Saturday, January 30, 2010

Oh yeah, did I mention I'm "pregnant"?

Yeah, I'm "pregnant." Not pregnant, but "pregnant."

The quotes stand for my skepticism. I mean, honestly, I don't feel pregnant.

It's been almost 3 and a half months since I missed my period and peed on a stick and I've had a little nausea and dry-heaving (and some boob soreness), but other than that, no real indications that I'm expecting.

I guess I always thought of pregnancy as a fast moving train--once you jump on, you'd zoom through an alternate life that is foreign, fast-paced and uncomfortable until your child turns 18 and finally leaves the nest.

No one prepared me for how slooooooow pregnancy really is. I mean, it's been almost 4 months and I've only gained 5 pounds. 5 pounds?! That's a night of letting loose at the Cheesecake Factory. That's a regular week of pms bloating on any given month. That's the unwanted consequence of buying a 24-pack of Pringles from Costco against your better judgment. Come on!

I was shocked to learn that after 3 months of pregnancy you're only supposed to gain 2 pounds. That's it!

And forget about my long pre-conceived notion (excuse the pun!) that pregnancy is a fat-shield that would allow me to indulge like an obese kid at a Vegas buffet. I'm sorely disappointed that I'm supposed to eat as healthy as possible and, as mentioned, gain so little weight.

I told the bosses last week that I'm expecting and now word has spread to most people in the office. But every time someone says congratulations I feel a twinge of guilt, like, don't congratulate me yet, I'm not sure I'm pregnant!

I mean, if it weren't for the grainy ultrasound pictures I saw at the doctor's office, I wouldn't believe it at all.

Even now, a large part of me wonders...

Friday, January 22, 2010

48 Hours in Hell

I know with all that's going on in Haiti right now, this title seems a little ridiculous (since this post isn't about Haiti). But, you know, hell comes in different flavors, and this particular one is rather mundane and locally grown.

At first it snuck up on me as a tickle in my throat. I didn't think anything of it until the tickle turned into gravelly pain the next day, and then became a full-on voice-changing frog.

But even that was okay. So I lost my voice again (I had just recovered from the same thing not 3 days ago). It sucked, but at least it seemed isolated to my throat area.

But I couldn't be more wrong. As my throat recovered, an ungodly fever began to boil within me and severe inflammation of my sinuses caused my entire head to feel like a pressure cooker. I felt exactly like the descriptions on the Nyquil ads "sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever."

What I would've given for some Nyquil.

Or any other OTC cold/flu medicine.

But alas, I have a certain, let's just say, "condition" that only allowed me to take some plain old tylenol, which did NOTHING for my sniffling, sneezing, coughing, and aching.

And brother, did I ever see the light. There is NO WAY you can sleep or even feel sane with a full-blown flu without some kind of nasal-decongestant. As they say in Jersey, fuhgettaboutit!

For about 48 hours as the flu raged on, I felt like road-kill. Left for dead on the freeway. Mouth-breathing my way through sleepless attempts at resting. Shifting my head from side to side to drain the stuffiness from one nostril to the other, only to find that once the nostril was clear, it was like breathing hellfire through the newly cleared nostril--you know what I mean? That hot, sharp, stinging air that makes you go right back to mouth-breathing.

I must have wiped my dripping nose at least 500 times in those 48-hours. And I discovered that Burt's Bees is just as good for chapped nostril skin as chapped lips!

Anyway, throw in some can't-touch-anything body-aches and vomiting and that about sums it up.

Let's just say I have a new found appreciation for modern cold medicine.

Friday, January 08, 2010

Homer Simpson's Gustatory Dream Come True

My sweet (puns happen) co-worker brought me a freshly made donut yesterday. Bless her heart. You may not be able to tell from the picture, but it's a BACON, maple syrup, and apple flavored donut.


Yeah, that was the face I made.

Until I tried it.

It tasted like...breakfast. The whole thing, all rolled into one bite.

Apparently, bacon is the hot new flavor these days. The same friend offered to bring me some bacon-chocolate to try.

And I was like, Hold it right there! That sounds disgusting! I have to draw the line there. You can't pervert nature's most perfect food (chocolate) like that.

But then again, I was wrong about bacon-flavored donut...

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Summer of Un-Love

Recently, the spouse and I watched 500 Days of Summer (I know, we've been watching a lot of netflix lately).

It's your not-so-basic boy (Tom) meets girl (Summer), boy falls madly in love with girl, girl likes boy at first and then grows disenchanted and finally dumps him. (This is not really a spoiler cuz you realize this in the first 20 minutes of the film).


What I really appreciated about the movie though, is that it's told from a total guy perspective. It exudes all-thing-guy, like when Tom felt really cool, looked at his reflection in a car window and saw Hans Solo winking back at him. This movie makes me feel like I'm taking a journey through the male psyche--a simple, and uncomplicated terrain (just kidding, but not really).

But in the end, I was left with one question: Was Summer an evil b*tch? (The spouse unhesitatingly answered with a resounding YES). But I'm not sure...

She did toy with Tom's affections, lead him on, tease him, and inflame his hope only to throw him away like yesterday's trash...


The movie made a point of noting that she never cheated on him, was honest with him from the beginning that she was just "having fun" and not "being serious," and was clear and unequivocal about their breakup.

But still...

You can't help but feel like, in the end, she actually was an evil b*tch (or at least a big jerk).

Maybe it was because Tom liked her so darn much. He wore his affections on his sleeve and freely held out his wildly-beating heart to her. It was obvious that he liked her 100 times more than she liked him. Maybe 1000 times.


In that way, you couldn't help but feel that Summer took advantage of him. She knew there was this vast love-differential, but she jumped into the relationship anyway, knowing that he would more than likely get hurt.

Perhaps she should've kept a safe distance from him and helped him to guard his heart. She should have been her 'brother's keeper'.

Although, I have to say, that's quite a tall order for anyone to undertake--policing yourself on behalf of someone else because you don't want him/her to fall too hard.

Prior to watching this movie, I had never even thought about that as an obligation owed to a suitor. And in fact, I wish I had followed that practice myself in my younger years...alas.

This movie should be required watching material for anyone coming of age. It's a refreshing slap-in-the-face dose of reality and so much more healthy (and educational) for impressionable young people to watch than the typical mythologies of romance peddled so often on the big screen.