quest for a faerie child

popping sounds

Insomnia claimed my exhausted self at 3am this morning.  By 5am, I decided to just get up, shower and go into work rather than lie there and fight it any longer.  I have the doctor appointment's week from hell this week and I have to say that I am truly just about done with the prodding and poking.  Today is the endocrinologist and the midwife.  Tomorrow is the pediatric urologist and Wednesday is the ultrasound from hell.  I used to have quite an aversion to medical professionals in my 20's.  I thought that being diagnosed with MS in my early 30's would change that.  But, never have I seen as many different doctors, techs, phlebotomists, etc... as I have since I got pregnant for the second time this year.  My god.  Sometimes I feel like a lab experiment and I know Moose gets pretty irritated from time to time and feels as if both the doodle and me are lab rats in the cog known as OHSU.

No that I'm not getting great care, mind you.  Because I am..  I'm getting uber care, really..

Anyway...

I was lying in bed last night and I heard several rapid popping noises that made me wonder idly if they were gunshots, which is always a nice comforting thought to have just before you are hoping to drop off to sleep.  I was reminded of an episode when I was in college.  The following thought ran through my head about that episode last night:  "I was supposed to have died that night, but death was cheated by my all-consuming need to spend the night with Karl.  Thank you Karl."

Why was I supposed to have died?  Well, a bullet was shot during the night that entered my house, my bedroom even through the corner of the wall, knicked my pillows and buried itself in the closet across from my bed.  My parents heard the shot, but never thought to look in my room or my sister's room and in fact, never got up from bed.  My door was closed.  The bullet hit exactly where my head would have been had I been sleeping in my room. I was not, though.  I was staying overnight at my boyfriends and completely oblivious to my thwarted death.  My parents found the bullet the next day after my mother went into my room for some reason.  Had something actually happened to me, she would have found me.... and not the bullet.  How's that for morbid?

So, those were my thoughts last night as I was attempting to get to sleep...   In either case, it's not like I lived in gangland nor do I currently live in gangland.  In fact, it probably wasn't even gunshots last night, but it sounded like it might be.  Although, honestly, I'm no expert on this sound. 

No sir, I know not the sound of gunshots in the night.

not so intruding intruders

There are times when I get these feelings, a sense of something.  I've always considered myself to be highly intuitive and I've learned over the years to trust in that intuition.  Sometimes it manifests itself as an inherent knowledge of someone before or even minutes after I've met them.  Sometimes it manifests itself in being able to foresee that some event will occur.  I wouldn't really consider it a psychic ability, just something that allows me to deeply read what's going on around me and forecast out in a logical manner what will probably occur.  I have learned it is in those moments when I do not trust that feeling I get inside, that things happen I wish truly wouldn't.  I trust my first sense about people, always.  When I don't, I often find myself burned.

Sometimes this leads to a bit of superstition.  When I sense something and I am tempted to ignore it, I end up at war with myself.

This is the state I was in on Saturday night, when I awakened to voices outside.  It is not uncommon to hear voices out on the street.  We live off Division in inner SE.  There are times when I have awakened to the late night drunken ramblings of individuals walking down Division.  But something about this experience was different.  In the few moments after I first heard the voices, I had a flash of people coming up to the front door and forcing themselves inside.

In pregnancy, I have become paranoid that random odd events will happen and harm myself and the baby.  It grows stronger with each passing week.

I put the thought of intruders out of my mind and tried to settle myself back into sleep.  It could only have been minutes before I heard movement in the front yard.  At first I thought it might be an animal, but it grew closer and it was large and then I heard something under the window.  The head of the bed is against the front window and so, I found myself lifting up to peer through the blinds down onto the figure of a man in a red jacket.  He had been crouching and then stood up.  I saw his arms reach up and heard his hands upon the window when I jumped out of bed.

Moose had fallen asleep on the couch again and all I could think about was getting out of the bedroom as fast as possible.  I threw open the door and called, "Someone's trying to get into the house."

