symptomatic                                          

Oh hello. Well my goodness, this is a strange thing indeed: to be sitting in my house with internet. Oh my god people, call Tom Friedman, THE INTERNET. 

So here's the thing. I've got something I need to tell you and I've been trying to figure out for days how to do it. There's the, internet, we need to talk tact. Or the, here, I think you should sit down, oh! and what about a beer? Here, have a beer approach. But beer's hard to link to, so I had to eliminate that one from the list of options. It's just that, well, considering a few hours ago I had to tell a bunch of strangers just because they are working on our house and couldn't figure out why extending the project into May was SUCH A BIG DEAL ALREADY, CHRIST, I kind of can't believe I'm only talking to you about it now but, well, shit, here goes:

So, I'm pregnant.

(My god I still feel like I'm sixteen years old and still have to suppress the urge to duck because I'm fairly certain some high school guidance counselor is going to smack me with their purse, screaming what were you thinking? What about your future?)

And before we get all crazy and excited, please let me get something off my chest because MOTHER OF GOD pregnancy sucks. And yes, it's early. Earlier than the prescribed time to tell the world and all that, but it's late enough that if something went wrong  this is the first place I'd come to (and you'd be all, what? What are you talking about, crazy?) So let me just tell you how much pregnancy sucks (operative word: pregnancy, not parenting) and for those of you who read Jonniker, sorry, but this is going to sound like a lot more of the same because LORD WHAT WERE YOU THINKING when you made the pregnancy package?

I'm a very symptomatic person. If you look it up and it lists the side effects you best believe I'll have 95% of them, regardless the ailment. But come on already. Really esophagus? Really? It's only the middle of the eighth week and already with the heartburn? Really? Oh, oh and the morning sickness? Oh yes, can we please talk about that? Somehow I harbored a illusion that morning sickness was made up of insurmountable urges to vomit that overtook women in an instant and hurled them towards toilets or sinks or trash cans or what have you. Meaning that there you were, out in the world, FUNCTIONING, when all of a sudden you had to vomit. I wish. With all my heart, I wish. Oh no no. It begins about 3 minutes after waking up, drags into a long, protracted, prolonged series of hours of hypersalivating, migraine inducing nausea wherein I swear to god I've been fucking POISONED until finally, finally, like five hours later, I lean over the kitchen sink (or similar) cough, gag, retch, heave and sob. All for not a lot of production, if you know what I mean. After which, though, it must be said, I feel miraculous (thereby furthering my conviction that I'm not actually pregnant rather merely being poisoned by an inch and a half long creature with fins). Once I vomit I feel like god, all is well with the world, my headache clears, I can walk and drive and think and read and it's amazing, AMAZING....for about 3 hours. And then it's wash, rinse, repeat. 

And why didn't anyone just tell me: listen honey, stick your finger down your throat, I promise, you're gonna feel totally better? Why doesn't it say that anywhere? Because it's TRUE. Note to selves: don't hold back, just barf, even if it makes you feel like an afternoon special on bulimia because all of a sudden your choosing foods on the basis of what they'll be like to vomit back up again.  

So much better in fact (this knowledge is a very new development, by the way. Instead I have been spending the better part of the last eight weeks GREEN, refusing to eat anything and everything made of or resembling food because, mother of god, what are you trying to do, kill me?) that I ate not one but two egg and cheese crossaints from Dunkin Donuts. Strange thing pregnancy, and let me be the first one to hold up both hands and wave the repentant white flag for thinking that I was totally going to eat a healthy, raw, organic, high protein, low carb diet when pregnant (AND run 6-7 miles a day) because HAH! In the last eight weeks, the only food I have actually thought remotely reasonable to eat has been a Bean Burrito from Taco Bell, french fries from Burger King, mashed potatoes from KFC and now Dunkin Donuts. Today I seriously considered Pizza Hut, I'm not kidding (I would never kid about Pizza Hut) but MY GOD, the heartburn.

You'll be glad to know though that I've hated myself after every single event. All were failed experiments.

So this is pretty discombobulated and inarticulate and all over the place but I'm madly trying to use up the last of my few functional minutes before I have to return to the fetal position, clutching at my heartburn, desperately sticking my finger down my throat and threatening to Andy that next time, we're adopting.