Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m going to start in earnest now. Maybe tomorrow. In the mean time, I leave you with this. Kisses!

It was a squash. And that is why, to this day, watching RHPS makes me think of squash.

Bonus! A Kiss to Build a Dream On:

Watching it brought back so many memories. I’ve been basically obsessed with The Beatles since I was about 13 years old. I can’t explain why I got interested in them, or what it was that fascinated me so, but it was a straight-up obsession. My parents, who were past the target demographic when The Beatles were sprung upon the world in the 60s, were not sympathetic, but they did indulge me by buying me my first Beatles album and then allowing me to spend my allowance on later ones, as well as playing them at fairly loud volume on the old cabinet record player in the basement. They did not raise an eyebrow when I checked out every book that our local library had with anything to do with The Beatles, wrote many school papers about them, and later rented every Beatles-related item our video store carried.

I remember the day that John Lennon died very vividly. I was in the 8th grade. My mother heard about it on The Today Show, and came to the bathroom where I was getting ready for school to break the news. I was devastated…but she still made me go to school that day. My English teacher, who was a young, hip type (and whose name I sadly cannot remember), mercifully was sympathetic and spent nearly all of our class that day talking about John, The Beatles, and what an impact they’d had. (Plenty of kids I went to school with in the suburbs of Cleveland were depressingly unaware of The Beatles or anything else that wasn’t played in heavy rotation on WMMS at that time.)

Any way, I’m still pretty obsessed with The Beatles. Here’s one of my favorites:

My own Christmas plans involve sitting on my ass a lot, eating what I feel like eating without counting any WW points, playing WoW every night and some afternoons, and bemoaning the fact that I have zero freelance hours for December (and therefore no check in January). Oh well, at least I have time off work until January 2. And my father is visiting us, which helps distract The Bean. Also, our weather is decent here – no blizzards, ice storms, or anything else terribly inconvenient.

Things I Hate About the Holiday Season:

• Those stupid news stories about how expensive all the gifts from “The 12 Days of Christmas” would be this year. Please, local media outlets, retire this dumb meme already.
• Christmas music, decorations, and other stuff in stores BEFORE FUCKING HALLOWEEN.
• Endless local speculation about the possibility of a white Christmas. Look, Virginians: it doesn’t happen here. Get over it.
• Cheap, nasty wrapping paper that tears when you try to cut it. Pretty wrapping paper that I bought at JoAnn Fabrics, thinking it was slightly better than what I could get at the Dollar Store, I’m looking at you!
• Christmas cards. Endless chore, yet I still put myself through it every year.

Things I Love About the Holiday Season:

• Nostalgia.
• “A Christmas Story.” Closely tied to previous item, since I grew up in Cleveland, where much of it was filmed. Higbee’s downtown really WAS that awesome and amazing.
• Food! Christmas cookies! Extra-aged Gouda! Pate! Ham/turkey/standing rib roast! Bourbon!
• Finding the perfect gift for everyone on my list. Seeing The Bean open her presents. Balling up and throwing away all the wrapping paper afterwards.
• Time off work.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I cannot relate to women who say that they love this, that they wish they could be pregnant for years, that they have never felt more like a woman. I don’t know exactly why, but there are things about this that make me feel totally disenfranchised. I have no control over my body or appetite, and I cannot do anything to improve the way I feel.

That’s pretty much how I felt the first three months of my one and only pregnancy. In fact, here’s a story about how I figured out I was pregnant.

Hubby and I had been trying to get pregnant for almost two years. We were really at that point where you’re supposed to seek fertility treatment or something. I had been trying everything: mucinex (makes the vaginal environment more welcoming for sperm, if you can believe that shit), counting my cycle with the help of a computer program, tracking basal body temperature and other changes, examining my saliva in a little mini-microscope device, using those fertility test kits from the drug store. Hubby had finally gone to the doctor to donate a sample for testing (he was fine) and I was getting a bit frantic. So anyway, one day, I go to my friend Kim’s personal trainer with her, and have a free workout. And damn, what a workout! After some cardio, he had me do all kinds of weights and stuff, and I was SO sore afterwards. The next day, I still felt sore. The day after that, I not only felt sore, but I actually felt WORSE than I had the two days previous – achey all over, tired, draggy. It was like I was getting the flu. The next day (a Thursday, I think) I finally noticed that my period was something like a week late.

Oh. Duh.

I went to Target on my lunch hour and bought a pregnancy test, then took it in a stall at work. Here’s the thing about pregnancy tests: when they’re negative, it takes forever for the negative result to show. But when they’re positive, that little plus sign shows up IMMEDIATELY, like within SECONDS. And that’s how I knew I didn’t have the flu, wasn’t dying, and hadn’t pulled every muscle in my body – I was just pregnant. Hallelujah!

So I can relate to feeling not-so-hot the first few months. My morning sickness was really all-day sickness – I had nausea all the time (though I only actually threw up once). The only thing that helped was munching on something horrid, like crackers, all damn day. So that’s what I did. Surprisingly, I gained very little weight that first trimester, even though I ate whatever damn thing I felt like sticking in my piehole. I also had a lot of intestinal distress, which probably helps explain it. I had the runs so many times, well…my ass was pretty unhappy. Also my skin broke out like crazy and nothing helped it. I was miserable.

But when that first three months was up, it was like somebody flipped a switch. Suddenly, I felt great (although I did get tired a lot more easily, and sometimes my intestines still got angry with me)! My hair looked amazing, my nails looked amazing, my skin looked amazing! My boobs were GIGANTIC, and my skin glowed, and it was spring (I had Veronica June 26) and all was right with the world. I finally did start to feel like those women who “wish they were pregnant all the time.” Oddly enough, the bump growing in front of me made the rest of me look smaller. I felt sexy and attractive and almost euphoric. When the baby started kicking, and then continued to kick, I just laughed. She’d get bored after lunch when I sat in a regular project meeting, and start making my belly jiggle all around, which freaked out the males sitting by me and just made me laugh even more.

So yeah, I wouldn’t want to go back to that first trimester, no sir. But if I could maybe re-live months four through about eight, that would be fine by me (at the end, I was just too uncomfortable and couldn’t sleep to save my life). So actually, I do understand the nostalgia for pregnancy.

But I’m still not doing it again.