He jumped off the couch and thought I meant through the basement door.  What ensued was a bit of chaos as I attempted to explain while nearly hyperventillating.  In the meantime, I could see somewhat out of the blinds and I saw a second man jump off the roof of the garage to the right of the front window.  I was terrified.  Moose wanted to rip open the door and go get them.  But all I could think about was that vision of people forcing themselves inside.  I begged him to stay inside.

And so we remained that way for a period of time, before Moose refused to stay inside any longer.  He kept trying to explain to me that a) he was not going to be afraid in his own house, b) you needed to show them that you were not afraid, and c) they were probably long gone because my awakening probably scared them away.

It turns out they were gone.  It turns out they were utilizing the garage as a means to get onto the roof of the building beside us in order to tag it.  It turns out they were not evil people trying to force themselves into the house to harm me or the doodlebug or Moose.

It turns out that sometimes my active imagination gets the better of me.  But I ask you, wouldn't you be freaked if you awakened to someone crawling around underneath your window?  I think you would.  I think any sane person would.

In other news, it's my day off today and I ended up riding the scoot to go shopping for something a bit more professional to wear because we have orientation on Friday and none of my pretty work clothes fit me any longer.  It was a bit of an exercise in frustration, although I did find an outfit to wear that I hope makes me look pregnant and not just fat.  I am almost at the point where I cannot ride the scoot any longer.  Not only does it aggravate my pelvis unbelievably, but I find myself often worried about myself and the doodlebug, and the rainy season is beginning here so venturing out at any time could find you in the midst of pouring rain in the midst of the trip.

I managed to avoid the rain but not the pelvic pain.  So, I now find myself hobbling around the house trying to get the two sides of my body to even out while wincing in continual pain.

Ah, the joys of pregnancy....

procrastinator's hell

I've noticed that my ability to articulate words has worsened the more pregnant I become.  Last night, I wrote incruciating for excruciating.  What the hell??  I read it this morning and I had a little sesame street or electric company moment from childhood, "Which of these things doesn't belong here...?"  I even hummed the song in my head a bit and it took me several seconds of reading and rereading the sentence before the glaring error made itself known to my feeble pregnancy mind.

At least, I'm blaming it on pregnancy and the pain I was (am) in and the fact that I was still dead exhausted with no end to the insomnia in sight.  Is it insomnia when you fall asleep but then wake up and can't get back to sleep?  I believe it is.  I believe a coworker recently informed me that it is, indeed, a form of insomnia. Hallelujah.  There's nothing I love more than a good solid diagnosis.  None of this nebulous crap for me.  No, Sir.

My 1am wake-ups are becoming a habit and I'm really not entirely happy about the fact that I wake up like clockwork in the 1am hour.  At least, I'm not waking up at 3am on the dot every day.  At least, I'm not waking up at the same exact minute.  Then I'd start to have crazy Emily Rose or Amityville Horror thoughts in the deep dark of night and that would not be a good thing.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I am a procrastinator from hell.  I mean, I'll put off crap until the last possible moment.  I tell myself this is because I work better under pressure.  And actually, that's somewhat true.  But the truth is, I get the same caliber of work done without pressure.  I just can't motivate myself to do it unless I have to.  Usually.

So, this morning I am scrambling (in between blog-writing ----because I just can't get away from procrastination) to finish up a bunch of stuff that I should have completed last week sometime because it's due today, but of course....I leave it until the last minute because I know I can whip it off the top of my head and out of my ass easily.  I could do it in my sleep.  The only problem with that mindset is when you realize that you've actually overlooked something.

yeah..

I overlooked something.  Sooo, now I'm really going to have to scramble around like a chicken with its head cut off today in order to pull this out of my procrastinating ass.

Everytime this happens, I vow to be better organized in the future.  I mean, noone ever knows that I'm scrambling.  Everything looks pretty flawless.  But, I know.  And it stresses me out.  However, even though I make these vows, they will come to nothing, nothing, nothing.  I recently found out I'm an INFP on the Meyer's-Briggs.  One of those designations is explained as wanting to make lists and actually going ahead and making them, but invariably you lose them.  That's me...

I think about making lists and organizing my tasks instead of juggling them in my mind.  Everytime I think about doing it, I either put it off or I actually do it and then promptly lose the pad of paper upon which they were written.

