Whatever gets you through the blog

Let's see. What's the laziest way for me to post? 

Link to something I already wrote. 

About Silas. 

About Elizabeth Hardwick's Sleepless Nights. 

And add this ambiguous picture of something I am currently writing about. Everyone wants to get to the water first, or, well, eventually.  

When all my five and country senses see...and type

I see that it has been almost a month since I last posted, but I have an excuse (well, many excuses, like "I am a liar who does not keep promises.")

Nanowrimo wrapped last Friday night and I finished (i.e., submitted 50,046 words) at 11:09 pm. My goal initially was to write 1,500 or so words per day. This would solidify my daily writing practice. Ha.

By November 25, I had only typed 13,000 words. It became Heidi's Nanowriwe--a frantic race of typing and no sleep. The goal changed to typing as fast as possible to see what would come out. Surrealist automatic writing experiment, or insane compulsion?

The really important thing is that I am a winner (along with 15,333 others). And I now have 80 pages of Wordspew, 5 or 6 new characters (depending on whether one is dead), a ranch and a bar (do I ever come up with new settings?) and a bunch of writing about Seattle that I might be able to use.

Silas is waking up so I have to wrap this up. But I wanted to at least keep the promise to myself (amidst my meandering, obsessive reading of Elizabeth Hardwick today) of posting.

Norman Mailer and the Gilmores

I feel sad and disjointed today knowing that there won't be any more new work from Norman Mailer. I love his writing the way I love Hemingway, the way I love Didion. He was able to bring out the truth and beauty in a simple story without gussying it up. And he was truly connected to his time--his best work forms a chronicle of the last half of the 20th Century in America.

I particularly have a soft spot for Norman Mailer because he appeared on Gilmore Girls and spoke of the show so kindly in this interview:

...for some reason I find Gilmore Girls kind of agreeable. The character Lorelai reminds me very much of my second-oldest daughter, Danielle—both of them are like beautiful hummingbirds, constantly talking and adjusting what they say, quick to the breeze.

He also wrote this book--one of my top 5, for sure--which I carried around Chicago with me for three months in the winter of 2002. I love it because it is Utah and my childhood. And, truly, anyone who can make Gary Gilmore beautiful is an amazing writer.

I've been scanning it for 20 minutes trying to find a representative quote, but it doesn't lend itself to easy excerpting because it is built with a mound of facts and quotes. Luckily, the L.A. Times has already done it, and I'll just crib from them (they get paid for this, after all):

Nielsen had his secretary bring a cup of coffee. Then he said, "Lieutenant Skinner is going to sign a complaint charging you with the homicide of Max Jensen." After a short pause, Gary said, "Hey, I really feel bad about those two guys. I read one of their obituaries in the paper last night. He was a young man and had a kid and he was a missionary. Makes me really feel bad."

"Gary, I feel bad too. I can't understand taking a life for the amount of money you got."

Gary replied, "I don't know how much I got. What was there?"

Nielsen said, "It was $125, and in Provo, approximately the same amount." Gary began to cry. He didn't weep with any noise but there were tears in his eyes. He said, "I hope they execute me for it. I ought to die for what I did."

Which one of us was knocked up?

Since Paul and I recently watched Knocked Up (come on, you don't need a link to that), I've been trying to think of any big comedy (or small comedy, for that matter) with the event of childbirth written from the woman's perspective.

Think about the movies with childbirth scenes that you can remember: There's that lame movie from the 80s about the commitmentphobe who struggles with the idea that his wife is pregnant. And that lame movie from the 90s about the commitmentphobe who struggles with the idea that his girlfriend is pregnant.

The first childbirth scene I remember seeing in a movie was from Paternity, that movie with Burt Reynolds. I thought this was the lame 70s movie about the commitmentphobe, etc., but remember now that he was a bachelor looking for a woman to have his baby (and it was 1981, which is sort of like the 70s).

In every case, the former lout undergoes a magical transformation upon the event of childbirth in which he falls hopelessly in love with the baby/babymama/idea of fatherhood right around the time that the woman is being wheeled into delivery (note: women are not wheeled into delivery any more, in case you don't know this already).

