September 30, 2004

What the Fuck?

It's amazing how quickly one becomes a New Yorker. Two days there and we were giving directions to tourists:

"You wanna eat? Well, West 46th is Restaurant Row, and it's fabulous, just fabulous, but if you want to know the real secret, go two blocks down and take a left on 9th Avenue--that's where the real places are, not the tourist traps."

We saw the Naked Cowboy several times, and although I'd never heard of him before, the King swore up and down that he's some sort of local famous person--and the ladies certainly seemed thrilled about getting pictures with the guy. I can see why; he was about 6 foot 3, with a fantastic body, clad only in a pair of tighty whities and his guitar. The King was so enthusiastic about seeing him that I suggested that perhaps he would like to get a picture with the big naked man. He declined, sadly.

One evening we were having drinks at a local bar, and there were two women from Oregon sitting at the next table. One was very attractive, extremely drunk, and necking with a guy. They seemed on the verge of stripping down and doing it on the floor when she announced that she had to pee, and her friend accompanied her to the bathroom. The guy started chatting with us.

The guy: "I'm really kind of nervous; I think she wants me to take her home with me!"
The King: "Um, yeah, seems that way. Good luck, man."
The guy: "No, I mean, I don't want to sleep with her tonight; I really want to get to know her better, because I really respect her. Um, did you catch her name? I can't remember it."

That was only one of several what-the-fuck moments I had in New York. Another was when we returned to our room after visiting the Statue of Liberty, which was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I thought it would be boring, but it was actually very moving. Anyway, back at the hotel, we tried to open our door with those little credit card-like keys they have now, and neither the King or I's key would work. We went to the registration desk, a harrowing trip involving 27 flights in a very old, rickety elevator that I was convinced was going to cause our deaths at some point. At the desk, we presented our cards to the young woman who was working there...

YW: "These are broken," she announced in a shocked tone, looking at them as if we had presented her with dead fish.
Me: "Broken?"
YW: "Broken," she sighed. "You see?" She held them up so we could see the slight bend they had acquired from being held in our back pockets, a bend that had been there with no problems for four days. "Totally broken." She then flung them with great and unnecessary vigor into a trashcan and, with a heavy, heavy sigh, gave us two new cards. It seemed to be extremely strenuous for her, despite the fact that all she did was punch a button on her keyboard and the computer spit them out. She then sent a security guard upstairs with us, ostensibly to ensure the keys worked, but presumably to ensure that we were actually staying in the hotel and weren't going to carry off the television.

September 29, 2004

P.S.

In my previous post about our travels, I forgot to mention two big things that took place after the vomiting (which pretty much was all I could think about while the other two things were happening). They were: (a) both the King and I got terrible colds (and coughing while trying very hard not to vomit is difficult), and (b) we hit a rock on the way home from the airport and got a flat tire. In the rain. At night. No, I am not kidding. The King, an expert tire-changer, is my hero.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

I'm ba-ack! Thanks to everyone who read the blog while I was out of town and not posting--hope you weren't too bored. New York was fantastic. I've got several posts about it for later on, but for now, I'm just going to address our plane rides. The actual travel was the only part of the trip we had trouble with, so I'm going to get it out of the way now and talk about the fun stuff later.

Last week, the King and I agreed that because our flight left Dulles Airport at 11:30 am, we'd get up around 8 and leave the house at 8:30. No problem, we'd get a little lie-in and have plenty of time at the airport for breakfast and any lines at the check-in desk. So the alarm goes off at 8, we get up, and leisurely begin getting ready to go. I make some coffee, the King takes a shower, and around 8:20, I grab our plane tickets to put them in my suitcase. Thank God, I glanced at them before packing them:

Me: "Oh shit."
The King: "What?"
Me: "Our flight isn't leaving at 11:30, it's leaving at 10:00. Holy FUCK."
The King: "Are you fucking kidding me?"
We said fuck a lot more times while racing up and down the stairs with bags, flipping the lights off, and shouting at each other. By the time we got on the highway, we pretty much weren't speaking except for the following:
The King: "You should call the airline and tell them we're going to miss the flight. They'll be nicer about rescheduling if we tell them now, instead of just not showing up."
Me: "We're not going to miss the flight. I've never missed a plane, and I don't intend to start today. Drive faster. That little old lady will get out of the way."

We made the flight--we ran up to the gate at the very moment the stewardess was annoucing that boarding was beginning. We were the first people on. (For what it's worth, it was completely my fault. I made the reservations, and told the King the wrong time. He was very nice about it once the shock wore off.)