Ah well... I am who I am.  And I still haven't told the intruder story!  I guess that long long divergence into my psyche was a means to say that I'm sorry I haven't told the story yet, but I'm in procrastinator's remorse right at the moment and need to get back to digging my ass out of it.

So... I'll get to it.

to be a good day or bad....

I can't decide if today has started off well or if it has landed itself in the Kiernen Hall of Fame.  Why you ask?  Well, let me elaborate on this for you.  I'll begin with the Kiernen Hall of Fame reasons: 

I awakened at 1:00am this morning and could not get back to sleep until sometime after 3:45am.  My alarm goes off at 4:14am.  This allowed me just enough time to drop into a dreamstate, only to be rudely awakened out of it less than a half hour later.

Why was I unable to sleep?  Oh, the doodlebug for one.  I allowed my crazy little mind to freak out over any number of possibilities, not the least of which was the astronomical amount of money the pregnancy alone is going to be.  I've seen more doctors in the last couple weeks than I have in dealing with my MS and while I just want everything to be ok with the bug, it's incredibly difficult to be continually poked and prodded and scanned and examined, over and over and over again.  And then sometimes, my mind runs to the number of doctors who are going to tap us for their 'exams' and 'opinions' and 'second-opinions'.  That probably sounds terrible, but hey...I don't know many people for whom money isn't at least a passing concern. I won't even mention the number of ultrasounds I'm likely to have before I deliver.

Another reason I was unable to sleep is because I've been fairly absent from work lately and I am so far behind I can't even wrap my mind around it.  On top of it, we've got fall conference going on this week and every second is scheduled with that or with interviewing applicants for an open position.  It leaves me no time to do what i need to.  So naturally, I had to obsess on that beginning at 1am, as well.

And how did I end up going back to sleep?  Well, in typical fashion, I decided at 340am that I would just get up and go to work.  I turned on the light, went into the bathroom, peed, realized as I was peeing that I was pretty damn tired and that my hips were killing me, went back into the room, turned out the light and decided to lie back down for a few minutes to get comfortable, and then the next thing I knew, the alarm was blaring beside me.  I snoozed 4 times and then managed to crawl out of bed and get ready.

Once I got into work I went to get the community pass key to get into the offices, because I lost my own office key long ago and they are nazi's about the keys here.   I don't know what I'll do when I stop working here because I'll have to admit that I lost my office key and they'll probably take the doodlebug as punishment. I opened the hiding place and lo and behold????  The key was not there!  That's right, the key was not there.

So, now I'm sitting in a cube outside my office, looking longingly at my office door and realizing that I am not likely to get in there until closer to 9am.  9AM!

The horror of it all.

The horror of it all when I have craploads and I mean CRAPLOADS of work to do in there and my scheduled day begins at 9am.  I'll literally not get a THING done.  NOTHING. nothing.  NOTHING.

So, now you are wondering how my day could possibly be good?  The simple reason is that I could have been in here at 4am sitting in a cube with NOTHING to do.  Instead, I was enjoying a few moments of sleep and comfort in the one wise decision I have made today.

Usually this is not the case for me.  Usually, once something starts to go wrong, I have about 4-5 things cascade from there.  It's like I become a magnet for misfortune once I've experienced one issue.  Apparently the universe decided to spare me this time, which is a really great thing considering all the crap the universe has slung at me in recent days.

Thanks universe.  Thanks for getting my back on this one.  I'll get ya next time.

Overall, I think I'm doing ok.  I have some freakish moments, but I'm much better off than I was throughout last week.  Mostly, I find myself feeling somewhat saddened because there were times during the scan from hell yesterday, times in between those when I wanted to scream because my back was hurting so badly from laying in one place for hours, times when we got to really see the bug moving around.   I had a resident practice scanning me in between techs and doctors coming in and out in consultation.  She would sometimes leave the transducer in one place on my belly and we could see his little feet flex and his little legs kick.  We could sometimes see his little profile and his arm waving over his head, or his little fists punching.  It was an amazing thing, really and an opportunity you don't often get when they are quickly trying to take their pictures and measure all the different anatomical parts.

