Hit by a Pitch

I am in a foul mood today. I blame it on the following, in no particular order:

• People who don’t use turn signals while driving. Seriously? You’re an inconsiderate asshole. You should get a ticket and be punched in the face.
• Facebook apps. Every time I see one, I block it. That doesn’t stop them, though. They just keep coming, like bindweed. (If you don’t know about bindweed, it’s this awful weed we get in Colorado with little morning-glory like flowers and vines that will grow and wrap around good, legitimate plants. The worst part is that each individual bindweed is actually connected to all the other bindweed by a gigantic underground root that you will never be able to destroy, so no matter how many of these bastards you pull out they’ll keep coming back until the end of time.) I don’t care which Mad Men character’s underwear you would be while on a boat with one of the Beatles. (For the record, I don’t care for the Beatles and will never watch Mad Men because I’m so sick of people talking about it. I’ve also vowed to never, ever talk about a tv show (outside of TWOP forums) or movie again, except to maybe talk about Lost once in a while in a sheltered, isolated environment with other annoying people discussing Lost. Talking about tv shows and movies is like talking about your dreams or your kid’s poop — at best, it’s interesting to you and tediously boring to everybody else in the world.) If you’re stupid enough to enjoy Facebook apps, could you at least stop posting their shit every five minutes?
• People who don’t look where they’re going and try to get on the elevator before you get off and then loudly inhale a big giant loogie.
• Women who are defensive about their epidural use and/or just bitchy and who say something like any of the following: (1) if declining pain relief is so cool, why don’t you have dental work with no anesthesia; (2) let’s do everything like they did in the old days before medical advances, like poop in the woods; (3) you don’t get a prize for experiencing pain and suffering during childbirth! Seriously, choose your choice and all that, but stop acting like it makes you better than anybody who doesn’t do things the same way.
• People who equate blunt, TMI-style oversharing with honesty and call it a good thing. There’s some shit you should just keep to yourself or people who really want to hear about it — i.e., not the entire internet.
• My fantasy football team. I swear I almost had negative points this week. Everybody on my bench was awesome and most of my active players sucked.
• The White Sox. I’ve seen people with uncombed hair, skid-marked shorts, and ice-cream-stained, oversized t-shirts picking cigarette butts off the ground and smoking them who have given up less than you have.
• The entire healthcare debacle. I can’t even listen to the discussion any more. I guess there are people in this country who know people are dying because they don’t have access to medical care and are okay with that.
• Bacon. Enough already. It’s so over.
• Broncos fans who are really proud of their team being 2-0. The first win was mad, crazy luck. The second win — well, my dog (the little one) could beat the Browns. The defense doesn’t suck as much as it did last year, but this is not a good team.
• Old-fashioned, grandpa/grandma hipster baby names. I just don’t understand.
• People who use ultrasound pictures as avatars. I think it’s creepy to use your baby as an avatar ever, but it’s especially creepy before the kid is even born. Don’t even get me started on the 3-D ultrasounds. Those things absolutely terrify me. Maybe you think it’s cool that your kid looks like a half-formed alien made of melting candle wax, but would you please spare the rest of us?
• Animals who pee on the furniture.
• And finally me, for being this annoyed by totally stupid shit. I’ll go eat some more pumpkin loaf (the most delicious thing in the entire universe) and get the hell over it already.

It seems like with pregnancy and parenting, as usual, I’m totally weird. I’m feeling the need to step away from the pregnancy-related groups and message boards, again.

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I’ve been too lazy to write a real update, so here is a list of random shit I am enjoying:

