I can’t stop looking at this picture and laughing.

Hello. I am officially sleep deprived.

My child has decided that instead of the leisurely two hours in between meals, sometimes the supernaturally wonderful three hours in between meals, he would prefer being fed approximately every 17 minutes, with each feeding lasting 30-45 minutes, sometimes up to an hour and a half. But Sally, you say, that makes no sense! That does something screwy with time that you are enough of a science fiction nerd to figure out! Yes, grasshopper. That is what I’m saying. There is definitely something screwy going on here.

Being someone’s only source of nourishment gets exhausting and sort of makes one feel like a robot, especially when that someone lacks the ability to ring a small bell or merely say, Hey, nice lady with the food supply: are you busy? So there is the emotional side of it, which results in more tears for all of us, but the sleep deprivation involved has also rendered me stupid. I’m so much dumber now.

It’s not just that concepts escape me — I have to ask Larry what he means after pretty much everything he says — but my senses don’t really work either. I can no longer hear correctly or even see correctly. Yesterday we were coming home from Target and Larry kept making comments about the world around us, and I just could not keep up. What tree? What car? What the hell are you talking about?

We also have plenty of conversations like this:

Larry: Remind me to ask the pediatrician about when Spike can start getting HGH.
Sally: I understand that that’s supposed to be a joke, but I don’t know what it means.

(A few years ago there was an article in the New Yorker about the science of humor, and I seem to remember that one side of the brain says “ALERT ALERT: INCOMING JOKE” and the other side says “HA HA THIS IS FUNNY BECAUSE OF ___.” Apparently it’s that second side that is broken now, although the fact that I know this article was written by Tad Friend and that it came out in the fall of 2002 should lift my spirits somewhat, since my brain has obviously not totally rotted away if I can remember that much.)

My tiny customer actually seems to be asleep at the moment (yeah, I was feeding him as I wrote this; it’s the 21st century) so I am going to attempt to put us both to bed before he figures out that he’s not actually eating right now. Wish me luck!

It seems that when there’s a baby around, there is considerably less tine for the important things, like writing blog posts about reality television shows and the dumb things I overhear. I feel certain that in the coming weeks when the baby gets more on a schedule — did you hear that, baby? MOTHER REQUIRES A SCHEDULE — and no longer acts like a tiny king demanding to be fed at odd hours, things will return to normal. Um, maybe they will think about returning to normal. Things will approach normal, then turn around and tiptoe out of the room because the tiny king is actually sleeping in his crib by himself? That sounds more like it.

Apparently there is something screwy with Wordpress and I am unable to upload photos, which is obviously lame. Just imagine a baby with a serious face but with Elvis hair, wearing a tiny crown and holding a tiny scepter, propped up on a tiny throne, ordering beheadings (or, you know, feedings) left and right.

In other news, why is Jason Castro still on American Idol? And why did no one sing “Solitary Man” this week? Theory: because the remaining AI contestants are lame. I am rooting for David Cook, obvs, because who else is there? Archuleta? Are you kidding me? I feel strongly about this. It’s about all I’m capable of at the moment. Besides crying a lot.

Seriously, I knew the tears would come in that postpartum hormone rush, but here is a brief list of reasons I have cried in the past week since Spike’s birth:

–Spike looked kind of red in the face when the nurse brought him to me; I was convinced he had been tortured
–Lulu looked at me funny
–the kitchen is so very far away from the living room
–getting to finally go to sleep
–my lasagna was cold
–the fact that I have started watching the Kathie Lee-hosted fourth hour of the Today show without vomiting
–global warming

Hello!

I will have more time in the next few days to catch you all up on the wonders of Spike, but I wanted to say that we are all alive and Spike is still extremely cute and is apparently so cute that people in bars are forwarding his photo to each other. I heartily approve of this behavior.

Ok, goodbye.

So get this: yesterday at 4:09 pm, I had a baby — a healthy 8 pound, 8 ounce baby boy with a head full of black, black hair. He is sweet, is 21 inches long, looks like his dad, and has a very cute wrinkly baby behind.

The original birth plan was this: ripening, breaking the water, induction, baby. What actually happened: ripening (um, ripening suxxit), then my water broke, then I got to the desired 10 centimeters, then I pushed for awhile, and then it became apparent that the baby wasn’t happy, so then I had a c-section, and then I had a baby. I can now sympathize with the regular deliverers and the c-sectioners of the world. All I can say is, thank god for epidurals.

So! The baby is doing great! And now Lost is on and the baby is sleeping, so I gotta go.

Internet, the next time you hear from me, I will have had a baby. Of course, said baby is getting there through totally artificial means, as that prosthetic cervix I ordered off the internet is apparently defective since I am now officially 39 weeks and uh, not dilated at all. I’m going into the hospital today at 3:30 to begin the ripening. (In related news, The Ripening would be a great name for a horror movie.) In the meantime, read this Rock of Love reunion recap. Also, however much you love Keri Russell (Felicity! Waitress!) do not, I repeat, DO NOT watch August Rush. I heard the warnings and I ignored them. I understand now. It is truly the worst movie I have ever seen. (I told my mother I saw the worst movie of all time yesterday, and she said, “Was Keanu Reeves in it?” Good point, mom.)

Anyway, hospital, baby, Bret Michaels, no August Rush. Got it?

Oh my god I only have one more day of work after today! And then I will be living the life of leisure for exactly one day (next Monday) before I go into the hospital on Tuesday and have a dang baby on Wednesday.

