the basics

"Put a pillow between your knees when you're sleeping," my midwife said. I do, faithfully, gradually getting used to the weirdness of sleeping on my side. This morning it feels like my femurs might just pop out of my hip joints, bitey crescents of pain.

On the other hand, the shrimpbaby is doing flips, occasionally booting me with an elbow or a foot. Hi, buddy. Fifteen more weeks. I woke thinking about how I was hungry, was suddenly worried that he would be hungry, and then thought "No, no, that doesn't come until later." And then I thought about how freaky it must be to be born, and then to be suddenly cold, and hungry, for the first time in your life, with no idea what it is or if it will ever go away. I realize this is not a new thought, but it was new to me, or new to me in a way--in the sense that it was the first time I'd ever gotten inside the thought. Little dude, I can't save you from the scary feeling of getting hungry, but I will always feed you.

irrational fear

I must keep reminding myself: my uterus is not a water balloon, and no matter how weird it feels when I bend over, it is not going to pop.

Eeugh.

oh, now that's just embarrassing

In a time of economic uncertainty, you know what a really great idea is? Doing something so stupid that you piss off half your customer base.

Amazon, massive online book retailer, has removed a whole whack of titles from their sales rankings because of "adult content." In many cases, this means those books don't show up in a search of the Amazon site, either. One wonders how Amazon plans to sell these phantom books. One also wonders how Amazon defines adult content. The answer? "As poorly as everyone else who's ever tried it." In one of the more ridiculous examples, Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho (complete with horrific serial killings) still shows up, but Unfriendly Fire, a book about queers and American military policy, is apparently too racy for us.

Books with queer content are disproportionately represented (or unrepresented, I guess) in this new system, regardless of whether that content consists of frolicsome fisting threeways or the mere mention of our existence. Also missing in action are romance and erotica titles (though which ones appears to be a crapshoot), and I'm sure there's more.

The internets are already ablaze with fury, and I think some fury is warranted. But you know what else is warranted? Hysterical laughter. Seriously, Amazon? Seriously? What were you thinking?

I'm with the Smart Bitches on this one. I say we Google Bomb them. Click for a new definition:

Amazon Rank

ETA: Apparently Amazon is now claiming that it's a glitch and not a new policy. And you know, if they had offered this as the first explanation, I'd've been willing to believe it, because the alternative is just so mindbogglingly dumb. But here are a couple of points to consider.

she's a jukebox with a knack for fighting

Oh, the things I would like to blog about--I would like to tell you that I'm methodically working my way through my packing, making sensible decisions, scheduling the cleaning that needs to be done around here--but that's spook. I am mostly staring in dismay at the boxes, bereft of any sense of what needs to go in them or how to go about it. Or, in the rare occasion when I know exactly what needs to be packed and how, void of motivation to do it.

I hate transition periods. I want to be in the new place, already, and then we could unpack things. That part is not so bad.

Similarly, I'm impatient with my pregnancy. I should say that things have gotten better. Both the nausea and the dizziness have passed, and it wasn't until they were both gone that I really knew how exhausted I've been for the last four months. I have a personality again, and the resources to look for the positive in things, whereas when I look back I can see that I was coasting on the habit of cracking jokes about the things that make me want to cry. Now I'm happy to see people. I can think about something other than how wretched I've been feeling. So aside from the fact that all my connective tissues are loosening up, which means that if I stand for any length of time it feels like someone is taking a chisel to my pelvis, I'm doing pretty well. (For those of you who wonder about it: try not to be working in retail sales when you're pregnant. Every frustrating limitation will directly impact your ability to do every aspect of your job. I'm just saying.) I think it's a good sign that I feel better enough to feel antsy. I want to meet the shrimpbaby--on the outside. We have seventeen weeks to go. (I checked; I keep screwing up the count and thinking we're farther along than we are.) I am trying to be grateful that we've got the time; after all, there are nine million things to do between now and then.