The trip home was even more exciting, if that's possible. But in a bad, bad way. The night before we were to leave, we went to bar and ended up chatting with this fabulous Swedish couple. I drank too much and before I knew it, it was 4:00 am and the bar was closing. The King got me back to our hotel and set the alarm.

In the morning, I had a terrible hangover. I managed to get packed, and the King checked us out of the hotel. We went for lunch at the hotel restaurant. There was a huge hole in the ceiling, out of which was dripping large amounts of water, and the place smelled like cabbage and old grease. This was not good for my upset stomach. I knew I needed to eat something to settle it, and all they had was hamburgers. I've generally got a cast-iron constitution--I never get sick from eating stuff. So I had a burger--the greasiest, cheesiest, biggest burger ever. I should have known it was a bad idea, but the pounding headache destroying my brain was a bit distracting.

After lunch, we stood in the pouring rain to get a cab. The cab was a typical New York cab driver--suicidal. He began racing through Midtown traffic, zipping in and out of the lanes like a Formula One pro. I should note that although I never get sick from stomach flus or bad food, I do have a tendency to get queasy from motion sickness.

About halfway to the airport, just as we were going over the Queensboro Bridge, it started. My stomach began rolling like the perfect storm was passing through, and I started getting dizzy. The King, seeing me turning green and clinging to the door handle, became alarmed.

The King: "What's wrong? You look awful."
Me: "Urp."
The King: "Oh shit." [Looking around, realizing we're doing 70 on a freeway with no possible way to pull over.] "Do it out the window, if you have to."

And I did. That's right, I puked out the window of the cab while driving up the 495 at speed. To all the cars I vomited on, I am so very, very sorry. To the poor cab driver, who was nice enough not to punch me when he saw my vomit all over the side of his car, thank you for taking pity on me. And to the lady who saw me trying to wash vomit out of my hair and mouth in the bathroom at JFK airport, thank you for not calling security to have me removed. I'm sure I looked like a crazy homeless person, but I was really just very, very sick.

And to the King, who put my vomity shirt in his suitcase, got me some stomach pills and water, checked us it at the airport, and managed not to throw up himself while watching me puke, thank you for being the best husband ever. And I don't blame you at all for not wanting to kiss me until I got home and took a shower. Which I wasn't able to do for a long time, because our 40-minute flight was delayed 3 hours due to rain. So I smelled like vomit pretty much all fucking day. Thanks, baby--you're the best.

September 21, 2004

We're Off to See the Wizard

Okay, this is it--I will be officially on vacation in ten minutes. I've got to run home, take my dog to the kennel, pack, watch Cold Mountain, return Cold Mountain to Blockbuster, empty the refrigerator, and then pack all the rest of the stuff that I forgot in my first run-through. Then tomorrow morning we're off! Whoo hoo! Have a great week, and I'll be back on Tuesday, hopefully with lots of great posts.

September 20, 2004

Blood and Guts

Oh my God, I'm bleeding. My period has arrived, praise the Lord I don't believe in. That's right, folks, it's cycle day 1 for me. That means that we're actually going to do it--after a year of trying, we're going to do the Clomid and actually have a real shot at getting pregnant, for the first time ever. I'm so excited, I think I might throw up.

We'll be having our baby-making sex at my mother-in-law's house while she sleeps down the hall, but happily, that kind of risk seems to turn my husband on, so he'll probably be very enthusiastic about it. He wants a child as much as I do, so I know getting him to screw like minks won't be a problem.

And thankfully, he'll be here when we find out whether it worked or not. Negative or positive, I don't want to have to tell him the results of the pregnancy test over a satellite phone from three thousand miles away, which is how I was afraid it would be. But it looks like I'll be peeing on the little stick about five days before he goes overseas.

The peeing on a stick thing is nothing new to me. After a year of trying, I've peed on every kind of stick there is. EPT, First Response, CVS brand, I've tried them all. Home pregnancy sticks, ovulation predictor sticks, random sticks off the ground that looked like they might give me a positive result. I see a stick and I just can't help whizzing on it.

At least this time, I know there's at least a small, tiny chance it might be pregnant. And if it's not, I'll be disappointed but at least happy that we got the chance and don't have to wait four more months for the King to get home from the war and try again.

And oh God, the war. What do I do if it's positive, and then he goes off, and he gets shot? Or blown up? Or...must stop, or I will cry. The last time he was in [classified country name], the building he was working in was bombed. A bunch of people were killed, and the King helped carry in the wounded men. Thank God (and for this, I really do believe in Him), he wasn't hurt. I saw the report of the bombing on the news, and for the two hours between then and when the King was able to call and tell me he was okay, I actually thought I might be dying. I could hardly stand, my legs were shaking so badly, and my lungs were burning from not being able to breathe. What if the test is positive, and he dies?

