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.