Tina Fey to the rescue, possibly. While it is more a movie about an adoption than a childbirth, I have high hopes that Baby Mama (set to release in April 2008), breaks this trend, Fey being a writer and a mother and funny, generally. While it does have the cliche of a single career gal who desperately wants a baby, and the cliche of the working-class gal who finds herself pregnant, it does bring them together to muddle through the pregnancy together, which sounds new. AICN had a quick review of a screening in NYC (which says almost as much about the venue as about the film). Sounds potentially promising.

And, then, of course, mommied as I am, I'm several months late in finding out about Juno (releasing this December, trailer here). It's directed by the Thank You for Smoking guy and was written by Diablo Cody, a girl, so maybe it more than pretends to be from the teenage girl's perspective. And it co-stars Michael Cera, who like collective-crush objects Seth Rogan and, formerly, Burt Reynolds, will likely make it worthwhile.

Silas indulges Mama on her birthday

Who was your college roommate?

So, L. Craig was my dad's fraternity brother and roommate. Paul has advised me not to post any more about this, so you'll have to get the (very brief) story in person.

I listened to the interrogation tape at the Spokesman Review site and tried to imagine this defender of marriage and NRA board member at the old D Chi house chugging a Thunderbird. (The tape is actually more fascinating than you would expect, not that it's unfamiliar to listen to a Republican sidestepping a series of difficult questions).

But L.C. was Student Body President of U of I, described by his friends as "studious" and "awkward with women" in the Idaho Statesman's ridiculously detailed account of his history, in which he consistently replies to reporters: "jiminy!" and "I don't pick up men."

Jiminy. Go Vandals.

omg (lower case, shame)... my blog sucks

First of all, I have to apologize for the AndyRooneyishness of my last post (I've noticed all the cranes lately and I've been wondering, Who is this Paul Allen fellow anyway?) I sound like one of those people who hangs out in Irish bars in Wallingford in my black leather jacket crying into my red hook about that lifechanging Nirvana concert in 1992. STFU!

I really hesitated about starting a blog because I was afraid that it would be too difficult to execute and sustain (says the grant writer!) without having a distinct reason for being. Being right about that does not make me feel better about the fact that it sucks. But does it really suffer from lack of concept?

Funnily (a funny word I've stolen from Paul), I was sure that my ideas about needing a solid conceptual base came from one of my best professors--best because he's one of those people who's in my head all the time (he would hate this blog, and he should, it sucks)--so I googled in search of a quote, and this is what I found (from an interview I did, which makes me a pretty big dork for linking to it, but this post needs a g.d. link):

I'd like to see students get more comfortable with the idea that art needn't serve some a priori identifiable function. Too many students feel a need to justify their work in advance of making it. ... They'd be better off trusting that real innovations create their own, unforeseen function. The idea that you can pre-ordain your work's function often means you want it to function in a therapeutic way: "doing good," correcting some abstract social inequity, etc. Not all art should be about expressing earnest hope for the improvement of the species, though. Ask Baudelaire. Ask Wilde. Anyway, in general I'd say students should concentrate on making real behavioral innovations. Let the audience decide their importance.

David Robbins saves my lazy ass again.

Now that I'm headfirst into this thing without a purpose (and sleeping through most of it... you should read the daily blog in my 4:15am head... fabo!), I will try to concentrate on the very simple behavior of posting every day. Some of it will suck (just warning you all). Otherwise I have to delete the whole g.d. thing and as those of you who know me know, I don't like to throw anything away.

All the kids go to Sharon's (at some point)

Last Saturday, we met friends at the Georgetown Artopia and carnival, where we enjoyed the power tool races (shown here) and other exciting oddities and bands with hairy teenagers.

How do they do it? Somehow Georgetown seems to remain in a perpetual state of just-before-coolness. You know, Bumbershoot in the early 90s cool, when you could see bands all day long for six bucks and you didn't have to wait two hours in every line. So many things go the way of Bumbershoot (and the Gorge, where we are going next week to see Willie!)--overly commercial, overly crowded, overly coifed--to the point that it almost makes you not want to leave the house for another g.d. festival. Georgetown is different. I won't rave about it too much and spoil your fun, but they do have another festival coming up next weekend (a garden walk, sadly, not a carnival).

Among the many attractions we enjoyed was something that wasn't even part of the festival: a WWII-era airplane that flew over throughout the day. As we were walking back to our car after the day's festivities--dinner at Stellar, performance art on the sidewalk, and a quick stop at Belle and Whistle--we saw a thirty-something woman on the corner looking up. When we asked her about the airlanes, she got very excited. "You can pay to go in them," she told us. When we asked how much it cost: "I don't know, but I bet it's a bundle. Some rich person must be doing that."