Jesus, enough of that. He's not even there yet. It'll be fine, and in the meantime, we're going to have lots of (quiet) sex in his mother's guest room and a fabulous vacation in New York. It'll be fine.

New York, New York

I'm going on vacation, I'm going on vacation, and you-ou-ou're no-ot! Okay, so that was snotty, but I'm very excited. Tomorrow night we take our dumb dog, Orion, to the kennel, and Wednesday morning we're hitching a ride on the new Independence Air up to JFK for five fun-filled days in the Big Apple. Whoo hoo!

I actually didn't particularly want to go to New York. I spent a month there as a kid and didn't have any interest in returning, but the King has never been, and since we're leaving the East Coast in six months, never to return, he insisted that we go before we move away. So off we go. We'll be staying at a charming-looking Midtown hotel near Times Square.

I have two main goals. The first is to go see Rent on Broadway. And joy of joys, we are GOING! Whoo hoo! I insisted that if he was going to make me go to New York, then we were going to see a show while we were there, and acquiesced. I have been dying to see Rent for approximately five thousand years, ever since it came out. I missed it in LA, I missed it in DC, but now I'm finally, finally going to get to see it.

My second goal is to find the best delicatessen in New York City and eat a hot pastrami sandwich with provolone cheese and mustard there. I just don't know which is the best. Any ideas, folks? I figure, if we eat at twenty or thirty delis, we've got a good chance of finding a pretty fabulous one. We're also planning on having dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, just to say we did. I'll be having the filet mignon.

After New York, we're coming home for two days, and then we're flying south to Georgia, this time to spend a week with the King's family. He wants to go home for a visit before he ships out to the Middle East for three months. His family is very southern, and they can be funny sometimes, but they're generally very sweet people. His grandfather is in a nursing home, which means spending long hours there sitting by his bedside, which I find pretty boring, but only because I don't really know the guy. But it's important that the King spend time with him; they were more like father and son than grandfather and grandson when the King was little. And in the best tradition of fathers and sons, the first time the King took me home to meet his family, we borrowed his grandfather's pickup truck, snuck out to river and parked under the old bridge trestle, and did it in the front seat. Mmmhmm, yes we did.

When we're not enjoying the nursing home air, we'll probably be sitting in his grandmother's living room, talking about flowers (they're big flower people) and admiring her quilts, which are stunning. I make quilts, too--it generally takes me about six months to make one. His grandmother did her latest one in three days, over a holiday weekend. And it is far more beautiful than anything I could ever make. She's just got the touch. When she was younger, she and her husband both worked in a textile mill running factory machines and making men's shirts. They worked opposite hours--she was on the day shift and he was on the night shift, for nearly 30 years. No one knows how they managed to have three children with that schedule. When she wasn't working or raising the kids, she made money by making custom-made lingerie for the ladies in town. She would take a lady's measurements, then let her pick out whatever silk, satin, or lacy fabrics she preferred, and whatever style of bras and panties she liked, and would whip up hand-stitched, custom-designed lingerie to order. If she had grown up in the Internet era and gotten herself a website, she would have been a millionaire. It's too bad she never met a movie star--that's just the kind of thing that could become "the next big thing" in Hollywood. I can see Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz wrestling each other over who gets to be next on the King's grandmother's waiting list.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I'm going on vacation, so although I'll probably post again tomorrow, I'll be away after that until September 29th-ish. Please don't forget about me! I'll tell you all about Rent when I get back, if you ask nicely.

September 18, 2004

You Learn Something New Every Day

I learned a new word today: nut grazer. It is a term for when a female masseuse is giving a man a back massage, and she brushes her hand across his testicles in an attempt to show him that for a few extra dollars, he could get the "special massage," that is, a hand job.

I've learned many things from the King, but the funny little terms he brings home are the best. You see, he's in the Navy. Have you ever heard stories about Navy sailors putting into port and going hog wild, hitting every bar in Thailand with every pretty little thing who happens to be walking the street, and most particularly, finding young women (and maybe a few older ones) who practice the oldest profession and having a little paid-for fun? It sounds like something you'd see in Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now, but never in real life, but I assure you, it happens.

The thing is, there aren't a lot of jobs for women in many of the countries in which the Navy has a port, and one of the most profitable jobs is prostitution. And the King has seen his share of it. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but it's true. He was young, single, and crazy when he enlisted, and he didn't hold back from getting a thorough education in the back streets of every major city in the world. Luckily, although he was wild, he wasn't stupid, and he always used a condom. Thank God.

