this is me 

A Calling

I feel wrapped up and tied tightly in all my multitude of thoughts like sticky strands of spider web.

I am in the middle of my "weekend." Which is to say, the couple of days off I have in the middle of the week. I always want to get stuff done on these days, but this week isn't looking very promising. Yesterday I was a lump, surfing the web and watching tv and reading books I've read a million times already. I also attempted to take a nap. I know that I have been napping every day since about October, but this week, that's actually stopped. No more naps. Does that mean the exhaustion has stepped back a little? In which case, as in my prenapping days, I only nap when I'm sick/getting sick. So the fifteen or so minutes last night, I figured, is actually because I'm fighting off a cold.

Why is this important? Well, if I really am getting sick, then it explains the last few days of doinng absolutely nothing of importance.

I'm getting nervous. I'm terrified that I won't be ready for when the baby comes. There's so much to do. There's so much to buy-- good lord-- baby making these days is an exercise in being a good materialist. I know my parents didn't obsess over getting all the things you "have" to get. The layette. The gear. The matching 500$ bedding set. More and more and more. I read all about it and start believing I really need all that stuff. It's freaking me out. We don't have the money for all that stuff. I wonder who exactly DOES have the money for that. Have we reached the point yet where only the rich can have babies in America. Of course we haven't. Maybe I'm just getting suckered into the consumerist society.

I have a couple of friends who are giving me a few baby things. They both say they are done having kids. One friend has already given me a cosleeper and has a pack and play and slings and play mats, etc. The other friend has baby boy summer clothes. The offers made me feel good for two reasons-- one, it makes me think maybe we CAN afford it, and two, it's nice to know I have friends. Sean, however, seems to be saying the only thing we need is a queen size bed and a bigger couch. He wants me to put them on the registry.

Look at me obsessing over all the STUFF. (and the money it costs.)

Maybe if I were to get up and start doing stuff I wouldn't feel this way. Maybe if I cleaned out the baby-to-be's room I would feel productive. Maybe if I started writing again I wouldn't feel like my reason for existence was simply waiting for the baby to be born.

But my thoughts do swirl around having a baby. Every once in a while, I just get the urge to hold the baby in my arms. And yet, there's no baby to hold.

Is that hormones? Baby obsession, is that part of the process? Is it normal to be turned into an incubator? Is it normal to not be caught up in any of the things I used to do? Writing, painting, going out with friends, reading for intellectual stimulation, not just comfort and to pass the time? I feel as if I am wasting my time here. I mean I have all this time available. I have plenty to really get back into my dreams and goals and what I used to call my calling.

But my calling is not calling. Or maybe it is calling, but so quietly that the screaming, squawling baby making hormones are drowning it out.

What would happen if I sat for a while, maybe meditating, very quietly, and listened, listened really closely to the silence? What would I hear?

Shhh....

Feed the Dream

Here I am at my porn job, waiting for my colleague to finish pulling dirty movies so we can stuff them into envelopes and sticker them closed.

It seems as if my life has taken a doozy of a swerve.

But then, all is not as it seems.

Strangely, I think I have somehow gotten back on track with the life I really wanted for myself, the one I had been planning, or perhaps not planning, maybe it was more a "dreaming of" thing.

I've always wanted to be a writer. I've always wanted to have kids. I've always wanted to have a home. I've always wanted to teach-- although the what and where, and to whom has changed.

When I pictured my life it was me, in a home full of plants and light, with the kids, and a partner, doing my writing, surrounded by art and music and pets and people who care. I dreamed of being published, not just my novels, but also essays, articles. I dreamed of people asking me (okay, paying me) to come and talk to them. I think I dreamed about being an authority, of knowing what the hell I was doing, and having people trust in me.

Right now, my life is wierd. I work in porn, for godsake-- but I'm realistic. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, and I needed to take this job. But this job does not take me off my path. Even though the pay is shit, and the business is wierd, and it's not gonna go anywhere, it actually is getting me closer to doing what I really want to do than teaching high school ever did.

Okay, let me qualify that. Teaching, and the masters degree that went with it, and the people I met, and the experience I got, and the research I did-- those all got me closer to being who I wanted to be, to knowing what I was doing, to being a grown up. But being an actual teacher was like getting sucked the wrong channel of a river. I'm still on the same river, but it is not going where I want to be going. I kept trying to get back to the other part of the river, but kept getting dragged back into the rapids and rocks of teaching. I spent a lot of energy fighting that flow.

