with a handful of syringes. I thanked him and asked him how much I owed him and he said not to worry about it.

So there ends the story of how we got a four months supply of syringes for free after an evening spent trying to purchase them.

A Kitten to Keep You Company Until Content Returns

But Who Will Teach Her Football?

Channel-surfing last night, I stumbled upon a basketball game, and settled in to watch. It was Denver vs. Dallas; at first, I paid more attention to Denver, because of my misplaced affection for Allen Iverson (why did I not know the Sixers traded him?) AND because apparently Dikembe Mutumbo plays/played for them at some point, and I have fond memories of him missing a goddamned free throw and sending that first playoff game into overtime WHEN WE COULD HAVE JUST BEAT THE GODDAMNED LAKERS IN REGULAR PLAY. TELL ME WHY AN EIGHT-FOOT TALL ATHLETE MISSES A FREE THROW? I'M FIVE-THREE AND MY FREE THROW PERCENTAGE IS BETTER THAN THAT. However, after about ten minutes, I settled my attentions on the fact that Dallas has a white boy who can play. The problem with watching basketball while trying to waste time on the internet work is that I usually watch ball on mute, so as not to have to deal with play-by-play. Really, ball games should be watched with company, so that you all have your eyes the same direction and are talking about something else. And possibly eating a cheesesteak.

But, being me, I started thinking about masculinity. I don't have any worries about not giving my child a 'male role model.' There will be a bunch of those around: Uncle, another non-bio uncle we have around, my brother, inshallah my dad for a while. However, there are whole universes of things that I simply don't have as cultural capital, because I didn't learn how to be a proper man in contemporary American culture. In fact, my child may not have access to them at all: none of the men mentioned above perform any sort of standard masculinity: gay, sensitive, artistic, mentally ill, not raised in the US, multiple of the above, etc. I don't want my kid to learn about domination and silence about emotions and agression.

But I want hir* to know what a carburator is. To be able to understand a baseball game. To have the general knowledge that is, in our culture, assigned to men. I've wanted to be butch--I've tried--but then I start knitting, or letting my hair get long which it always is and always has been, or trying on heels, or screaming about mice, or baking, and it all falls apart in a big mess of femme disaster. I can't teach my children the things proper men know, because I get a D in proper masculinity. A D+, tops, and that's just because I like sci-fi. And sports cars. Even though I can't drive.

There's another level that comes to me as I watch sports and think of my child. I don't know how to teach my kid about being a physical being. About running, jumping, climbing trees, as Eddie Izzard says. My reasons for this are not strictly about my poor marks in masculinity. I was a sickly kid. I mean, it started with the premature birth and the borderline-cerebral palsy and the year of intense occupational therapy and then the asthma and then that benign tumor that at fifteen became a cancerous one and then the three years of surgery and crutches and wheelchairs, and somewhere in all of that I skipped enough gym class to be lost at anything resembling physical activity. My surgeons said they wanted me to be able to run for the bus. I can, but three flights of stairs from subway to ground level leaves me a little breathless, and I fail at any task involving getting two parts of my body to act in contradictory fashions. I can't teach my kid to throw a ball. To run. If ze gets hir athletic skills from Kate's side of the family, ze'll be built for motion, and that is nothing I can ever give hir.

I watched the ballgame off and on, between work and non-work. I know the rules of basketball. I can watch a muted football game in a crowded bar and know when to heckle. Baseball is idiotic anyway. My child will learn how to throw a ball from someone else, will maybe learn how to kick hir way across a field like an uncle she never met, will have a running-jumping-climbing-trees childhood, will hopefully at twenty-seven be able to sit in a bar and perform enough masculinity for hir purposes. It's all I've got to give.

We have a date!

Today, Emily and I sat down and looked at my charts for the last three months, trying to determine when we need the sperm to be in our house. After some back and forth about the semantics of what before and after ovulation means, we have agreed upon a date. That's right folks, we have set a date for delivery. And that date is:

Saturday, February 2nd!

Yes, in less than a week, we will have little frozen spermies in our house. I find that truly bizarre. And quite exciting. When we decided on the date, I felt this sense of calm descend over me. I felt like I was coming off an adrenaline high. Having something about this first try be concrete is just so lovely. Now, I just have to call the sperm bank and figure out the details of delivery.

24 Hours in Pictures

The Katester informs me that there's this thing? Where you take a photo every hour you're awake of a day? One of the bloggers she reads said we should do it? Yeah, so I did it.

Here is:
FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, IN CRAPPY CAMERAPHONE PHOTOS

MIDNIGHT

We're watching a lot of TV these days that comes on late at night. A Daily Show (not The Daily Show; The Daily Show has writers, A Daily Show has Jon Stewart and Jon Oliver fuckin' around without a script), followed by multiple re-runs of Sex and the City, followed by the midnight Simpsons episode, and by the time we've worked through all of that the 2 AM X-Files is on...It's pretty terrible for us. Plus, Uncle's schedule keeps having him get in around 12:30...so we just stay up to be together. So this is what midnight looks like in our house: my wife, in her fleece pajama pants and robe that my mom got her for Christmas, clutching that remote like her life depends on it.

ONE AM

My comprehensive exams start in a week: Friday the First. For those not in academia, comps are a series of absurd hoops that grad students need to jump through; they ensure that you have a basic grounding in the core texts of your field, and they compel you to spend a whole weekend of your life writing pointless essays. Because of this, I'm spending all my time lately reading articles I don't find particularly interesting, so I can write pointless essays about them in a week's time. 32 pages worth of pointless essays. On the left is an article by Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan about democratic consolodation. On the right is my EndNote entry for said article. On the couch in the background you can see Sara's leg.

