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Allow Me to Wow You With Apathy
Monday, June 15th, 2009 | Author: Erika

I realized with a start this morning that I haven’t really written about Operation Firstborn at all this month.  Even though it’s the fifth month of trying, which means my uterus and I are officially out of the penalty box and in the game.  I’m not sure what’s led to my sudden coyness, other than the possibility that trying to get pregnant has finally sapped me of my feeling that trying to conceive is fun!!!!!!!!!

Don’t get me wrong.  The whole trying part of the trying to conceive thing is still fun, it’s just the failure that’s no fun.  I’d much rather get excited about a donut than whether or not there’s a tadpole in my uterus just waiting to sprout limb buds and a face because I know the donut will never disappoint me.  The donut’s always gonna be there for me.  That tadpole may or may not.

Honestly?  Just between you, me, and the Internet?  I don’t think I’m pregnant.  I feel the exact same as I have the past four months, which is to say not pregnant.  I’m like a Magic 8 Ball, except when you shake me I won’t tell you your future, I’ll just tell you I’m not pregnant and to stop shaking me before I bite you.

After four months, I’ve got this whole not pregnant feeling down to a science, and I’ve even established a timeline for the symptoms of emphatic non-pregnancy.  I guess that’s why I’m so apathetic this month.  All signs point to fail, and there’s no use mustering up optimism at this point.  I may be Eeyore, but I’m Eeyore with a hefty book of common sense ready to smack the optimistic smile right off your face if you try to sunny-side me.

The really lame part of the whole thing is that because of last month’s freak show of a 40-day long cycle, my ovulation window is about two weeks long.  That could be adding to my ambivalence this month, because who in their right mind gets excited to pee on 14 ovulation tests just to figure out when the timing’s right?

That said, I’m just going to let the lunacy of all my work projects carry me away in a flood of deadlines and coffee cups and let my uterus worry about itself.  Sure, I theoretically have time to spare worrying about whether or not I’m ovulating and if/when Aunt Flo is going to show up, but the question is: Do I want to?  The answer, dear friends, is no.  Not at all.  Not even a little bit.

Am I sad that we aren’t pregnant yet?  A little.  Will I be bummed out if we didn’t conceive this month?  Absolutely.  Am I going to deal with it like an emotionally mature adult?  Nope, I’m just going to cover my ears and complain.  Since when isn’t that an effective way to deal with problems…?

Category: Operation Firstborn  | 6 Comments
Kicking Sand
Monday, May 18th, 2009 | Author: Erika

Fresh off the boat of yet another strange weekend (seriously, weird things always happen to me on the weekend.  You have to be pretty careful when you ask me how my weekend went) I’m sitting here in my empty house, super-charged and ready to go.  You see, I was pretty upset about not getting a positive pregnancy test on Saturday and when I get really upset there’s really only one thing for me to do.

Make a choice.  I can either choose to wallow in my melancholy (and infinite sadness) and be really and truly miserable or I can dust myself off, stick out my stubborn little jaw, and kick sand in the face of whatever’s bothering me.

I chose sand kicking this time.

I figure that if this is how my uterus is gonna be about this whole thing then fine, but I’m not going down easy.  I’m just gonna wait her out.  She will eventually become a home for my progeny and she’s just gonna have to be happy about it because 1) I’m more stubborn than she is and 2) I’m in charge of the chocolate consumption around here and if she doesn’t start being a little more accommodating she may find her chocolate privileges dwindling.

Likewise for my writing situation.  I submitted my latest chapter to my writing group for review on Saturday and it didn’t go very well.  They gave me the kiss of death, they said they didn’t understand my character very well.  Shoot me right in the face, why don’t you?

I gotta figure that 60-odd pages into this novel, if my readers don’t understand my main character something is really wrong.  Now I have to comb through everything I’ve written so far and try to figure out why no one understands my poor protagonist.  It’s enough to make me want to hang up my noveling hat right now.

As if that weren’t enough, I read a novella by Jim Butcher (the author of the much beloved Dresden Files) and it made me crazy.  He’s so good!  I love his writing so much!  Why do I suck so much?!

