Now that there's a smoking ban in bars/restaurants (that make over 20% of their income off of food), I've been finding myself in bars left and right...so that I can hang out with my friends. To be fair, we're mostly eating dinner and we're out of there before the serious drinkers (like I used to be) show up.

I realized that while my husband drains the assortment of beers and the rum and cokes, and my friends are downing Cosmos like there's no tomorrow, I am binging on water. Seriously, I have a problem. I drank about 6 glasses of water in two hours last night. I could've floated home. It's having a serious effect on my quality of life because I had to get up and go to the bathroom--at minimum--9 times last night. I need to get clean.

I received the best excuse today as to why my student didn't turn in his essay on Beowulf today:

"Um yeah...sorry, I got arrested yesterday and when my family finally picked me up, the last thing I had on my mind was Beowulf." 

What do you say to that? 

A little known fact--John likes to get drunk and clean. He does a really, really thorough job and cleans and organizes like a maniac. Apparently, this runs in the family. Last night I went out with my girlfriends from college. Ever see a 27 week pregnant woman at a bar? Well I was there tearing up the town...what? I drank water, the bars are smoke free and the music wasn't loud. I thought I could be there if I wanted to be (that being said, I got the stink eye from quite a few women...I'm guessing it's because I'm such a hot mama. Um, maybe).

So anyways, while I was downing water like nobody's business; John, his mom, sister and my niece had a rum and Coke party/dance party/cleaning party (heavy on all three). I have to admit...the place was getting a little run down and I just didn't have it in me to give it the full work over. I'll blame it on pregnancy but I never have it in me to give the house a thorough cleaning. Cleaning is someone else's work, I just live here--I do enough to keep people from talking about me, John's family KNOWS how to clean. Anyways, now I'm sitting in my perfect clean house. After getting over the initial embarrassment of them seeing the place in this state (I mean it was pretty bad in here), I relished in the awesomeness it is to have a nice clean house. They vacuumed my couch (who has the time for that!)! My stairs (you know how hard that is)! Things are clean that I didn't even know could come clean.

I'm getting them all drunk on a bi-weekly basis from now on. That's a promise.

Don't worry, I'll be back and I'm sure I have interesting things to say...just so busy.  

Yesterday I had the idea that I would surprise my sex starved husband with a little nooky. I showered and prepped my bod and then pounced on him just as he was waking up. Pounced implies I had full control over my body and faculties but I'm fairly sure it was more of a "I fell onto the bed in a heap" kind of moment--I am not a graceful pregnant woman. I feel like an adorable mi nature elephant. I think I look cute, but I'm definitely lumbering. Anyways, we start having sex and it's not half bad. Then my hip pops out the socket for a moment...that wasn't fun or pleasurable and it's never happened before. I wiggle, it goes back and I go back to my business at hand. It pops again and I decide it's time to change positions. I'm guessing the leg popping business is the whole stretching of ligaments and whatnot in preparation for the baby. Whatever it was, it was loud and it was not hot! A few minutes later in this new position, John looks at me alarmed and says, "You're bleeding."
My heart stops.
I run to the bathroom and check myself. I am indeed bleeding--enough to be concerned but not enough that I'm screaming (yet). I don't think I'm breathing any more. In the next minute we debate what to do. We decide. Get to the car, call the doctor on the way to the hospital. We are calm. We get the new insurance card, the doctor's business card and phone easily, as if they were placed out and waiting for us. John grabs my license just in case I need it in the emergency room. He begins driving towards the closest hospital while I calmly place a message with the messaging service.
The doctor calls me back--asks me a series of questions which for some reason I cannot answer alone and must consult John on--how much am I bleeding? Would you say it's like my period? And bless him, he answers all the questions for me and I echo them into the phone. In an almost tired "I've heard all of this before" voice she tells us to go home--we probably just bumped my cervix which is delicate now. If the bleeding continues after an hour, head down to the emergency room. I pride us on the fact that we were both so calm and collect with the whole situation...I'm really just talking because I don't want to think about the next hour.
We go home and we try to relax. I head to the bathroom and check myself. Still bleeding. I put my head on the sink and begin to cry. And the tears don't stop for awhile. John talks me off the toilet that I probably would've sat on for the entire hour. I don't have any cramps, I don't have any pain...we have most likely just bruised my cervix like she said. I nod and wipe my eyes. John pulls Psych up on the Tivo and makes me laugh...he never watches my stupid show we me. He stays with me so that I don't go running back to the bathroom. In my head I'm trying to gauge whether or not there's been any more bleeding, I can't tell but I try to laugh at the stupid, easy jokes on TV. After an hour I go back and check and the bleeding has all but stopped. The crisis was averted, there was no actual crisis and now for the first time since the early days of pregnancy I am full of fear, doubt and worry*.