It would have been nice to have just been able to enjoy that experience and to not be analyzing everything you've heard said in low voices around you, in order to somehow make a determination as to what the eventual news will be.

It would have been really nice.  However, I'll take what I can get and at least we were able to have the opportunity to see him really moving about.  At least we have that, right?

i kill myself for you

Disaster almost struck this morning as I was whipping up a batch of what was supposed to be cheddar-chive scones, but ended up being asiago-parmigiana reggiano-romano-gruyere, chive and buttermilk scones, due to a distinct lack of cheddar and whipping cream, yet an overabundance of leftover bits of the aforementioned and buttermilk.  I had one batch in the oven due to come out and I was trying desperately to finish cleaning up the kitchen so that I could place that batch on cooling racks and get the second batch in the oven without losing a second's worth of time, because I'm obsessive in that way.  I used to run a side-business as a personal chef and in the personal cheffing world, time is of the essence.  Therefore, one wastes nary a second in the preparation of meals.

I set all my cleaned expensive knives crossways across the top of the kitchaid mixing bowl, which was not attached to the stand mixer, until I could get to a point to dry them.  I then realized I needed to move the mixing bowl in order to clean the counter next to the sink, which is where I traditionally cool baked goods.  Instead of moving the knives off the bowl, I pick up the bowl and think I can just move it easily to another spot.  Wrong.

Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.

As the knives begin sliding off the bowl, my world slides into slow motion.  I realize I can not just grab the knives because the handles are sliding off and the blades are what I would have to grab.  In that moment, I also realize I am wearing sandles - open-toed sandles as I cook and I have a brief vision of the knives turning on their way down and cutting off a toe. 

Please note:  this is why it is drilled into you when you work professionally in the culinary industry NOT TO WEAR OPEN-TOED SHOES IN THE KITCHEN.

As I resolve to do the only thing I can, which is to try to clasp my arms around the knives and gather them close to my belly in an attempt to save my feet, I realize I do, in fact, have something living inside that belly and it is a little more important than my toes, so I let the knives slide through my arms (cutting myself in the process), close my eyes and hear them clatter all over the floor, miraculously missing my feet.

Just call me Grace.

And fuzzy-minded on a Labor Day Monday, when I've been off work for four days and I don't have to go back until Wednesday and I haven't utilized one ounce of vacation or sick time for such a long, long break from work.

Moose came running up the stairs from the basement, thinking I had pulled appliances onto myself.  Hearing the story, he took the knives from me with a stern, "Step away from the knives.  Step away."

Yesterday I burned the living shit out of my pinky finger while making polenta.  For some reason, I was looking at a recipe and I have no idea why because I know how to make polenta.  I could make polenta with my eyes closed, but there I was looking at some stupid directions that had you cooking the polenta over medium heat.  Hello?  Polenta splatters and I mean SPLATTERS on anything higher than low heat.  I know this. 

But just in case I had forgotten it, my pinky now bares a very angry, angry blister from where the polenta splattered and clung to it while I ran for the sink and the cold water, while gasping in pain. So now my right pinky is painfully burned and my left forearm bares a lengthy cut from the knives.  I'm doing incredibly well this weekend in the self-mutilation department.

I told Moose, "I kill myself for you.  You know this, right?"

i eat acronyms for breakfast

So, I was a big fat loser last night when I predicted that  4:14am would find me protesting and moaning about work.  I'm actually quite shocked about it because the last time I looked at the clock last night was just after 10:30pm and I am many things, but a 6 hour a night girl is not one of them.  I was awake before the alarm and then snoozed a couple times just because I felt as if I should, given how I waxed on about it last night and given how I've felt for the last couple weeks.

What did happen, however, was that my energy slammed on the breaks around 6am and I'm talking pulled-up-the-emergency-break-while-stomping-both-feet-on-the-break-pedal-and-skidding-into-a-180, yo.  I then proceeded to message board my way (whilst occasionally answering 100+ emails from my long weekend) through the next 2 hours, trying to remain awake and coherent.

At that point work started to pick up and when I looked at the clock, expecting it to be 9:30, it was 12:30 and then it was 3:15 and then I was trying to claw my way out of work at the normal 3:30 slot, but didn't manage to break free until 4:15.

