End of February, beginning March were a little crazy here at Chez Slater. For one, the ol’ body decided to do epic Pokemon battle with me, and chose PREGNANCY, attacking first with Round Ligament Pain (65% effective), then following with periodic Braxton-Hicks pseudo-contractions (85% effective) and a Disrupted Sleep attack (100% effective). Thankfully, the RLP attack is pretty short-lived, and it seems already to have gotten a ton better as I get adjusted to the new body structure. The Braxton-Hicks contractions are rare, still, but damn if they don’t shake you up a bit. Apparently a lot of women who get them during this time of their pregnancy find them totally painless. Me? Yeah, not that lucky. I’ve done pretty well breathing through them and all, but they’re no fun.
The Disrupted Sleep Attack is actually resolving itself too (thank GOODNESS). For a while there, I’d get pretty intense deep-hip pain if I slept on one side for more than forty minutes at a time. I tried various pillow structures, etc., but really, the only thing that helped was sleeping on the opposite side for a while. *That* was made challenging by wrenching my back one night (which set off the first of my experiences with Braxton-Hicks, joy joy), which meant for a couple of weeks there in February, I would get up and move to either the opposite side of the bed or the daybed in the living room to switch sides, since rolling over normally really aggravated the back. The back finally healed up, but rolling over every half-hour to forty minutes (almost like clockwork–I timed it one night with a stopwatch out of curiosity) was still majorly disruptive. However, for the last two weeks, the hip pain has seemed less and less noticeable, so I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it’ll just go away. I think it’s probably hormone related, because I vaguely remember having something similar for a few weeks or months back in early high school, and my mother says she gets it from time to time as she goes through the later stages of menopause. Here’s to hoping it goes away and I can sleep like a log again!
That said, the disrupted sleep did mean that at least one of those weekend nights I was uncomfortable enough that I ended up thinking (and subsequently writing) an entire short story at 2 AM in the morning, finishing it about 3:30, and going back to bed. I also got to watch the arc of the Moon’s movements through the sky, and how it changed over two weeks, which was fascinating, actually. At least the cats seem to have learned how to deal with my tossing and turning and don’t pester me too much to get under the covers anymore, which is lovely in its own way. ^_^
Okay, but enough about the P word. This last month also saw my little sister get married in Long Beach, CA, which we’ve only just returned from as of yesterday. For the most part, I did pretty well, I think, at keeping up and at the same time not totally wearing myself out. The wedding on the Queen Mary was beautiful–I was a bridesmaid (or matron, as the case may be)–my sister looked absolutely angelic, and we’re so glad to add Eric and his family to ours and vice versa! We also ate a ridiculous lot of good food, like Korean BBQ which we cooked right at the table (sooooo tasty!), and big breakfast buffets, and a large Vietnamese dinner at this wonderful restaurant tucked away in San Gabriel. Also got in a lot of walking, which was good. And of course, I had to go on the Queen Mary Haunted Encounters tour, where the guide tells you all the ghost stories about the ship, because ghosts. It was a lot of fun. I’m a bit tired today from all the travel yesterday (red-eye flights while pregnant do totally suck. Blech.), but a little napping and getting back into a routine seems to be helping.
I also got some exciting news yesterday, but I’ll hold off on details as things aren’t officially settled and I don’t want to reveal anything that hasn’t been announced yet. But needless to say, it’s a major positive shot in the arm, and I’m thrilled about it!
I’ve got some other things on the mind that I may blog about over the next week or so, particularly a look at Therese Anne Fowler’s Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, which I read in a whirlwind over the CA trip. It’s one of those fiction books that speaks very strongly to the writer in me, just as Martin Eden by Jack London did or Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, and I think I’ve learned a few things about my writer-self. It’s a lovely book, by the way, but not at all relaxing. From the wild parties of the 20’s, to marital turmoil and psychiatric episodes in the 30’s and 40’s, it’s an intense love story mixed with a lot of disappointment, desperation, frustration, alcoholism, and anger. There were times I was literally talking back to the book’s characters aloud because I was so worked up at the various indignities and crushing low-blows that inevitably occurred between Zelda and Scott (and others). That said: I could barely put it down. Well worth the read. But I’ll talk more in detail about that later.
In the meantime, I’m hopefully back for a while until B-Day in June, when I’ll probably go radio silent for at least a number of weeks (or month+). We’ll see when we get there!