Some rich person is doing that. I was driving this morning and heard one of those NPR adlets for Paul Allen's Flying Heritage Collection. Last weekend, and this weekend too, they are featuring the P51-D "Mustang."

Weirdly, this reminds me of Sharon, the town babysitter in Malad. We didn't have anything like licensed daycare there, because most moms didn't work. Those moms that did work took their kids to Sharon's. Sharon's was awesome: she had a basement full of toys and a mini-playground in the backyard, and when you went to Sharon's she would just turn you loose with about 40-50 other kids from age 3 to 12. The only rule was that you had to share. I don't even think we had to clean up after ourselves.

And that's Paul Allen, Seattle's town babysitter. He's building us a giant playground (have you driven down Denny lately?), he lets us into his geek basement, and we can play with his toys. It costs a bundle, but if you're willing to give up a few bucks and your lingering sense of nostalgia for the days when Seattle actually had diners, quirky festivals that aren't overrun by tourists, and one-story buildings, you get to hang out at Sharon's, Seattle-style. Or you can move to Portland (doesn't he own the Trailblazers, too?). You could also move to Yakima, or Malad. I'm pretty sure he doesn't own anything there.

"You've been in labor for nine weeks..."

My friend Jen reminded me recently that I was still on prelabor day 14. (Hi, Jen... thanks for continuing your efforts to read my poor, dormant rodney.)

Baboos is now with Paul. I've asked for my own D&D night (i.e., a night away as a trade for his regular Wednesday game). I was about to start my excursion to the front room (this is where I write, in theory... it's really where I pet the cats and wander around in a book-induced haze trying to figure out what I could be reading). I was about to settle in when he started crying (Silas, not Paul). I went to the kitchen to see what was wrong. Paul had him. I went back to the front room. I couldn't work. I couldn't putter around in the front room. My right boob hurt. I went back to the kitchen. I tried to take him away from Paul. Paul told me to get out of the house.

I'm at Top Pot. Silas is sleeping. Or he's crying. Paul has him. I have nine minutes left of my D&D night.

Apparently, if I start laughing right now, Silas will receive a significant health benefit (or at least be less likely to be itchy...thanks, Jill, for the tip!). If I were a good mom, I would laugh right now. Laugh, damn it. I have three minutes left.

Here's my baboos:

Paul just called. The baby is stirring.

Pre-prelabor day fourteen

The other night I was laying in bed, firmly cocooned in my pillow fort (that's three on the headboard, one under my hip, one behind my back, one between my legs, and a giant body pillow between Paul and I). Waves of pain were emanating from what I'm guessing is my cervix. In between chanting my new relaxation mantra--ow, ow, ouch, ow--I said to Paul, I've gone through my whole life without ever really feeling pain. This made him laugh, which validated my sense of comic timing (you have to cling to your meager, intermittent successes when you look like a giant pear and feel like there's a metal rod shoved through your back).

It's also true. When I was five I broke my arm. That must have hurt but I remember the cool cast more than the pain. I had cramps when I was a teenager, but good-old BCP took care of that for many years. So I'm studying all these unusual pains--the aches, the stabs, the discomforts. This is what I wanted: to go through labor without medication so I could feel the full experience. What a dork. And we haven't even started yet.

I often think about that scene in Lawrence of Arabia in which O'Toole holds his hand over the match to show off his super-human pain tolerance (which must have seemed shocking in the pre-Fear Factor, pre-Eastern-philosophy-saturated 1960s American culture), then invites another guy to try it.

William Potter: Ooh! It damn well 'urts!
T.E. Lawrence: Certainly it hurts.
Officer: What's the trick then?
T.E. Lawrence: The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.

I've been trying to find this in the Seven Pillars of Wisdom but it appears this sum-up is the invention of a screenwriter who wanted to encapsulate Lawrence's various thoughts on pain into one pithy line.