* I am feeling better now, but when I wrote the post I was feeling very fragile.

** It will also be a rare miracle if we actually have sex over the rest of the pregnancy, we're both feeling a little gun shy.

Tomorrow is my grandfather's funeral but I'm not going. I feel guilty, but not guilty enough to go. Let me explain. This was my biological father's dad...I don't remember my biological father, he was shot before I was two--I've heard that I'm not missing much except that he loved meth and he liked impregnating and beating up teenage girls--but that's from my mom so I'm sure it's a little biased--since he did both to her.

I liked my grandfather but he always made me nervous. We could connect on nothing as we both sat uncomfortably in his kitchen--me munching on a Klondike bar because he remembered that I liked them once when I was little. He talked about working at NASA or living in Germany or about "my dad" which always confused me because I would be picturing my dad (the non biological but all the more real) while he talked. I visited him once a month when I was younger, always dropped off by one of my parents and left for about an hour or so. I didn't like going, but I didn't mind it so much after I was there. My grandfather was an interesting guy when he wasn't talking about religion and how we were all going to Hell...somehow we lost touch. It had something to do with him calling after my dad died (non biological) and I also had the flu--so you could say I was a little crazed at the time. He told me he was going into a home and he gave me the phone number. I lost the number, I thought he'd call back--he never did. I found it telling that I never tried to track him down, I kind of felt relieved...although I never said as much to anyone.

The other night my mom received a call asking for me and they used my biological father's last name--a last name I haven't had since I was 16 years old when I voluntarily changed it to my mom's last name for solidarity's sake. She asked who it was,very slowly and cautiously. It was one of my half sisters and she stonily replied that I didn't live there any longer and supplied no further information. I've met the half sisters only once. I didn't know they existed until I was in 5th grade and then just like a Gothic novel--family secrets were revealed. The biological father had been married before...and he had had two daughters who were several years older than me. We arranged a meeting and it was there that I learned that I really didn't want anything to do with the two nearly grown women in front of me. There were lots of reasons; their rude remarks, their jealousy and their desire to make me unhappy in that single meeting were just the tip of the iceberg. Learning that due to the fact that they were born in wedlock and I wasn't, that they stood to inherit any money I received from my father's estate if something should happen to me but not the other way around, I thought it best to just steer clear of them for my own safety--as they had already reached the age of inheritance and had blown their money on aqua firebirds...I just bided my time and spent mine on college.

I wasn't close with my grandfather but I liked him well enough. I feel bad for not going to his funeral and I feel worse because I hate the fact that people will talk badly about me for not being there. But then I realize that the people who will be talking are strangers who just happen to share some of the DNA that I have--given to me from a man who is nothing but a mystery to me. And I almost feel OK about my decision.

My life is so exciting. Yesterday I sat in a courtroom from 8 am until 5:10 pm waiting for the judge to let me go home. I was there for jury selection but hearing the nature of the case, I knew that they wouldn't want a pregnant woman on the jury. Apparently, I was the only one who knew this because they didn't decide to send me home all day until the last possible minute. This would make me minorly salty but I was a little more hot under the collar because I had eight people coming for dinner at 5:30 last night...I was the third to arrive. It ended up being a great night, but when I walked in the door and found that my guests had to serve themselves I felt like a loser.