sabato, novembre 10, 2012

The refreshments of childlessness

I'm on a TENS machine today, courtesy of my Chinese doctor, trying to get this labour ball rolling. A once-hourly auto-electrocution of the back and buttock, starting early as possible and running as late as possible. Not something I ever quite pictured myself doing, I must say, but a lot of pregnancy has involved things I never pictured myself doing. I can add auto-ass-electrocution to the list of things nobody ever warned me about pregnancy, alongside heartburn, over-medicalization, sasquatch poos, and stroopwafel and cheese sandwiches suddenly being really good. 

I should have started with the machine last night but instead we went out for dinner with our only childless friends here, which was lovely. As the F-word and I were driving home we realized that we'd spent most of the night talking about politics and making the filthiest jokes possible as opposed to what we spend our time with our childed-up couple friends talking about - their houses, their children, their health, their income and, once the evening reaches a certain point, their relationship issues. It was an unsettling realization.

The fact is, and last night I had to stare this fact in the face, I get fucking bored talking about houses, children, health, income and relationships. It's just not all that interesting. Not compared to, I don't know, telling someone to sit on their hand for 15 minutes so that when they jack off they can pretend it's someone else, or Julia Gillard's misogyny speech (which was part of a masterful tradition of trashing the shit out of opposition members; she didn't get into the Paul Keating brand of colourful insults like "all tip and no iceberg", "peice of desiccated coconut" or "low altitude flyer", but she didn't need to - that poor dumb fuck Abbott having spent years of public life setting himself up. Almost no notes, and 15 minutes of pure, merciless, factually accurate trash talk. You hardly ever see anything that awesome in an an Anglo parliament or congress, but you can see it relatively routinely in Australia. These people are only good at talking when they're pissed off).

Maybe all that will change when we have children, say, tomorrow or something (WTF?). I guess the centre of gravity of the world shifts quite a lot. But somehow the realization of how things are hemming in for most of our friends here is chilling. I hope it's not inevitable. Again I have to thank goodness for my job, which in any case will force me to keep focusing on big political and macro-economic pictures beyond home renovations and how my spouse is somehow deficient of competency or understanding or things like that. Not that there's anything wrong with the personal but I don't think it can be the only thing on your mind. It puts too much pressure on your immediate environment being your only source of happiness or stimulation. I love the F-word too much to make my relationship with him the absolutely centre-point of my waking consciousness, no matter how emotionally dependent on or attached to him I am in reality. Nobody deserves that much pressure. And my kid won't either. Easier said than lived, I expect.

4 commenti:

e.f. bartlam ha detto...

You're getting electric shots to the booty?

Where can I get one of these pregnancies?

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

You didn't think complementary medicine was just so us hippies could blow extra money, did you?

Melbine ha detto...

I'm so fascinated! I used the TENS machine to help with labour pain for this most recent labour. It worked like a charm! Until it was time to move onto the nitrous oxide. I didn't know that it could be used to try and induce labour as well!

I don't think it's inevitable that once you have children you only talk about those things. I mean, those issues come up, but I usually reserve that for specific occasions, like mommy playdates. Now THOSE are interesting - I can't wait to hear what you think of them!

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Well, so far the TENS machine hasn't worked. But apparently if the cervix is already quite ripe it can hurry things along.

I'm sure it's not inevitable. You don't talk like that, my brothers with kids don't talk like that, my colleagues with kids don't talk like that, Sugarplum doesn't talk like that, etc. And to be fair, some friends we've made more recently here who have kids don't talk like that.

I get a feeling a lot of Australians are pretty unstimulated and that has more to do with this than having children does. It's just the contrast was remarkable on Saturday.