Paul has been excellent at keeping my spirits up. Last Friday, we took a trip to Costco, usually a source of distress, which surprisingly yielded two happy pills: 1) I got to drive a handi-cart (sitting on your ass the whole time substantially improves the Costco experience, trust me); 2) We bought Guitar Hero II which allows me to realize my dreams of being a rock star momma, with the guitar controller resting comfortably on my poochy belly as I clunk through the color-coded notes. My band, Procreat, is now on tour and rockin' Providence. (The downside? You do get songs like "Cherry Pie" and "Carry on Our Wayward Son" stuck in your head for days.)

No news on the baby front. I've had various signs of labor, all of which mean that he could be born today or in two days or in two weeks. So I'm also studying patience and finding that, while I ask a lot of questions (the triage nurse knows me by first name now), I am a willing and curious student. Is there any other time in my life that I will get to sit on the couch for hours starting at my books, staring at the baby toys, staring at my toes? When I say hours, I'm not exaggerating. The trick is not minding that you're wasting time.

Pre-prelabor day four

The small soldier came up to Gros-Louis waving a newspaper.

"It's peace!"

Gros-Louis set down his bucket. "What did you say, my boy?"

"I said it's peace."

Gros-Louis looked at him dubiously.

"Peace? But there hasn't been war."

After three days of painful, then nonpainful, then intermittent contractions (which, oddly, I keep calling "transactions"), I have no contractions, productive or otherwise.

I feel like the characters from The Reprieve, Sartre's novel about Parisians frantically gearing up for war in 1938 only to wake up one morning and find out that Daladier had signed the Munich agreement (the "peace" in which he agreed to cede part of France to the Sudeten Germans).

Of course, instead of enlisting, confessing secrets, or drinking ourselves blind we were timing contractions, writing a birth plan, and setting up the co-sleeper. But, we're ready now, by god.

A country road. A tree. Evening.

Mr. Godot told me to tell you that he won't come this evening but surely to-morrow.

Today I stopped taking the nifedipine (that blood pressure medicine that's been keeping my smooth muscles quiet ... i.e., stopping those daily contractions I've been having from really going anywhere.)

I'm not sure if I'm Didi and Paul's Gogo, or the other way around. I'm here and he's out, so I'm my own sidekick tonight. No contractions now. Just waiting.

Oh, Inverted Belly

Some mornings I wake up and say, he grew last night. Mostly it's a guess, I feel slightly stretched on one side or the other. This morning, though, I stumbled into the shower and ran the soap over my belly and my belly button, which has been slowly disappearing over the past few weeks, is gone. Or, I should say, inverted. I didn't realize how much I liked my belly button, or playing with my belly button, until it was gone. This is all temporary, of course. In the shower, I started reciting that bit from Bill Cosby's "Kindergarten" about the navel game:

"I was playing with my navel ([deep voice] oh, navel, navel). My mother said, 'Alright, keep playing with your navel, pretty soon you're gonna break it wide open the air's gonna come right out of your body and you'll fly around the room backwards for 30 seconds, land and you'll be flat as a piece of paper with just your little eyes buggin out.' I used to carry band-aids around with me in case I had an accident."

I've hit my limit of technical expertise (or Blogger's, depending on how you look at it) and can't offer you a quick link to it. But you can get a download here for only 32 cents.

If I find a site where I can upload the mp3, I'll post it. Or you can come to our house and we'll play it for you. Idiot mittens. Luke warm, curdly milk. Good stuff.

Video-ette Party

New video by my friend Ilana in NY (who decided we were soul mates after she saw my copy of The Trials of Lenny Bruce and well-worn Fame VHS tape).

Vera! (or why you should come to Seattle Center today)

If Staley could have foreseen his final resting place, he might have thought twice about his little habit.








But look at his view...



Today kicks off the big opening party of the brand-spankin-new music and gallery space for The Vera Project, the nonprofit darling of twenty- and thirty-something, music-worshipping Seattlites. You remember Drink for the Kids, right? That's Vera.



One nice thing about working at the Center is that you can wander by the Vera space every few days or so and see the progress. These pictures are actually from late January (taken by my talented friend Linda).








Last week, Vera looked more like this.

It's hard to walk by the pristine space and not feel ambivalent about the future of Seattle music. Imagine AiC or Soundgarden or even DCFC emerging from this "state-of-the-art facility." But who can crush the dream: music for the kids. MUSIC FOR THE KIDS! CREATIVE EXPRESSION! SAFE, EASILY ACCESSIBLE PARKING. This is all part of the big new plan to make Seattle Center hip (charette, anyone?). I'm making fun but I'm there every day, watching the progress. Dorks like me who moved to Seattle for the music have to be there, secretly watching the progress. Secretly loathing it. Loving it. How can you not love the art kids?