Now, of course, he's grown up and married, and a wonderful husband. However, he works very hard, and he likes to get massages in the little massage parlors that pepper the land wherever he goes. Myself, I like the day spa in town, with its new-agey music and sage sticks, but to each his own. However, he surprised me last night by announcing that on his last trip, which was to East Asia, he got a massage that included the nut grazer. I think I have a decent sense of humor, and normally I would laugh hilariously at such a thing, which is what he expected. What he didn't expect was the following, at full volume:

"Do you mean to tell me that some other woman touched your testicles?!!! What the hell are you talking about? No man has touched my breasts since we started dating! Are you fucking kidding me??"

He looked like a deer in the headlights. His eyes were wide, his mouth was hanging open, and I know he was wishing he had never uttered the word nut grazer in my presence. Poor thing.

"But baby, I didn't want her to, it just happened. And it's not like I took her up on the offer; in fact, I told her to stop it! And let me tell you, some of those ladies don't like losing the extra money--she yelled at me!"

He looked absolutely terrified. First some strange woman shouting at him for not giving her $50 for a hand job, which she was probably counting on for that week's groceries or new shoes for her kids, and then his normally sweet-tempered wife haranguing him for something he didn't even want. It was all just too much.

So we recovered from the nut grazer episode, and after I stopped yelling, I suggested that perhaps the next time he needs a little back-massagey stress relief, perhaps he should wear his underwear under the towel to indicate to the hard-working young lady that he isn't looking for any added bonuses today.

September 17, 2004

I Also Know Nothing

This post by Tertia at So Close (who is gorgeous and brilliant), inspired me to chime in. (Blogger doesn't yet support trackbacks, so I can't be totally cool and do one of those.) I also know nothing about babies. Nothing at all. What makes me think I should get one?

I come from a small family. My older sister and her husband love children and therefore are childless by choice--I don't think they want to ruin their good feelings about babies by actually having one. My younger brother is not yet married and, somewhat surprisingly, has not yet managed to accidentally knock up one of his many girlfriends. Only one of my aunts had babies while I was young--she got pregnant accidentally twice, at 39 and 41 years of age. However, she is also slightly psychotic, so I didn't see her much.

My entire baby experience, therefore, comes from a couple of babysitting episodes. I once babysat twin 9-month-olds when I was about 11. I attempted to feed them at the same time, and one nearly choked to death. On another occasion, I babysat a girl of about 8 and a 5-year-old boy. While I was putting the older girl to sleep, the boy was in the living room, supposedly watching television. However, when I went in to get him, I discovered him approximately eight feet in the air. He was pretending to be Spiderman and had climbed the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that were against the wall, and was hanging off them by his fingertips. I screamed, and he, thrilled to be playing such a fun game, launched himself off the shelves, flew through the air, and landed on top of me. No bones were broken, but I am convinced that he cut approximately nine years off my life.

So that's why I shouldn't get to have a baby. I have never changed a diaper. I pushed a stroller once, and nearly steered it off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic when the wheel caught on a rock. I tripped and fell once while carrying my younger cousin and nearly cracked her head open. When my little brother was a toddler, I put all my make-up on him. To be fair, he loved it, which mildly alarmed my parents, so they put him in soccer and karate.

I am completely unqualified. Perhaps it is best if the Clomid doesn't work this month.

September 16, 2004

Phobianicity

On a lighter note, here are some other things I'm afraid of:

Crickets

Donald Rumsfeld

The guy on the subway platform who has been staring at me for the past two mornings

Ron Jeremy

Insects landing on my head

The new VW Beetle--no car should look like a Hello Kitty

Frogs' feet. Not frogs so much, just their weird little toes that stick to your hand. Eww.

Bungee jumping and skydivings, although I'm not afraid of heights. Apparently what I am is afraid of falling.

Picking a man up in a bar. I'm convinced that if I go home with a man in a bar, he will chop me up into little pieces with an axe and hide the parts under his bed. The King approves of this fear and tries to encourage it--I think he is afraid I'm going to randomly decide that marriage is boring and start bringing home dates.

Secret Fears

Regarding Kitten's last comment (thanks, by the way), I'm not despairing quite yet, just in a pissy mood. So I thought I'd dwell on something else that upsets me: the idea of adoption. Adoption is something that has been my secret fear ever since I found out the King and I are infertile--What if we have to adopt? We haven't ever discussed it, but it could come up someday.