My life literally fastforwarded HOURS in the space of minutes, twice today and this happened at various points last week, too ---despite my never-ending whine about work and the inevitable boredom I endure.  Then, I realized I was about 18.5wks today and almost had a heart attack, because I think it was last week that I was 12.5, wasn't it?  I mean seriously, what the hell happened?  I mean, yanno, I know I'm 18 weeks.  I see the weekly email newsletters. I can answer without hesitation how far along I am.  But, I wasn't really thinking about it.  Then I realized that my 20wk ultrasound to finally find out whether the doodlebug is, in fact, a she is next week.  Next week.  And next week, I begin the second half of the pregnancy.  Yikes.

I was told this was going to happen, that time was going to fly.  But, I didn't really believe it because the first trimester took like 10 years or something.  Every minute seemed like a couple days.  Now every hour seems like a minute and we're picking up speed at the rate of a speed coaster on crack.

Speaking of crack:  it was suggested to me today that crack-whore could be one of several professions to allow me to stay home, whilst still bringing home the bacon after the doodelbug makes its grand appearnce.  There were other suggestions.  But dude, I really honestly can only remember crack-whore because it somehow seemed so perfect. 

The most simple solution is usually the best, isn't it?  Course, I would need, yanno, the goods.  But I consider that a minor obstacle at this point.  I could tell all my mommy message boarders that I am a SAHCHM (stay-at-home-crack-whore-mom), instead of a SAHM, which actually baffled me for a good length of time because I don't get the whole acronym crap on boards.  DS, DD, DH, BF ---not to be confused with B/F, m/s, u/s, SAHM.  I like to spell shit out and I despise that DS = darling son.  Why not just skip the sappy, sentimental crap and say:  my son or if you absolutely have to:  my S and my D went with my H while I B/F'd my B(get your mind out of the gutter).

Well, this G needs to get on out of here and get some S, after listening to B's heartbeat and contemplating SAHCM'ness, yo.

in which we confirm my slackassness

Hello.  Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is slackass.  And what may I ask, is yours?

Truly though, I've been busy dude.  I helped cater a wedding for 50 this weekend and then attended said wedding, which was outdoors, and took place in 95+ degree heat, whilst pregnant, beginning to feel the backache strain and extremely sensitive to heat of any type.  Joy, joy, joy.

Actually, the wedding was quute nice and although I freaked and freaked over the amount to prepare, it turned out perfectly.  It turned out deliciously.  It turned out orgasmically.  Of course, I was wilting from the moment I got into the car until the moment I returned to my arctic haven, but it was all for a good cause, right? 

It was all for love, which reminds me of a cheesy Peter Cetera song from my days in West Germany.  But, I digress.

This evening, I find myself completely exhausted and truly not wanting to go into work tomorrow.  And I know, I absolutely know when the alarm starts beeping at 4:14am tomorrow morning, I'm going to groan. I am going to moan and I am going to run through every possible reason why I should not be at work.  But, then I will tell myself I have four days to get through and then an incredibly long, long weekend will be upon me once more, one where work will not return until the following Wednesday.  I can do anything for four days, right.  Right?

kill me now, please

Wow.  I'm unbelievably tired, unbelievably bored, unbelievably thirsty.  Yesterday I briefly considered the possibility that my absolute boredom with regards to work had passed.  By about 1pm this afternoon, I knew that was a big joke.  Even as I sat calmly at my desk, typing away on some unknown piece of email, I felt as if I was really sprawled across the floor, arms wide, with a look of exasperation plastered across my face and a sign 'kill me now, please', taped to my chest.

defying titles

Sleep was elusive last night and yet it wasn't.  I recall hazy memories of continual wakings and yet when the incessant, piercing alarm went off at 4:14am this morning, I felt as if I had not moved the entire night.  My shoulder ached in the way it does when sleep has overtaken me to such a degree I fear I must be competing for the title of statue sleeper.  My neck seemed permanently crooked to the right.  My ribcage felt as if I needed to be on one of those medieval stretcher devices, meant to torture, but for me it just may be heavenly.