The Ver(a)rt Gallery Opening, "Don't Let the GermBots Bite" by OneSevenNine (with music and snacks, of course), starts at 6 pm. If you want to publicly confess your extreme music dorkitude, stop by at 3 pm when Mayor Nickels cuts the ribbon on Seattle's first city-sanctioned all ages club. And tell yourself it's just a cleaner version of the Off Ramp.

If you listen closely, you may even hear Staley's transcendent, mono-moan screech,

Down in a hole

Feeling so small

Conversation overheard at local spa (it was a Christmas present, ok)

The Relaxation Facilitator prepares the client-in-white-robe’s feet for the soaking bowl.

RF: I’m Audra. Let me know if you need anything else.

CIWR: Audra. That’s a pretty name.

RF: I renamed myself, actually. My original name was Cassandra.

CIWR: That’s nice, too.

RF: Well, I’m a singer so I wanted something different. And Audrey Hepburn is my favorite actress.

CIWR: So it’s a stage name?

RF: No, I actually legally changed my name.

CIWR: That’s so funny. I legally changed my name, just a couple of weeks ago.

RF: What to?

CIWR: My whole life I’ve been Jill. But I’ve been getting into writing lately, so I thought Isabel.

RF: That’s so perfect.

CIWR: Yeah, thanks. I’m totally excited about it.

I sing the body inflated

I have two chicken pox scars on my belly. I've had them since I was five, about two inches to the left of my belly button (my left). They're an inch and a half apart. Well, they were. Now they're four and a half inches apart.

We don't have any naked mirrors in our house, so I hadn't really looked at it. But we were in Vail this weekend and everyone was out skiing, so I got to hang out in the condo by myself and walk around naked. And I finally got a good look. The belly. The distension. Distensibility. It's amazing: the network of blue veins from my neck to my hips, the nearly translucent skin, the taut oval more bulgy at the bottom than at the top, sort of like a Weeble.

On Monday we went for a swim. They had a pool there the size of a giant bathtub. I mean, they had a bathtub the size of a pool. They had a pool. It was very warm. So I wore the only swimsuit I have, a bikini (courtesy of Amy, my neighbor and personal maternity clothier). Even Paul had to agree that the belly was pretty exciting. I said, my belly never looked this good in a bikini, and he said, I don't think I've seen your belly in a bikini. He has a habit of forgetting the things I need him to. He is the perfect mate.

Baby H is moving around a lot these days. We have little games. I discovered this one in the tub: If he kicks, I poke my belly, and he kicks again. He seems to follow my pokes. (He just kicked now.) Some days it works, and some days it doesn't. Mostly, I think he's playing me, the hopeful mother already trying too hard to connect with her son.

I did figure out a way to get him to move. For some reason, he enjoys hanging out low in the torso, which I'll tell you now is pretty uncomfortable. Imagine a pair of 3cm-long feet kicking around in your bladder and cervix area. Ech. But I was lying in bed the other night and figured out that if I put my hand (it has to be warm) closer to my ribs, he will move up under my hand. When he does that I like to sing to him, unless Paul's trying to sleep next to me. We have a couple of songs so far. I try to sing the same ones, so he'll recognize them when he comes out, and enjoy them until he's a preteen and figures out they're stupid songs.

I've definitely hit the phase people kept talking about. The one in which you finally have energy and can stomach at least a few cooking smells and feel ok about everyone wanting to take care of you and weep whenever you fold the tiny tees that people have already started to give him. On Saturday, naked day, I thought that I might want to stay pregnant forever. Well, talk to me in about a month.

More books than you can possibly read in a lifetime

Paul and I were sitting around one night, talking about moving the furniture around, which always brings up the topics of The Books. Paul tried to get me to admit that I have more books than I can possibly read in my lifetime. This is not something you ever want to hear, right, because it's a naggy little reminder about how short your life really is. Plus, you know you've built up this library because you are constantly coming across new recommendations and offshoots and influences of the things that you have read and what about all those books you won't get to read in addition to the books that are already in your house that you haven't read. (This is where I have to breathe.)