I know several people who were adopted, and they are all happy and healthy. Adoption is a wonderful way to make a family, and I am so glad that it allows so many parents and children to find each other. However, I'm scared of it. My most-secret fear is, what if I don't love the baby enough? I'm terrified that we'd go through the whole adoption process and bring home a child, and I wouldn't be able to quell the tiny voice inside saying, "But this isn't *your* baby, it's someone else's. You'd love your own child so much more." It's an awful thing, and I hate to even admit the thought has even crossed my mind, but it's true. I hope I'm not the only one who has ever thought that.

We used to foster rescue dogs, and I didn't always like them. In fact, some I definitely disliked a lot and couldn't wait to find a family for so I wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. I know people may think I'm terrible for comparing adopting a child to fostering a homeless dog, but there it is. What if I didn't like the kid? What if some night when the baby started screaming at three a.m. for the eighth night in a row, I shouted at it, "You're not my real baby anyway!" How could I live with myself? That's what I'm really afraid of--that I wouldn't consider it *my* child.

Hopefully none of this will ever matter and in a few weeks or months I'll tremulously announce a happy Clomid-induced pregnancy, but I still think about it. I hope it just means that I'm not ready to be an adoptive parent, not that I could *never* be one. I love babies, and I like to think that this isn't some sort of deep-seated flaw, that I could never love a baby that didn't grow in my uterus as much as one that did. I like to think I'm a better person than that.

Our Anniversary

No, not our wedding anniversary. Our we-should-have-a-three-month-old-by-now anniversary. Our 80%-of-couples-will-have-conceived-by-now-but-not-us anniversary. That's right, today is the one-year anniversary of when I tossed out my birth control pills. We're officially infertile as of today, any doctor would agree. It's so fucking depressing.

We have male factor--the King's morphology is crappy--plus unexplained female factor. Or rather, we know anovulation and amenorrhea are my problem, but have no idea why. All the tests say I'm perfectly normal, which I don't understand. How can I be normal if I don't cycle?

I'm pretty pissed off this morning. It's been a long week, the King and I have been getting on each other's nerves a bit, and now this one-year thing. It's reminded me how much it annoys me the way doctors treat amenorrhea. Or rather, don't treat it. If I had stopped having periods and gone to the doctor for treatment, but was not trying to conceive, she would have done not a damn thing about it. From what I can tell, if you aren't severely under- or overweight, there is absolutely no research to explain not having regular periods, and no one seems to have any interest in doing any. Doctor Stupid-Bitch probably would have said, "You're not having periods? Aren't you happy about that?" To which I would have said, "FUCK NO! THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME! I want to find out what it is and fix it!"

But we don't know what it is, and may never know. In the meantime, I'm hoping that maybe my body will want to take advantage of some sort of symbolic new start with this new year and the Provera (which I've still got two days of to go) will bring on a period today, so we can go forward with the Clomid. This waiting is killing me.

September 15, 2004

The Frog-Eating Freak

So we have this dog. His name is Orion, because he has three tiny dots on his nose that look like the stars in Orion's belt. He's a red tick hound, which isn't a real breed according to those AKC facists, but is just a blue tick hound with red spots instead of black ones. Whatever. He comes up to about mid-thigh on me, with skinny legs that look too long to hold him up. When he was a puppy, he had these enormously long, skinny legs that were so teetery they could hardly hold up his big puppy head--he looked like a baby deer.

He is, without a doubt, the dumbest dog in history. The King, who has owned many dogs throughout his life, has assured me that no dog, even the one that ate Play-Doh and pooped red, blue, and yellow, is dumber than our dog. Orion once ate a beer can that we accidentally left in the backyard with him. We came home to find millions of teeny, tiny shards of aluminium all over the yard. I was afraid he had sliced up his mouth, but he seemed thrilled with the tiny, shiny new toys.

He also eats frogs, we think (see previous post). They make his breath smell like a week-old corpse in summertime. Happily, he also eats the breath mints we now give him.

Orion is afraid of everything, particularly noises. Not loud noises, necessarily, just noises in general. In fact, he scares himself quite frequently. Once he was wagging his long tail at me, and it slapped the wall and made a loud thump. He jumped about a foot straight up in the air, and dashed away, and refused to come back in the room for hours. When we got our new big television last week, he refused to go into the living room for two days because the big, scary tv box was in there and it might eat him.

He knows no tricks. Finally, after nearly a year, he learned to sit. However, he thinks he is a cat and will only sit when he feels like it. If he's not in the mood to come when you call him, he'll turn his head away and pretend he didn't hear you. Dumbest dog ever, and yet he understands selective hearing. Perhaps he learned that from me.

