Flotsam

I know Bitch, Phd already posted about this NY Times article, but I had quite the heated argument about it last night, and so I am going to dredge it up again. My reaction to the article (go on, read it, I’ll wait) was a potent blend of amusement and disgust (how often those two […]

Gorgeous Tertia’s post about blogging has sent me into a flurry of contemplation. Cecily had a discussion about the same topic last week, namely, the “most appropriate way to handle writing about real life friends and family in your blog,”
I haven’t given my blog address to anyone in my real life except The Nearly Fiance. […]

[First, Congratulations to lovely Jo, of The Leery Polyp…we are all manically refreshing our browsers in anticipation!]
So, yesterday was my due date. And I wasn’t expecting it to be a great day, but I wasn’t expecting this in my email inbox, either:

“Im sorry about your miscarriage, but maybe it was for the best?? A child […]

On the subject of mothers…
Last night I had dinner with mine—mostly it was lovely, sitting outside at a Russian restaurant, quaffing the house specialty cherry vodka and eating delicious pelmeni and cold, excellent borscht with tiny globes of sour cream floating lazily on top. A peaceful scene of gustatory bliss. Until, somehow, the subject of my miscarriages came up and my mother decided to get in a little tennis practice.
[A little background: Because The Nearly Fiance had to work, my mother was with me for the I’m-sorry-there’s-no-baby-ultrasound in January. In the car on the way home, she thought it would be a good time to remind me that she had a miscarriage before I was born, when she was two weeks further along than I was. So if I thought I was upset, well, just imagine!]
So, last night. Vodka, borscht, bliss. I think the miscarriage subject came up because of my impending Laparoscopy. Now, I had never told my mother that my January miscarriage wasn’t my first. And god help me, maybe it was the vodka, maybe it was the summer breeze, but for some reason I decided last night was the time to do so. She listened sympathetically, until I got to the part about how, due to the fact that I was 21 at the time and inexperienced in such matters (ah, to be young again!), If it hadn’t been for my gynecologist, I would have thought it was merely a few falsely positive pregnancy tests and a 2-week late period.

“Oh,” my mother said, picking up her vodka and serving the ball neatly over the net, “Well, that kind of miscarriage is very common.”
WHACK!
“When I was younger, I used to have really long, irregular periods, and I think I probably had a bunch of miscarriages in there.”
SLAM!
“Those new early pregnancy tests have changed everything—you used to have to miss 2 periods to be pregnant—they never would have considered those “miscarriages” in the past.”
WHOMP!

I beat a hasty retreat from the court, changing the subject. And I was just starting to relax over a Napoleon Torte when the game got away from me, and suddenly we were discussing my diet, and with a lazy reach of her tanned arm my mother delivered her practiced backhand:
“Oh, you can tell the difference—You know, lately I’ve thought you looked like you were Letting Yourself Go, but tonight when I saw you walking in, you didn’t look like that at all!”

Game, set, match.

Can I just say how jealous this makes me? And then how sad and embarrassing I find the fact that it does? While I’m sure many people could see that article and think “Wow, going into labor not knowing you were pregnant, how scary and weird!” all I could think was “No obsessing about doubling betas? No panic attacks between ultrasounds? No sobbing hysterically because you are not vomiting today and surely that means the baby is dead? No groping at your nether regions with tissue every hour to check for bleeding? And a healthy baby at the end of it? Sign me up!” Hopefully by the time The Nearly Fiance and I start trying again I will have reined in what he calls “The Crazy” but I doubt it.

The stories on this morning’s Google News entertainment page demonstrated an odd fascination with fair-haired persons. In one blurb, Courtney Love is referred to as “The bleach-blond, 41-year-old singer.” The next story, about Reese Witherspoon’s legal woes, reports that no charges will be filed because “Members of the paparazzi who allegedly chased Reese Witherspoon from her gym to her home in April did nothing illegal to the blonde, according to prosecutors.” And yet subsequent pieces don’t seem particularly captivated by the hair of their subjects. For instance the bit about Salmon Rushdie and the Booker Prize does not refer to him as “Balding British Novelist Salman Rushdie.” The blurb about Kimora Lee Simmons does not refer to her as “Weave-wearing wife of Russel Simmons” (though perhaps the alliteration was too much for them.) But then, just to bring the focus back where it belongs, a story about Jessica Simpson begins with a description of “The long blond hair that’s been lovingly caressed by her personal stylist into loose ringlets that drip toward a well-tanned chest.” Gracious! Who knew being blonde was so important! Am I news?

And on a much, much heavier note: Julia, I am so dreadfully sorry. Hell and Damnation indeed. Of course we all remember BrooklynGirl’s beta of 14 (14! The Nearly Fiance could probably rustle up a beta of 14, and he has a penis) that ended up turning into a real, live pregnancy, but blah, blah, blah, I’m sure you have heard that from scads of people already. You must be so terrified and I am just sorry.

Dear Millie,
I am a young editor and I like to keep up with the trends. But I am confused about what is and is not appropriate for the office. Can you help?
Trendy in Toledo

Dear Trendy,
I wish this were a more popular question. Many people are seemingly unconcerned about the grave effects their attire may have upon their co-workers. Here are a few guidelines:

1. While long, tiered peasant skirts are indeed ALL the RAGE as of late, please remember that it is very confusing to arrive at work in the morning only to wonder frantically whether you have stumbled into a Gypsy camp by mistake.

2. Jeans that would allow a passing coworker to perform a rectal exam upon you with minimal inconvenience are jeans that are too low.