Now there is no fighting the flow my life is taking me on.

The only fight is within myself. Which is actually a good place to be fighting if you're an artist. That's where all the richness is. That's actually why this blog is named Warrior Girl. The struggle to live into myself. To be the best me. To be creative and productive.

And I wasn't about to change the struggle just because I have a wiggly peanut growing inside of me.

Isn't it all part of the same thing? The same dream. Isn't being the best you the greatest thing you can do for your children, your family. I certainly know that when I am not creative, I'm not very much fun to be around. I'd rather feed myself so I have something to give to my baby when he gets here. And to my boyfriend, because he deserves to not have a dependent, boring leech sucking off his vitality.

I also can't let having a baby change my goals of being a writer-- an actual working writer, who publishes and gets paid, and someday does speaking engagements and teaches classes-- because, frankly, I gotta make some money. I may not get rich, but that's the way I've chosen to make my living. So I can not only feed myself and my family metaphorically, I can feed them literally, too.

Bump

It's late, but I just ate penne puttanesca, and I don't think it's wise to lay down and go to sleep. So instead, why not jot down some of the thoughts that have been going through my head?

I'm at twenty four weeks, and it's pretty clear that I'm pregnant, although I suppose with all the layers you need in the continuing cold weather, it would be easy to miss the bump. But even though strangers on the street might not know I'm pregnant, something's changing in me-- I mean, aside from the ever growing belly.

For the first time, I think I'm starting to enjoy being pregnant. Wierd. It must be those motherly hormones kicking in. I like my belly. I like the little tumblings and turnings. I may be over dramatizing my inability to get up from the bed so Sean has to help me. It will get worse, I know. It will all get worse, but perhaps I'm finally getting over the overwhelming exhaustion, and that alone makes me feel better. I hope it doesn't get worse in a way that flattens me like in the first trimester.

Jazz-Hippie-Punk-Poet

I figured out what was going on right now with me was this struggle to keep my identity in the face of being pregnant. Everything I've read lately has either been in the goo-goo-ga-ga pink and blue mommy school, or the materialistic, class-conscious, nanny and million dollar uptown co-op mommy school.

I am neither. I want to be neither. I'm a jazz-hippie-punk-poet. I was raised this way. I was raised chanting buddhist prayers and listening to jazz and painting and writing, poor as dirt, but never poverty stricken, well educated, well read, creative open minded. My whole life I've been-- not a "hipster," that's a new thing and a lot more about being cool, but an actual bohemian. And I don't mean neo-luxe-boho, like in Vogue magazine. How can you be a bohemian and spend a thousand bucks on your jeans?

And here I am indulging in labels...

I don't want to be put in a box. Maybe I've been feeling the pressure to fit into some corner of society, now that I'm becoming a mother. You know, you have to be responsible. You have to drive a volvo. It's scary, because I don't even know how to drive. There's no place in my life for Talbots. (I got a catalogue in the mail. It asked "what kind of classic are you?" I found it all too polished, too conservative, bland, boring. I guess I'm no kind of classic. [I'm back on the labels...])

Why shouldn't it be possible to stay who you are and become a mother? Why do we always want things so easily definable? We can't all be June Cleaver. I think we've come to the conclusion that June Cleaver wasn't June Cleaver. Now we've moved on to "SuperMom."

I still wan't to be an artist. I still want to be a writer. I still have a pierced eyebrow and a tattoo. I'd like more tatoos. I feel like I'm being judged for the life I want to live. I feel like some of my friends want me to go back to being a teacher because it's secure. Does it matter if it was crushing my soul? Does it matter if I was pouring my heart out into helping my kids, and leaving nothing for me, for what I wanted to do in my life, for my art?

I don't know what's going to happen. I know things will change utterly. I'm okay with that, but that doesn't mean I have to transform into a yuppie or a guppie. ("Guppie?" I don't know, it rhymed. Kinda gives the impression of something soft and mushy. Goo-goo-ga-ga? I'm going with it.) Maybe I can be a bohemian mama. Why not? My mom was. Maybe I can be a jazz-hippie-punk-poet mama. I like the idea.

Hmm... maybe I can toss out all the labels all together... I don't know.. just be? Kind of spooky.

Like life, huh?