So, I'm starting the MBTYCPRIAL (mab-tic-prial?) project. I came up with a dorky die rolling system to choose the next book. Whatever book I end up with, I have to deal with it. I can read (or re-read, as the case may be, although this seems at odds with my goal... what is my goal?). I can also choose to sell the book. Or give it away. If you see a book on my MB-PRIAL list that you really want, give me a shout.

My hope is that I can get through everything in less than five years (I have a little over 1,000 books and have read about 400 of them start to finish, so that leaves 600 or 120 a year). My first roll: 3-1-4-5. The Bostonians by Henry James. I bought this book in 2004 after reading Colm Toibin's The Master and was prepping for my Henry James phase, which was interrupted, most likely, by my Martha Gellhorn phase.

As a kickoff celebration, I found this Italian DVD cover for James Ivory's film version. Enjoy. Henry and I are off to a dinner party with someone named Olive.

To begin with, I’m pretty darn fat…

and whenever I say that, people say to me, “you’re not fat” or “it’s not really fat.” A reflex, no doubt. Of course, when I say “I’m so fat,” I mean, isn’t it hilarious that I have this baby crawling around inside my body, and there’s this big belly, and isn’t it great and weird? My nephew gets it. He’s three. We were out to dinner and I proclaimed my intention to order the peppermint ice cream. “You can’t have ice cream. You’re too fat.” And this makes a cute three-year-old story but I guess it also makes him sound a bit size-ist. He’s thin and tall and he knows a lot about sharks. And he’s excited about his pending boy cousin.

We’re at week 24: the baby is about 12 to 13 inches tall and weighs 1.5 lbs. He has all his muscles but no fat on his body yet.

It’s hard to know what to say about being pregnant that hasn’t been said. Or is it? On the one hand, the CDC reported 4,163,000 live births between May 2005 and April 2006 in the U.S. So, that’s about four times the size of Seattle and about 2,175 times the number of people in my hometown, where women regularly have four to eight kids. But this is one kid, and the nine-month combo of the two of us is unique. More unique than anything I could write. Unlike a story idea that revealed itself magically at 3:25 am (voila! out of the collective unconscious), and that I might have worked on for months then abandoned, I won’t see it on HBO or in The Believer in two years and think, well, I could have done that. I did do that. Nearly. And (best part) there are no critiques: “She doesn’t have quite the irritability that we expect in these sort of collaborations, but we’ve definitely seen that waddle before.” I guess there'll be plenty of criticism after he comes, but for now I'm on my own.

So far, everything has been completely normal: the sickness (months 2 to 4), the exhaustion (better now, but still a factor), and the belly rubbing (I never saw myself as a belly rubber, but it feels pretty good — highly recommended). It’s nice to be able to eat doughnuts and sit on the couch watching movies for four or more hours a day.

It is strange to be walking around with a big poochy belly — conspicuous and then quickly invisible. People notice, obviously (except the people on my crowded morning bus, who pretend to look away as I’m trying to steady myself in the aisle while they relish their seatdom). In my neighborhood, the quick response is a vague non-response, a sorting out that may go something like this: Girl. Lady. Pregnant lady. Um, what’s in The Stranger this week? I can remember sorting in this way, hungover, on a Friday morning. One of us, not one of us.

The Center House is full of birds this morning and I can’t decide if that’s cute or really gross. It’s hard to imagine the SC food court being any grosser but there it is. Guano. GUANO. (No, I didn’t see guano. It’s the thought.)

And I sort them out, too. Converse, cords, hoodie. Yup. That was me. Now it’s not. My hoodies are too tight. Then something else happens, especially with boys: Boy. Really young boy. Son. Son? Hmmm. Where did that come from?

A woman just came and sat down at a table near me. She’s meeting a man here. He pulls out some photocopies, which seem to be galleys. “I don’t want a bunch of title shit on there,” she says. “I’ll take it off,” he says. “Dang it.”

I was walking to yoga Saturday and this harlequinesque goth kid, 19ish, passed me near SCCC. He did the quick look. Then he kept staring as we passed each other. This I’m not used to. I spent the rest of the three blocks trying to figure out what it all meant: he hates breeders, he loves bellies, he hates mommies, he hates his own mommy, he wants to kiss me, he wants to stab me, he's hungover and hates the idea of a vaguely rotund, chipper mama bouncing off to morning yoga class, readying for her unapologetic contribution to the too fat belly of the earth.