TWO AM

Oh, and did I mention our projected insem date is somewhere between Monday the fourth (the last day of my exam) and Wednesday the sixth? So we're a little obsessed. At 2 AM the wife felt the need to read to me about insemination timing.

I coulda done a three AM shot, but it would have been of me in bed in the dark, trying to fall asleep.

EIGHT AM

Kate had to leave for work early, so I got up to see her off, pack her lunch, and generally be wifelike. After she left, I picked up her bathrobe and put it on. I've been doing that a lot lately. This is a bathroom-mirror shot, if you can't tell.

NINE AM

Incidentally, all of the shots from this point forward? Could have been mirrors of the one AM shot. Instead, I photographed other things. There was some sort of Serious Cat Dramatics happening in the house this morning; I think there were more squirrels than usual on the back porch. Both Wicket and Sara kept tearing back and forth between back door and kitchen window with puffy tails. These R Srius Cats.

TEN AM

Because every morning needs some Dana Scully in it. Her hair looks so freakin' good in the ninth season, which is funny because the show is breaking my heart. Why even bother pretending it's the X-Files without some Mulder/Scully longing gazes and witty repartee? And Invisible Mulder? Not cute. I CAN HAS VISIBLE MULDER NOW PLZ. (Funny, I think that's what Scully's thinking the whole season, too.)

ELEVEN AM.

Finally I get around to breakfast. The smoothie of the week is strawberries, blackstrap molasses, maple syrup, soy milk, and plain cow's-milk yogurt. It's not disgusting, and it's healthy. Apparently.

NOON
Time to get dressed. I bought that shirt at the beach last weekend. This is roughly my fashion MO on school-or-other-official-days: ribbed tank top, button down shirt, sweater over top if it's cold enough, cool looking jeans. Hair alternates between up in a bun and clipped, and pulled in a low pony-tail. I like up better, but pony-tail is winning these days because 1) cold=hats=hair should be down and b) my hair is just a little too long and I run a severe risk of a big poof of hair puffing up like a rooster's comb. Need a haircut.

ONE PM

Workin' on the train. A different article this time. Also I kept having to pause in my reading to dance in my seat to "Dirt Off Your Shoulders," which is only recently on my iPod.

TWO PM

And I arrive at 'Snice, a vegetarian/vegan coffee shop in the West Village. I was meeting my exam study group. We are a motley bunch: different regional foci, different theoretical foci, different tastes in caffeinated beverages. You can see the edges of them through the glass. I got the seat by the door. It was cold.

THREE PM

'Snice has the most amazing freakin' cupcakes. They're vegan and covered with icing like I used to eat out of the can that I kept by my bed when I was a kid. We almost had them be the cupcakes at our wedding (for our gluten-eating guests), but the vanilla ones are healthy-looking: you know, they look like they have nutritional value. We didn't want to scare our guests, so we went with Crumbs' less healthy-looking but almost as yummy cupcakes. But I got one today. And a Cuban with soy ham and lots of mustard. And a large hot chocolate, which had entirely too like chocolate in it. Basically, I want liquid chocolate pudding.

FOUR PM

Once something passes two hours in length, unless it has a lot of shiny bells and whistles, I've lost my attention span. This is my "I'm done studying for my exam today" face. Taken in the bathroom at 'Snice. Luckily, we broke up the session about 20 minutes later.

FIVE PM

I got home around 5:30 to a very exciting piece of mail: my very first journal article is published! My copies have arrived! It's a graduate-student women's studies journal; the article is the first published thing I've gotten out of my undergrad thesis. That was my squee of the day.

SIX PM

My evening needed some Dana Scully in it, too. On second thought, those Doggett and Reyes kids are OK. I like there being Mexicans on TV, even when they're played by white girls. And there's a baby around. But still. I CAN HAZ. Etc.

SEVEN PM

Kate gets home from her super-stressful day, and we have to go out tonight (more on that below). Dinner is tomato soup with shredded cheese melted on top. This is a loser's way out of a meal, but she will eat it and it contains vegetables and/or fruit.

EIGHT PM

Our evening was spent at the Park Slope Food Co-op, where we've been members since we moved to the city. It's the largest member-run co-op in the country; there are about 30 paid employees, and 14000 active members, who all work one shift a month (roughly) and do all the major work of the store, from stocking to checkout to designing the newspaper and running the office. Kate's shift started at eight-thirty, but mine didn't start until 9, so I grabbed some much-needed groceries in the break. In this basket: cream cheese, frozen peas, soy milk, tortilla chips, peanut butter, and other necessaries.

NINE PM

Then I took my place at the cash register. Checking out groceries and taking payment are different jobs at the co-op, in order to reduce the number of people who handle cash. I handle cash. We just got a new system, that makes our lives much easier.

TEN PM

Providing plenty of time to do my homework. This is for class, not for exams. It hurt my brain due to the dumb. Sigh.

ELEVEN PM

Then we took the bus home. And came home. And watched TV (not the X-Files: I want her to stay married to me, after all). And ate cheese puffs. And blogged. (Photos not included of that. No one wants to see my in my little brother's red hoodie and blue cotton panties. Not even my wife; she hates this hoodie.)

Kate promises to do this soon...on a day when she won't just be taking photos of what she's watching on TV all day, which is what tomorrow is expected to be.