Enter Wes.  He shook me firmly and said every artist throughout time has always admired and respected someone else’s work.  I asked him if even Matthew Bellamy of Muse, patron saint of rock guitarists everywhere, admired other people’s stuff.  Wes told me that Bellamy has great affection for Led Zeppelin, and that encouraged me.

If even Matthew Bellamy, who makes my eyes go crossed with his undeniable talent, looks up to someone then maybe it’s not a total waste of my time to keep trying to write even though people like Stephen King and Jim Butcher make me feel quivery and I’m-not-worthy on a nearly daily basis.

So, the moral of this story is: Even though (so far) I suck at getting pregnant and writing novels, I’m stubborn and will keep at it.  Kicking sand in the face of adversity, because I’m just too stubborn to lie down and quit.

Category: Operation Firstborn, Writing  | 7 Comments
My Life As a Sitcom
Saturday, May 16th, 2009 | Author: Erika

Scene 1:

Erika wakes up at 6:30 am on Saturday.  She has to go to the bathroom, and knows she won’t be able to go back to sleep until she does.  She nudges Wes.

Erika: Honey, I have to pee so I might as well take the pregnancy test now.

Wes: Mrmph.

Erika pads into the bathroom, takes pregnancy test, and brings it back into bed with her without looking at the results.  She hands it to Wes.

Erika: What does it say?

Wes: Not pregnant.

Erika: [redacted].  Well that [redacted] sucks.

Scene 2:

Erika is at the grocery store when Aunt Flo finally shows up.  Erika hangs her head in frustration that she wasted yet another pregnancy test and wonders why Aunt Flo has to be such a gigantic pain in the [redacted].

A circus midget then slips on spilled beer in the aisle, promptly knocking Erika into the beer display and showering both of them with beer, which prompts Erika to make a life-changing discovery about how beer can make your hair grow thick and soft.  Erika and the circus midget patent the beer mixture, make millions, and Erika and Wes retire to a life of luxury in Costa Rica.  Hilarity ensues.

The End.

I’m going to drown my sorrows in a cosmo and some luscious cookie dough.  And try not to think about how I just wasted another very expensive pregnancy test.  And how unfair it is that I waited and waited and have nothing to show for it but a prankish uterus.  And how if my cycles are going to be close to two months long that I [redacted] quit right now.

Category: Operation Firstborn  | 6 Comments
Pretty Freaking Late
Monday, May 11th, 2009 | Author: Erika

I’m not sure how long today’s post will be.  Not because I don’t have stuff to talk about but because I just washed the puppy and I’m unsure how long I can keep him downstairs all by himself.  He knows that when he’s wet from a bath he has to stay on the hardwood floor downstairs but with no one to keep him company it’s doubtful even a kong full of frozen peanut butter will keep him entertained for long.

Answer me this, though: Why is it that you can spend ten minutes trying to get a Labrador’s coat wet and still have great gaping dry patches all over?  I know Labs have a special double-coat and oil that makes them such good swimmers and whatnot but it also makes them nigh impossible to get really and truly soaking wet.  It blows my mind every time.

Also?  Doc licking the water drops that fall off the edge of his nose makes me melt from the cuteness.

I hope you all had a great Mother’s Day.  Mine was lovely, I had a nice chat with my mother and spent the afternoon eating yummy food with Wes’ family.  It was a strange day for me, though.  Even though I took a (negative) pregnancy test last Wednesday there’s still been no conclusive proof that I’m not pregnant.

And I’m late.  Like, pretty freaking late.  As in festivities were supposed to start last Tuesday and as of right now I’m later than I’ve ever been, wonky cycle lengths all accounted for and everything.

This made Mother’s Day a bit interesting for me.  I was determined not to test on Sunday because, in case you haven’t heard, I don’t do so well with dashed expectations and I didn’t feel like having an emotional breakdown on what is supposed to be a lovely celebration.  But I’m still wondering.  Fixating a little, but mostly curious.  Having never gotten a positive pregnancy test result, I have no idea what it will feel like.  It’s much easier for me to imagine not being pregnant, so that’s where my mind keeps going.