Orion is also a submissive dog--there is not an alpha bone in his body. We used to foster dachshunds for a rescue group. Dachshunds are weiner dogs: They are about eight inches tall and weigh a max of about 15 pounds. Orion is three times that height and weighs 50 pounds. The dachshunds would regularly beat the crap out of him, and he would happily roll over and show them his belly so they would know that they were the boss of him and could eat his food, play with his toys, and sleep in his crate if they felt like it. One, an un-fixed male, frequently tried to mount Orion. Given the size difference, I didn't try to stop him--I only wish I had gotten that shit on videotape. Orion, being fixed, doesn't quite get mounting, although he tries it on other dogs. Most times he ends up somehow lying on top of the other dog, trying to mount its side.

Our neighbors recently acquired a beautiful golden retriever puppy. It is two months old, and yet within a week of coming home knew ten commands and will babysit their two-year-old. Our dog can't remember where he left his toys if they are out of sight for more than two minutes. And he's still afraid of the new tv.

The dumbest dog in the world, I affirm. And yet I love him--how could you not?
-----------------
As an aside, please, please don't buy dogs from breeders or pet stores. There are so many that need homes, and if you want a specific breed, there are lots of rescue groups that specialize in certain breeds. Just do a Google search and you'll find lots. And get your pets fixed!

I Am So Boring

Okay, I've got to post today, because I didn't post at all yesterday and felt totally guilty about it all day, even though only about four people read my blog. I didn't post because (drumroll, please)...I am so boring. My life has been very boring the past few days. There's still no real news on whether the King is being sent overseas (actually, it's only over one little sea, but I can't tell you where because then I'd have to kill you) between right now and next Wednesday, when we're hopefully going to New York for a long-awaited trip. I've been working like a madwoman trying to get crap done before the aforementioned trip, although a little voice inside my head was whispering, "Don't be silly, why are you rushing? You know he's going to be shipped out and your vacation is going to be cancelled and then you're going to cry, stupid girl." And the night before last, about 11:30 pm after the lights were out and goodnight kisses given, the King said, "You know I might have to get on a plane while you're at work tomorrow, right?" To which I, ever the voice of reason, of course shrieked, "What the hell are you talking about? You'd leave without even saying goodbye? When would you pack? How the fuck can they do this?" Then I cried quietly in the dark for an hour. I tried to pretend I wasn't, and so did the King, because he hates it when I cry and it makes him want to cry when he can't make me feel better.

The only interesting thing that's happened is that our dog has developed really horrible breath. Not just the usually doggy breath, but really incredibly, foul, stinking, Black-Plague-esque, rotting-corpse breath. We suspect he's been eating the frogs that hop through our backyard in the evenings. One of them has taken up residence in a birdhouse, bizarrely. Our dog is the stupidest, best dog ever. I love him. Maybe I'll post more about him later today.

September 13, 2004

Gnashing My Teeth and Calling for Blood

We're doing the Provera thing again. For you folks with normal endocrine systems out there, Provera is a drug that brings on a period, if you're a freak like me who never has them. Unlike most women, I cheer when I need a tampon. Then again, that only happens about every three years, it seems, so it's a worth cheering about.

Anyway, we've decided we're definitely going to do Clomid this month (unless the King gets shipped out again; see below), so I'm taking Provera, and even though I have five days left to go of it, I'm anxiously running to the bathroom every ten minutes to check for that telltale sign of pinkness.

However, I have to be very careful at night. This is because of our bedsheets. No ordinary sheets, these are special, pure white, 1,000-thread-count sheets that I bought for the King for our anniversary. Therefore, when there's any little chance I might start my period, I'm very careful not to have any drippage on them at night. Very careful.

And yet a few days ago, I woke up to find a dark red stain in my bed...on my pillow. That's right, because I'm a freak who cannot manage the normal vaginal bleeding like every other woman, I somehow managed to scratch my nose in the middle of the night, slice it open with a wayward fingernail, and bleed all over my PURE WHITE, 1,000-THREAD-COUNT, BRAND-NEW BEDSHEETS. Why can't I do anything right?

Fuckity Fuck Fuck

The King just called to ask exactly what day we're going on vacation. That would be next Wednesday, the much anticpated beginning of our three-week trip to New York City and down south to visit his family. We haven't taken a trip in ages, because of his constant travelling for work. However, he was told last month that he's being sent to the Middle East FOR THE SECOND TIME and will be missing all the holidays this year. So we decided to take a vacation and were actually silly enough to purchase plane tickets, make hotel reservations, and get the best seats in the house for Rent on Broadway.