Little Monkey

A few days ago, we went to get our sonogram. Sean actually came with me, although he grumbled and complained about having to go. It's funny, but, at the beginning, he was like, "no way. That's woman stuff. I don't want to have anything to do with it, it's your job." But either that's just his hair trigger response to anything feminine, and he thought better of it, or he's getting advice from all the guys at work, all of them family men. Chances are it's a combination of both.

So we saw the little monkey on screen. They always talk about how you may not be able to see anything, it's just a blur-- but for us it was crystal clear, right away. Wierd. There's a baby inside of me, not just indigestion. Right away there was this great profile shot, as if the kid was saying, "hi there, take a picture of me." You could see fingers and toes-- ten of each. Everything looked in order.

More than the still shots, was when the technician ran the wand over the baby, and you could see everything taking form, like when you have single shots in a cartoon and they flip together to make a moving form. With this, as the wand went over all the 2D images, they blurred together leaving the impression of a 3D form. Cool. Strange. It's amazing what technology can do.

Then the technician asked if we wanted to know the sex, and I looked at Sean. He'd been dragging about that, changing his mind a couple of times, even though I wanted to know. But again, he said okay, and she told us it was a boy.

First thing Sean said was, "the next great Yankees center fielder."

So what I was convinced was going to be a girl, is actually going to be a boy. I'm glad we found that out, because I was really uncomfortable with the possibility that my certainty would be wrong and I would be bonding to a supposed girl until a little wiggly popped out. Then it would just be wierd.

Okay, so I didn't mean to do all the gushy-girl pregnant lady stuff, obsessed with babies, but there was a point to this. See, somehow, once I'd had the sonogram, I guess something clicked. It might have been that we found out everything seems okay. I can't actually believe that this whole process is going the way it's supposed to. I couldn't believe that I actually WORK.

I started going on line for baby supplies, starting a registry. I don't know it may just be playing, pretend shopping, kind of, but just looking at baby boy clothes and cribs and toys and all that makes it more real. I also finally sent out a mass email to all the people I'd lost contact with, told them about moving in with Sean, being pregnant, having a son. Fifteen minutes after I sent it, I got a phone call from one student, and then another, and then later that night a whole bunch of emails from friends.

See-- I do have friends.

So, maybe one of the reasons I have been so out of touch with everyone was because I was actually in a holding pattern. I know that early on, I didn't know if I would end up carrying to term. Who ever does, and that was one of the reasons I was holding back. Later on, there was always the "what if". What if there was something wrong? What if I had to... well, not have it? And maybe I was also trying to comprehend for myself that there was someone completely separate from me growing inside of me.

I'm telling you, I find it hard to comprehend that women have always done this. It's bizarre process. Something from nothing. Some alien being sucking energy from your body. Who invented this? Wouldn't leaving a clutch of eggs under a leaf make more sense. We could come back when the kid was ready and pick it up. That would work just as well, wouldn't it?

Pregnancy and Pervology II

I've learned a few things since joining the porn industry. I've learned that Mondays are the busiest day. I've learned that the L.A. office hires pretty porn-type girls who give more attention to their cel phones than to their labelling and sorting, whereas the N.Y. office (ours) kicks ass in getting the mail in and out, its strongest workers being a shrimpy Jamaican kid and a knocked up 34 year old.

I also have learned that there is, in fact, a genre of porn for pregnant women. Apparently it's pretty popular and pretty rare. They have a hard time getting women to star in pregnant porn. (Surprise! Surprise!)

I have learned this because I was actually asked if I wanted to do a pregnant porn movie. Yes. Yes I was. He said I could make a lot of money. He said I could do it with my boyfriend, it didn't have to be some stranger. I wasn't sure if it was a joke or not, but he brought it up three or four times so I don't think it was joke.

I haven't told anyone, especially not Sean, because he might get really mad. But then again, he might not. He might leave it to me, knowing that I can handle a silly request like this. All the guy can do is ask, and then I say yes or no. Anything else coercive I have the sense to get out of myself. Not that there's anything coercive going on.

It's so funny. It really is a boring, repetitive job, in a tiny, cheery office. There's very little to do with actual porn. I don't even have to watch the movies. So I go in, bring my decaf latte, sort the mail, watch Ellen's talk show and a couple of sitcoms. Get some lunch, label some envelopes, listen to music, watch Oprah, stick the envelopes in a basket and leave.

But everyonce in a while I am reminded that this is indeed the porn industry.