Regardless, Wes and I have decided that I will take another test on Saturday if things haven’t started by then.  That will put me at six days later than my latest-ever date, so I should have a reliably positive or negative result then.  So fingers crossed, ok?

Category: Doc Holliday, Operation Firstborn  | 2 Comments
Chicken Merchants of Despair
Wednesday, May 06th, 2009 | Author: Erika

First things first: I took a pregnancy test this morning and it says, most emphatically, that I’m not pregnant.  I couldn’t stop my traitorous hands from shaking with excitement while I waited for the result, but I could stop myself from having a sad freak-out so I’m going to call this a win.  I was able to talk myself out of feeling morose by telling myself the following:

  1. My doctor says it’ll probably take 3-4 months for my body to be completely free from the effects of being on the pill for so long.
  2. A posse of mothers I talked to said not to start really trying until at least the fifth month.
  3. This way I won’t be in the throes of morning sickness nausea when I go to visit my Dad next month.  That, in and of itself, is a very good thing because my Dad makes the most delicious food this side of Heaven and if I were too sick to eat it I’d be a very sad panda indeed.

If that weren’t enough to take my mind off the emptiness that is my uterus, I came head to head with KFC today and did not emerge unscathed.  You may have heard about the free meals KFC is giving away, but if you haven’t here’s the deal: KFC is trying to re-brand themselves as a healthier option, so they decided to give away free two-piece grilled chicken meals to anyone who printed the coupon off their site.

At first I was excited, because who doesn’t like free food?  My friend and I printed off coupons using our printer at work and toddle off to KFC looking forward to warm biscuits and our choice of two sides.  We walk into the restaurant and it’s nowhere near as packed as I thought it would be, so we smile and settle in to wait.

Ten minutes later the lines still hasn’t moved.  We start to get edgy and people start to leave.  The line finally starts to move and we get to the front of the line and place our order.  The woman behind the cash register takes one look at our coupons and tells us she can’t accept them because they don’t have a watermark.

Nowhere on the coupon site did it mention watermarks.  We look at an example she shows us and notice the yellow and orange watermark because it’s in color.  I attempt to explain to the woman (who, poor thing, is obviously not a native English speaker) that our printer is not calibrated to display light yellow and orange in black and white.  She looks terrified until her manager struts over and tells us we can’t use photocopied coupons.

We try again to explain that we didn’t use photocopies, we just didn’t print the coupons on a color printer but she tells us she won’t serve us no way no how.  So we left, dejected, rejected, without our meals and completely frustrated that our well-reasoned and articulate justification of our eligibility for a free two-piece meal fell on deaf ears.

What is the deal with that?  They were giving out free meals left and right, why couldn’t they just have served us some yummy food?  Did the manager think corporate headquarters were going to inspect each and every coupon and refuse to comp their supplies for those two meals because the watermarks were too faint?

I think she was unreasonable and rude, so that got me thinking about KFC and let me tell you, it’s no good when I start thinking about something when I’m peeved.  Bad things happen.  Their new ad campaign is “Unthink KFC”.  First of all, unthink is a really dumb-sounding word, and what their motto is really saying is that if you’re considering eating at KFC you should stop.

Seriously, think about it: What does “Unthink KFC” mean to you?

Also, their website is unthinkfc.com.  Now, I can see what they’re going for but what that looks like to me is UnThin KFC, which is to say that not only should you stop if you’re thinking about going to KFC, it’ll make you fat too.  Stupid ad execs who came up with this idea, stupid KFC watermarks that don’t print on black/white printers, stupid store manager who doesn’t understand greyscale calibration.

Oh, I WILL “unthink” you, KFC.  Even if you were the last fast-food chain in the post-apocalyptic dystopia of the future, I would rather cobble together a meal of wrappers and contempt than walk through your doors again.  I hope you’re happy, you chicken merchants of despair.

Category: A Touch of the Crazy, Operation Firstborn, Opinionated much?  | 4 Comments
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