Except that now we may not be going. His boss just asked him when he's going on leave, despite the fact that he submitted his leave request to the man three weeks ago, because he may have to cancel our vacation and go on another trip. That is, a trip before the trip to the combat zone, where he will be spending Christmas. FUCK.

No Words

I was going to put this in the Overheard section, but it just seemed more important than that.

On September 11th, at one of the memorials, someone (I don't remember who) said:

A child who loses a parent is called an orphan. A man who loses his wife is called a widower. A woman who loses her husband is a widow. But we have no name for a parent who loses a child, because there are no words for that kind of pain.

It's true, and because I cannot put it any better than that person did, I'll just say "I'm so sorry," to everyone out there who has lost a child, living or unborn. There are no words.

September 12, 2004

The Place Where Men Become Gods

This article upsets me immensely. The idea of building a Wal-Mart, that infectious virus of globalization, on top of the ancient Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan, just makes me a little bit ill. It'll undoubtedly go out of business in a year or two, leaving a huge, rotting, abandoned building in ruins next to the ruins.

September 11, 2004

Sometimes My Husband Scares Me

The King, last night in bed: Baby, we should totally do IVF.
Me: What? We haven't even gotten to Clomid yet! Are you nuts?
K: No, we should!
Me: [incredulous] Why?
K: Because then I could stick a huge needle in your ass!
Me: [silence]
K: No, it's totally cool! When I was younger, I injected this guy who was trying to be a body builder with steroids. I got to use this big needle and it rocked! So I could do that to you too.
Me: Yeah.
K: [running hand laciviously up my leg] Hey baby, you wanna do it?
Me: Um, not so much.

September 10, 2004

My Husband's New Mistress (Or, Oh, the Porn)

Two days ago, an alien landed in our living room. It weighs 250 pounds and is five feet tall, four feet wide, and silver, with one enormous eye. The eye is square and 57 inches on the diagonal. The alien is my husband's new mistress, a big-screen, digital, high-definition television.

It cost more than we put down on our house. I was barely, barely able to resist asking the poor Circuit City salesman if it would give the King blowjobs when I was too tired. We acquired the enormous tv after nearly two years of debating whether we definitely were (the King) or absolutely never, ever, were not (me) going to get such a monstrosity. He wore me down.

The King loves the television. He nearly assaulted a delivery man who tried to hook it up incorrectly. He spent several hours showing me all the things it could do. And that led us to the porn.

Oh, the porn. I should note that the King likes porn a lot, and given that we spend nine months of every year in different countries because he's in the military, that's okay with me. I admit to surfing the underworld of the Internet myself fairly often, but unlike the King, I don't buy the videos. He does.

Which brings me to the tv's greatest talent, at least according to my husband. You see, the tv has picture-in-picture, where you can watch one channel on the screen while a little box in the corner displays another channel. It also has split-screen, where the screen is split evenly in half, and you can watch two channels equally. Given the size of the thing, this is basically like watching two normal-size tvs.

What I inadvertently discovered is that you can watch videos on split screen. That is, you could watch a DVD on one half and a VHS on the other. And if you are my husband, that means you can watch TWO PORNOS AT THE SAME TIME. Oh, the glory. And the best part is, because the tv is so fucking huge, the penises (penii?) and vaginas and artificially enhanced breasts are life-size. It's like a car wreck--I don't want to see it, but I can't look away. You wouldn't be able to either, if you saw it. It's a good mistress for my husband--it lets him do all sorts of kinky things in every imaginable position. In surround sound. Oh, the porn.

September 09, 2004

I Am Such a Dork

Oh my God, Getup Grrl just sent me a personal e-mail! Okay, it was only five words long, but she said I was, and I quote, "super-duper cool!" I'm blushing all over, especially at the thought that she might come over here and read this. Yes, I am a complete dork. So sue me--she's the one who taught me to say, "Eff off, you effing effers!" How can you not love that?

History, Herstory

So, given my previous post, you may have realized that the title of this blog is actually incorrect. My eggs are probably not rotten--they may be perfectly healthy. None of them have every actually come out to say hi, though, so I don't know. The title of the blog should really be, "Amenorrhea, Friend or Foe?" but "amenorrhea" is really hard to spell, and people would find it hard to Google me.

The King has his own issue--that is, poor morphology. However, he's got tons of the little guys swimming around, and apparently they're pretty speedy, so I'm hoping that can make up for the bunch that are freaks. I imagine them as sort of the Greek mythology of sperm: there's the Cerberus sperm, the ones with three heads; and the Arguses, who have a hundred eyes apiece; and the scary, scary Hydras, who have a hundred heads each. Hopefully they aren't killing off the nice, speedy, one-headed, happy sperm, because it looks like after a very long year of waiting, we may actually get to try the Clomid next month. Granted, we'll be sleeping in my mother-in-law's squeaky guest bed during the ovulation period, but why should that stop us? I'll have to think of some explanation for why I'm drinking gallons of green tea--explaining cervical mucus is definitely not someplace I want to go.