• Fried bananas. I’m serious. Melt a little butter in a pan over medium to low heat and then add a sliced or quartered banana. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cook for a couple minutes until it’s delicious. Dump this over vanilla ice cream and add a little chocolate syrup. The warm bananas make the ice cream a little melty and OMG it is so good.
• Ice cubes. I could eat all the ice cubes in the entire world right now.
• Rubber. I’ve always loved the smell of rubber, but now I’m craving it. Our soon-ish-to-be baby’s room currently is housing a newly assembled jogging stroller and sometimes I go in there just to smell the tires. Bliss. According to Google, I’m not the only pregnant person to experience such a craving. I’m not anemic, so I don’t think it’s a big deal.
• Tea tree oil. I’m not using essential oil because I’m not sure it’s safe during pregnancy, but I have this tea tree oil lip balm (from Desert Essence) and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t the most awesome smelling stuff in the entire world.
• Carrying the min pin around in a baby sling. I got a Maya wrap last week and Sadie fits right in there and seems to enjoy it. I’d like to see more dogwearing in mainstream society.
• Brightly colored sneakers that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the rest of what you’re wearing. We went to Monolith last night (well, we went Saturday too but only lasted an hour in the crappy-ass weather so I’m not counting it) and I have to admit the whole thing made me feel a little old. It’s not necessarily the best idea in the world to go to a big concert festival thing at Red Rocks while 31+ weeks pregnant, but it ended up being fun and I was bad ass enough to decline the shuttle ride up from the parking lot in favor of walking up the ramp and then climbing the stairs. Anyway, part of the “feeling old” thing came from sitting there realizing that I don’t really understand what Kids These Days are wearing. However, I did approve of most of the sneakers. I’ve always been really into funky sneakers (also, I understand the difference between funky sneakers and functional sneakers, a distinction lost on dorky parent types who wear running shoes to Monolith; you all as my witness, I will not fall into this trap) and now am on the lookout for a new pair, despite the warnings that you shouldn’t buy shoes while pregnant because you’re just going to get monster feet because, at least so far, my feet are still their normal size. For the record, I’m still not on board with brown boots with black pants, bad 80s shit, and fake glasses. What was up with the fake glasses? Not cool, people.
• Avoiding drunk people. Seriously guys? It’s not fun being the only sober person in a big crowd of wasted-ass people. It’s just not. It’s especially not fun when you really, really like beer and you “can’t” (“can’t” in quotes because technically you can do whatever you want) have a few while at a concert/sporting event/wherever. It’s also not the most fun thing in the world to be around a million people who are all smoking dank shit and would love to share it with you but no. Anyway, I hope to avoid all drunk people for the next 8-ish weeks. It won’t be all fun and games after that, either, but at least breastfeeding is more alcohol-friendly than pregnancy.
• Looking forward to the Big Beers Festival. Because I’m going to miss the Great American Beer Festival this year, which pains me more than I can express in words, I’m trying to make myself feel better by looking forward to the Big Beers Festival in January. This is a good one — lots of IPAs.
• My fantasy football team. I should win this week, as long as LT doesn’t score a million points.

My last post was pretty negative, so I want to follow it up with something nicer, which can be summarized as follows: Pregnancy: It’s not that bad.

I mean, it’s not that bad for me. If a boring discussion about my awesome pregnancy won’t annoy you or piss you off, here you go.

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It’s a universal truth that at some point during her pregnancy, a woman will experience the following, probably several times:

She’ll be having a discussion about something related to pregnancy, babies, or children, and somebody will end up telling her a horror story about something that happened to her or someone she knows. I’ve been referring to this as “horror storying,” and it often is accompanied by unsolicited assvice.

It goes like this:

Asshole: Blah blah blah [insert pregnancy-related issue here].
Pregnant Woman: Oh yeah, I’ve done a lot of research on that issue. I’m going to do X.
Asshole: Oh! I have a friend who did X. [Insert horror story about terrible thing that happened to Friend of Asshole as the result of doing X.] You really should consider doing Y.
Pregnant Woman: ….

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Here’s a fascinating conversation B and I had earlier this evening:

Me: When you were a kid, did you spend a lot of time checking out your dad’s junk?
B: His what?
Me: His stuff.
B: No.
Me: In the locker room, did all the kids hang around and check out each other’s stuff?
B: No. You didn’t look at it.
Me: So nobody would notice if someone’s stuff was different?
B: Right.
Me: And if anybody did and commented on it, you could totally make fun of him for checking out your stuff.
B: Yes.

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A big topic of discussion among pregnant women and their significant others is “finding out.” This refers, of course, to whether you’re going to find out the sex of the baby (for the record, I still feel uncomfortable referring to a fetus as a baby, but it seems weird and technical to call it a fetus) before he or she is born.

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