Every once in a while I realize that I'm pregnant. It's like havign a tattoo, you know, not something that I really thnink about most of the time. Then I'll catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror or window and be like "Oh. Hey! There's a baby in there."
"Hello, baby."
"Wait. Hey! Stop jumping on my bladder!"
Zero is not the same thing as none. Zero is not the same as never, nothing, or absence. Zero is a thing unto itself. A concept. An integer at its simplest. It holds the spot between -1 and 1. It is simply a fantasy of mathematics. An expression with as much meaning as x or a+b=c. One can say there are no tigers here. But is one saying there are zero tigers? No. Because it is irrelevant. Zero tigers would only be significant if you wanted to add, multiply or divide by tigers. It is a senseless thing to think about. Zero tigers. Feh.
Zero is a fatastic portal between the real and the imaginary. It is the mathematician shoving a big cock up Xeno's Paradox's ass and fucking it to death with it. Conversely it is the thing by which no number can be divided. It is the concept by which the mathematician stares into the choatic void of his own making and shouts out in terror and insanity as he witnesses his own mind and reality crumbling before him. The Mind of God, my ass, he thinks.
Divide zero six times and you get zero. Try to divide six zero times. In reality if we have 6 things and we divide them no times we still have six things. BUT divide them zero times and not only do you not get six you get the most astounding "Fuck you" the mathematical world has ever conceived of. Even when confronted with the complication of not being able to take square roots of negatives, the mathematical types simply shrugged and said, "Hey no problem." They caused a revolution by christening such impossibilities imaginary numbers and putting a cute little italicized "i" at the end of them. But in the emergency, the calamity, the disaster known as the equation x divided zero times they laid down their heads on their desks, threw up their arms, extended their palms and thrust up their two longest phalanges.
They Said:
Not only is it impossible to use such an equation even theoretically in a useful way, it is an impossible equation to solve. Not only is it impossible to solve now with current technology and understanding, it is impossible to solve henceforth under any circumstances, no matter how much you stupid people beg and plead, world without end, amen. Fuck. Off.
Such is the truth and majesty of The Empty Set.
Circle. Slash. Fuck off. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Fuck you and everyone who looks like you. Just go get good and fucked off.
Circle. Slash.
We're going back to play around with zero.
You know what's interesting? It never occurred to me until recently that I depserately do NOT want this baby to die.
That may seem extremely weird, but when I can't really see something, and it's just like a huge vascular tumor that moves around and makes me feel like crap I don't think as much about it as something with a life and a future and all that. Reading pregnancy, birth and chilhood books is all rather dry and academic. Mostly because they completely suck and are kind of like reading "Six Easy Pieces" (a pretty good book on basic physics).
I spent two evenings in the hospital because I was having contractions. Regular conractions. Which is bad. However, my cervix hadn't changed, meaning I wasn't really in labor.
I have had so many different things in my vagina this week. They did a vag ultrasound, which is where they put something like a regular sized dildo in the vag and then move it around like a joystick. I felt like making sound effects. "Whooouuup, brrrrssszzzzh, err Ah, err Ah, err Ah, Whooouup."
I had to go back for a bunch of tests and get hooked up to monitors and get the monkey looked at and peed in cups and and and...
And after it all, I came away mostly with a very strong feeling that it was very very very important that the little guy stays put. Otherwise, SGNP and I will feel very very very very very very very very BAD. Badbadbadbadbadbad.
"Get back in there you goddamned turtle!"
I'm looking forward to acquired neuroplasticity. A new study says I'm going to get smarter once the baby is born. Although, this will be counteracted by being incredibly sleep deprived.
Here are a few examples of what being dumb is like.
Driving down the road with Paul:
"Ounces!"
"What?"
"Ounces. It's a measurement of, like, food. I couldn't think of it at the doctor. I think I said grams. But it's ounces."
"Right. Ounces."
At the checkout line, staring at lighters:
"Bic. Bic. Bic lighters. Bic pens. Bic lighters. Bic pens. Hey! I'll bet that's the same people! Bic! Bic lighters AND Bic pens."
Later my friend Basil mentioned Bic razors and I told him to stop fucking with my mind.
The answer to the question "Is being stupid kind of like being high all the time?"
is "Yes. It totally is."
Dude.
Finally got my results back from my most recent Ultrasound, and the baby is perfectly fine fine fine. Brain is fine, lungs are fine, spine is fine, stomach, liver, bladder, nose, fingers, toes fine fine fine.
It's funny but there is a strange panic every time one has an ultrasound that suddenly the baby will be horribly malformed or have like magically disappeared. Poof. No baby.
There's also an odd panic that the baby somehow isn't your husband's. It's an really strange feeling, made worse by watching the Maury Povich show. I haven't had sex with anyone but SGNP since June of 2002 or something like that. This must be the root of those Changeling stories.
I am the worst pregnant lady around. I tried to stop drinking and smoking. I succeeded for a while, with both. And I failed for a while with both. And I'm still trying and am succeeding with drinking, but not so much with the smoking. It comes in waves. These terrible cravings and feelings of being trapped in a well. Actually it feels more like being trapped in the eye of a tornado. The world is whooshing by around me. Flurries of lives being lived, transactions being completed, relationships beginning and ending and I'm standing still and nothing is happening. I can't hear anything I can comprehend, I can't reach into it or my hand will be ripped off, I can't step into it or I'll cease to exist. Everything is completely beyond my grasp. I sit at home and think and read and read and read and take baths. Then I go out for a while and drink coffee by myself and read by myself. I come home and watch TV and play popcap games.
What I can say is this. When you haven't been drinking or smoking or drinking caffeine, drinking decaf coffee is like smoking crack.
And that's about all I can say for myself. At least I'm not smoking crack.
I sent this email out to some friends and have decided to share:
"So I've been reading a bunch on pregnancy forums, which also often have people on them who are trying to get pregnant. The acronym for sex that people who don't want to say SEX is BD. Which stands for the "Baby Dance"
Ugh. Christ on a frickin raft. These people.
-JP
PS the acronym for people trying to get knocked up is TTC. Trying to conceive. Often followed by a number indicating a length of time or number of tries. Right. You can't say SEX but you can tell me in a convenient acronym how many times you and your white Christian husband have had it anorgasmically in missionary position on top of your grandma's quilt all in about 5-7 keystrokes. Double Ugh. "
My friend Rick recommends reducing Double Ugh to 2ugh in L33T.