Airmiles and airport books

I have enough of them for a round trip to Rome. I just bought some tickets instead. I mean to say I'll be in Rome, but not flying in and out of there. Feeling a bit of an abstract urge to scarper. Lots of women love being pregnant but I suspect I'm not one of them. Now that I'm not particularly worried anymore - forewarned forearmed, etc., and Ren seems to be ticking along nicely down there as we round out this beginning 1:4 miscarriage risk period - I'm just sort of sick of being pregnant. I want to go for runs and camping trips and eat food with sesame oil, not to mention coffee. But lethargy, nausea and blood pressure's in the way, not to mention the tail end of that fucking plague I contracted in Melbourne. 

And I want to not be so fucking fat. I'm back up to the weight I was before I started running, and wondering how I stood it back then. I feel like a fucking elephant. It's not an aesthetic thing. I look pretty great, with my porn boobs and glow and minibump and all that. It's more the feeling - this feeling of being some sort of clumsy, loose-limbed mastadon. And I'm just at the beginning of it, too. Oh well. I think things'll get better in that respect when the goo clears out of my lungs well enough for me to run and jump in the pool, and we've got a Pilates instructor buddy who I'll learn some matt tricks with. I'm just so bloody sleepy and dopey all the time.

The good thing is that all the enforced relaxation is reintroducing me to the world of light reading. I'm reading Dashiell Hammett's short stories for the first time. I like Raymond Chandler's better, for their emotional richness, but not much. These are pretty damn sweet. Not Dorothy Sayer's though, which aren't particularly emotionally rich compared to either - not at all - but are fucking awesome and which I've also been reading. Also reading The Art Forger's Handbook, by a very interesting man called Eric Hebborn. The linked documentary is very interesting, worth a watch, but nothing to the book. While it's got a lot of quantity of methodology not immediately interesting to those of us who don't draw or paint much, its conclusions on modern art versus older art and the intrinsic value of artwork are absolutely fascinating. Despite or because of being written by a sociopath, no dissection of those topics has ever spoken to me better.

In the vein of slightlier heavier reading I've been going through Erasmus's Praise of Folly, which is a rather sweet read. I have a great-grandfather Erasmus who made it to 100 without breaking a sweat, named after him of Rotterdam I know not, but in case Ren turns out to be a boy I'm mounting a minor campaign for us to name him that. (Don't worry, it's going badly.) In the circumstances I should at least read some of his books.

Plan for six weeks of maternity leave

You know, considering how full of worries and trepidations I am, it's time to focus on the more likely outcome of all of this, which is that I have a nice healthy baby without too, too much trouble or excessive weeks in ICU or whatever else it is my nightmares conjure up.

So here is my ideal plan for the six weeks of mat leave I'm planning.

1. Hold, feed, bathe, etc. baby
2. Sleep when it sleeps
3. Watch shitloads of Doctor Who. I've never really watched it before but nothing with theme music that awesome could be bad
4. Wear really nice pyjamas

What do you think? Too ambitious?

The joys of unimmunity

Pregnancy continues pregnantily. I'm in Melbourne for a conference that I'm not at at the moment because I have no more immune system. Pregnant women don't have much of one, you see; that way, their own bodies don't turn on the embryos. Which means the common cold chews through you like a rabid fucking wolverine. Oh well. It looked like a crappy conference anyways. But I'd rather be home, of course, eating according to my very, very odd predilections, and not having to share a washroom with other B&B guests.

I'm keen on having my own kitchen back because not only are my predilections in terms of what I can eat odd, but eating is further complicated by how it's not supposed to involve much salt, due to my blood pressure, which continues borderline-I-gotta-see-an-OB-instead-of-a-midwife-hey-maybe-I-can-get-a-C-section-instead-of-pushing-a-bowling-ball-out-of-my-insert-whistling-sound-here. Of course this week it's involving salt, because it's involving restaurants. And that's fine by me aside from the health issues. Pregnancy isn't giving me a sweet tooth, sadly. I could sit here eating french fries all day, no trouble. Best not to think about it.

Well, that's enough of all that now. Time for more sleeping.