WARNING I MAY TALK ABOUT MY CERVIX IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH (more…)

This poem reminds me of the middle bedroom at my grandmother’s house. When I couldn’t sleep, I would count the ceiling tiles.

Langour

I have come back to the couch —
hands behind my head,
legs crossed at the ankles —

to resume my lifelong study
of the ceiling and its river-like crack,
its memory of a water stain, prices of in ground pools test
(more…)

Where They’d Lived

Everywhere he went that day he walked
in his own past. Kicked through piles
of memories. Looked through windows
that no longer belonged to him.
Work and poverty and short change.
In those days they’d lived by their wills,
determined to be invincible.
Nothing could stop them. Not
for the longest while.

In the motel room
that night, in the early morning hours,
he opened a curtain. Saw clouds
banked against the moon. He leaned
closer to the glass. Cold air passed
through and put its hand over his heart.
I loved you, he thought.
Loved you well.
Before loving you no longer.

–Raymond Carver

(from All of Us: The Collected Poems. Knopf, 1999. 150.)

Y’all, I am tearing up National Poetry Month this year! Each year I forget how hard it is to find interesting poems that I can heartily endorse — ones that I haven’t posted before, that is. Oh well.

Yesterday I took Elsie, aka White Cat, aka Elsers, aka Elser Selsers, over to Rachel’s (my coworker) house to live. Cat abandonment! I know it’s for the best, as Elsie and Pete do not get along and Pete is such a pill that making him happy is kind of a priority. Elsie has been with us for a year and after trying for a year and keeping our house shut off into two halves and having a crazy cat who poops in the dog’s bed when he’s stressed, we had to do something. I was very sad about giving her away but glad she gets to live in a house where she’s the only kitty. I will miss the way she used to sit on the edge of my sink and tell me all about what’s going on on One Life to Live every morning. That’s the only thing I can figure out that she was saying. She’d see me get in the shower and say nothing, but then the moment I emerged she was all rarr rayrrr rarrrr? And I’d say oh yeah then what happened and she would say rar rar rarrr rarrrrrr!! And I would say nuh-uh you are making that up — Dorian Lord can’t still be on that show.

Anyway, so after having a few good boo-hoos about it (when I left Rachel’s house Elsie was hiding under the bed, and imagining what was going on in her little kitty head — which was probably more where’s my food? and less woe is me, no one loves me, here I sit under the bed, totally abandoned — set me off for several hours), I had finally recovered when Larry told me about something he read online.

Larry: I wasn’t going to mention it, but did you see that story where they thought there was a newborn in the trash can at Wal-Mart?
Me: Uh, no.
Larry: It turned out to be a burrito.

This set me off into the most hysterical laughter I have experienced in years. I was crying, I was choking, I was laughing in a totally new way that sounds nothing like my actual laugh, and when I was able to speak I kept asking questions that made me laugh more, like “was the burrito wearing a diaper” or “was the burrito crying” only I don’t think it sounded like English. Larry sort of laughed nervously the way you do when you see someone have a fit or a seizure (ok, imagining Larry standing around laughing while someone has a seizure is now making me laugh all over againl). He found the article and printed it for me, and then reading it in black and white made me start hysterically laughing all over again, and I could only make it through the first line without crumpling up the paper and laughing some more.

Here it is. I hope the word “only” in the second sentence brings you as much unbridled mirth as it did me.

So, here it is, April 10, the day the wizened old lady said I would be having the baby, and…nothing. There’s no way. I was at the doctor yesterday, and let’s just say that I am a great homemaker because the baby is extremely comfortable and has zero plans to leave his home. NONE. Not even a half centimeter’s size plan. Jerkface baby.

However, because of my sweet, darling thyroid (love ya!), I get to have this child at 39 weeks instead of 40 weeks, and since there is NO PROGRESS WHATSOEVER, I’ll be induced sometime around the 22nd or 23rd. Did you hear that, internet?! In approximately twelve days I will be giving someone birth.

My ginormous feet continue to awe and inspire my coworkers, and for the past few weeks I have been excellent about sticking to a low-sodium diet. However, you know what? It’s not helping anything. And yesterday I discovered that I lost a pound. People, 9 months pregnant ladies do not need to lose a pound. Therefore, I am abandoning my flavorless, grilled-chicken-and-baked-potato world and eating whatever the hell I want, just not maybe for every meal. Once you become aware of something, it’s hard to go back — so I won’t be eating any soup for like, at least 15 years. Soup is a killer! Beware!

Radio Love Poem

It’s not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on.
–Marilyn Monroe, in Time magazine, 1952 (more…)

For today, go read this poem, comprised of the first lines of many other poems.

In other news:

• A coworker called this morning to report that she wouldn’t be in because she was taking her husband to the doctor. I made the mistake of asking what was wrong with him, and this is exactly what she said:

Well…he said that he hasn’t had any fun for awhile, and that they’ll probably need to remove one of them.

• My sciatica is miraculously cured! I think this means the baby has moved and/or he was tired of hearing me refer to him as a douchebag.

• I was eating a can of pineapple slices this morning and was disturbed by the label. It says

This bothers me.

• You’re watching Rock of Love, right? Just checking.

• That is all.

Moon

A metallic mammal. Nocturnal.

Its face
appears eaten by acne.

Sputniks and sonnets.

–Nicolas Guillen

(from Poems for the Millenium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry. Volume One. U of California P, 1995. 670.)