Crazy weird dreams consume me these days, dreams of babies of unknown origin, dreams of the past mixed with the present, dreams in full cinematic detail.  Yes, yes the dreams are normal, a side-effect of pregnancy.  Yes, I know.  But, I've got a lot going on in the family department these days and buddy, I tell you, my subconscious is working a lot of shit out in my dreams.  At least I've reached a point where I can dream disgusting things and awaken to think, 'hmm, that's interesting.  I wonder what that's about,' rather than readying myself to get checked into a mental ward. 

Tis a far far better thing to be fascinated by what one's mind churns up, than to spend one's life being frightened of it.

It's entirely possible last night's escapade was brought to me by my trip down memory lane, wherein I read just about every post I've written on a past blog and then proceeded to drop off to sleep.  I was struck as I was reading my life. I was struck by the fact that I have years and years of myself splattered all over posts and I need to make sure those things survive.  I need to capture them in such a way as to have them, to be able to always go back and read them because they point out in vivid, written detail just how far I've come, just how happy I was at times, just how horrible things got.  It is important, I think, to be able to go back and review your life at times.  Memories fade.  The nuances of experiences tend to soften and blur as time goes on.  But the written, posted experience lives on forever, always willing to allow you to travel down that path once more, should that need arise within you.

Usually I tend to write and move on.  I tend not to elaborate over what I've written.  The goal is to get it out, sometimes in a diahrrhea of the mind and fingers experience, and then travel on to different things, rarely dwelling upon it again.  Hence, I find myself somewhat shocked in those times when I go back and read a whole period of writings.  I recall the experiences through my words and then find myself amazed, stunned, awed, depressed and sometimes with the thought, 'yo, you're one crazy fuck.'  It's painful sometimes.  In fact, I found myself crying last night and then utterly and completely happy that I am no longer dealing with 'x' or 'y' or 'z'.

Of course I am dealing with 'b' and 'p' right now and at times the big 'd', due to overflowing 'h' and a tremendous amount of 'f' over the whole situation.  But at least I'm not curled up in a fetal ball, wondering if I can ever overcome.  At least I'm not composing poetry that is so difficult for me to read and yet, so incredibly expressive, I can recall the exact moment the correct words came to me.

No, right now I am lamenting the fact that my cute little black jacket with the 'special forces' patch on the left sleeve is starting to strain, starting to protest greatly when I attempt to button it over the all you can eat buffet now known as my breasts.  If only that was all I had to worry about back then.  I do have a bunch of hoo-hah going on with the flatlanders, but it's only entering my subconscious mind, not burdening my waking mind and causing me to wander ailmlessly around the house like a ghost of myself, not causing me to break out in cold sweats of panic, not causing me to look for any possible method of escape.

No, things are better.  But, it never hurts to check out how things used to be, does it?

on past ramblings

I managed to freak myself out in the health department this weekend, but then quickly got it under control, ---so under control that I refuse to write about it here.  My reasoning on this has more to do with my decision not to play midwife and then going back on that when I let my fingers do the frantic google search yesterday which resulted in a call to the real midwife, only to realize I was being a complete doofus.

I got it in my head this afternoon to try and import my old posts from many years ago and managed to only import blank documents (go figure).  Of course, it would probably help to read the export directions on the original system, but I care not for directions.  No sir.  I would rather flounder around with the grace of a 10 thumbed individual, than to actually have to follow a set of directions 20+ steps long.

In the process, however, I stumbled across my sick and twisted ramblings from late 2004 and all I can manage to say is things were bad, dude.  Things were unbelievably bad.  As I was reading one, I was transported to one cold and rainy early early morning where anger and hatred and rage seethed from me in this dark, poisonous post after which I went running and running in the dark, wet streets of SE Portland hoping I could just run everything right out of myself, hoping I could just run myself to the point of such sheer exhaustion that my mind would cease to work and a calming peace would rush over me, saving me from the worst parts of myself.

Ah, those were the days, weren't they?  Thank god they are over.  Thank god that pain has subsided.  Although I will say, I compose some out and out gems when despair and depression hang their forbidding storm-laden clouds above me.