The Waiting Game

Five years ago, two beautiful, thin, tanned, fabulously wealthy people met in the Southern California sun and fell in love by the sounds of the Pacific waves crashing on the shore.
Okay, not true, but close. DH, AKA the King, and I are not exceptionally gorgeous or fabulously wealthy (although he is pretty tan and thin, and rockingly funny), but we did meet near the beach in California and fall in love. A bit later, we got married and moved to Washington, DC. Another bit later, we decided to have children.

Full stop. Our story basically ends there, a year ago, with our overjoyed expressions as I blithely tossed my birth control pills in the trash and awaited our positive pregnancy test. Which never arrived. And neither did my ovulation. Or my period. For a YEAR. That's right, I'm one of approximately 3% of women whose bodies never start cycling again after going off the Pill. Yay me. And I thought going to France alone when I was eleven made me special enough. After several months of feeling so flat from lack of hormones that I thought I'd been lobotomized, I went to the doctor, who put me on Provera, which obligingly brought on a fake period. When nothing further happened, he referred me to an RE, Dr. Stupid-Bitch.

Dr. SB's nurse told us to get all three zillion tests done that infertility patients get done, including a semen analysis for the King. After we had them performed, we went back to her to find out the results and get going on treatment. We sat in her office as she tried to figure out how to use her computer mouse to pull up our chart. Failing that, she tried pushing random buttons on the keyboard.

SB: Sorry, it's just not coming up. I'm not sure why not. I don't really know how to use this system. Well, I'm sure everything's fine.
Us: [mouths hanging open]
SB: Oh wait, here's the results of your semen analysis. Yeah, your morphology is crappy. Really bad. You shouldn't bother trying to conceive at all, you should just do IVF.
Me: [crying]
DH: Uh, what?
Me: What do you mean? We came here to find out why I haven't had a period in nine months! What are you talking about?
SB: Really? You didn't come here for the sperm thing? Oh. Yeah, I don't know anything about that. You should just do IVF.
Me: What about Clomid? The King has 10 million perfectly fine sperm, even after you take out the gimpy ones--shouldn't we try to make me ovulate at least one cycle before we give you $10,000?
SB: Well, I don't really see the point. But if you really won't write me a check right here and now, I suppose I could let you try Clomid first. But only for two months--after that you need to come back and do IVF.

So we left Dr. Stupid-Bitch with her stupid computer and went home, furiously clutching a Clomid prescription. That was months ago, but because the King travels for work, we haven't been able to use it yet. We've just been waiting, waiting, waiting.

September 07, 2004

What Dreams May Come

I'm here because of a dream. That's right, I've finally gotten up the courage to start my own blog, despite the fact that I'm sure no one will ever read it and leave me a funny comment, and I'll die alone. Okay, that might be melodramatic, but then again, my self-esteem is a delicate thing.
But anyway, I'm here because I dreamed that I had a baby. The king and I have been trying for a year on Saturday, and during that time, when I haven't been choking down thousands of Vitex and dong quai pills or writhing in agony on the HSG table, I've been reading up on all the great infertility blogs. Like most of us, GetupGrrl over at Chez Miscarriage was my first, and from there I found ALittlePregnant and Tertia and Dooce all the rest of you wonderful women. And as the days went by with no sign of a period, much less an egg, I started to think I should get myself a blog and see if I'm cool enough to hang with those lovely ladies. I'm still not at all sure that I'm cool enough or funny enough, but the dream finally forced me into it.

The dream was simple. I was holding a gorgeous, chubby baby girl to my breast, and like magic, she started nursing. It was amazing. I felt so fulfilled. Oddly, as the dream went on, I realized that the king was not the baby's father; rather, an old boyfriend from high school was. But that was just weird dream-ness. The thing that really got me about the dream was how simple and perfect that baby's sweet little mouth and tiny hands were as I fed her, and how right we felt together. When I woke up and realized it wasn't real, I wanted to cry.
I thought I'd adjusted well to the thought that we don't have a baby yet, and given our impending cross-country move and the king's travel schedule, we probably won't have a chance to indulge in any serious fertility treatments for some time, but the way that dream affected me showed me that I'm still trying to deal with it. And so I realized I needed some way to work it out. So here I am, Internet. I hope you'll like me.