21 August 2004

Yesterday I woke up half an hour before the alarm would have gone off. Went to the bathroom, stared at the ceiling, and finally gave up and crawled into Neil's bed to wake him up.

There is really nothing in the world better than waking up near the one you love. Really, there's not. So, we snuggled up to each other for a few minutes, and I swear, for those few minutes, everything in the whole world was perfect. World peace, the cure for cancer, and an end to hunger are as close by as Neil and I snuggling in bed.

The baby kicked him in the stomach. S/he has been kicking pretty freaking hard the past couple of weeks. Sometimes s/he's quiet for hours; sometimes s/he's trying to be a one-baby punk band for hours. It's rarely anything in between. I hugged Neil harder. We smiled at each other. I always figured someday I'd have a family of my own -- of some sort. But I never, ever thought it would ever be anything like this. The three most important people in the world to me, all safe and warm and comfortable together; there are no words for it...

* * * * * * * * * * *

I made us some breakfast and we caught the bus for Olympia. Bus rides are so much shorter WITH Neil than alone. Don't get me wrong; I do secretly love bus rides, but it's so much faster with someone to talk to. We talked about philosophy. We talked about parents. We plotted. We gazed at each other and didn't talk. Speaking strictly for myself, it had the unusual effect of keeping my butt from going to sleep on the fucking Lakewood bus.

There was a fire in Hawk's Prairie, near where I used to live. Once upon a time, the Medicine Creek Treaty was signed there on that hill, the one that was charred and smoking and still partly flaming. The Medicine Creek Treaty was the one that Governor WhiteDude drew up with a bunch of unsuspecting Indian Chiefs, to take the majority of Western Washington's land and resources away from the indigenous people. Up the hill from Medicine Creek (now McAllister Creek), Whitey lives his life of quiet desperation, watching the soaps, getting fat, going to Safeway for microwave dinners, and breathing air that smells like a garbage dump and a mushroom farm. But on the other side of Medicine Creek, the Red Man sits on his battered porch while his feral children and his feral dogs run around the neighborhood wreaking havoc; the kids play "drug deal" instead of "hide-and-seek." The water is poisoned on both sides of the creek. I really believe that the Medicine Creek Treaty cursed that whole area forever, for all races.

The fire came within a few feet of the memorial erected to the Medicine Creek Treaty. It's a big hunk of ugly white stone: fitting, if you think about it. But it remained untouched. I glared at it. A symbol of conquest, of man's dominion over man -- it just fucking sat there, like it was laughing.

I noted also, though, that even though most of the hillside was destroyed, a good number of the Scot's Broom bushes looked untouched. Scot's Broom is a pretty, bushy-looking thing with yellow flowers in spring, and black bean-pods in summer. It's an "invasive, non-native species," the botanists will tell you. Kind of like Western Washington's white people, if you really want to go there. There was nothing but smoking black earth and cheerful Scot's Broom left of that hillside. I imagine the Scot's Broom was rather cheerful. High temperatures are what cause its bean-pods to split open and repopulate the area with new Scot's Broom... Next spring, the whole hill will be covered in pretty yellow flowers...

* * * * * * * * * * *

I honestly think that if Neil happened to lie down in some random yard and begin rolling in patches of earthworms, rotting yard clippings, and dog poop, like my dog used to do -- if he did that, I believe that the females belonging to that particular yard would emerge from their home to drool over Neil. I swear to you, Neil can charm the most un-charmable of women. He doesn't even have to DO anything. Once, I saw him buy a pair of Jncos at a thrift store, and as he was paying for them, TWO of the cashiers began flrting with him. Dude! He was handing them a few bucks for a pair of freaking jeans, not whispering dirty words in their ears.

The very first time I got a good look at Neil, he had a girl on either side of him, both cuddled up close under his arms. A third girl -- a friend of mine, who had been sitting with me at a table across the freaking room -- sauntered over, and managed to swipe him away from the first two girls. To the best of my knowledge, Neil wasn't doing much more than drinking coffee at the moment. The looks on the faces of the spurned girls reminded me of the expressions people get when they take a big gulp of rotten milk. And in the past seven and a half years, very little has changed about the effect Neil has on women.

We sat in the Port of Olympia tower, munching Kettle Chips and drinking sodas and looking out over the bay. And these two little girls perked up and began staring shamelessly at Neil. They were probably around three and four, give or take. "Momma!" cried the older of the two, "That man has green and purple hair!"

"Yes, honey, he does. It's nice hair, huh?" The mother was chatting with her friend and wasn't really paying attention. The little girls went back to staring. The older -- and obviously braver -- of the two, wandered closer for a better look.

"Momma! The man with the purple hair has black fingernails!"

This time, the mother looked. So did the friend. I only caught a very dim peripheral glimpse of the adult women. But I could feel the eyes of all four females boring straight through me, straight at Neil. I smiled. Whatever; I'm way more amused by this phenomenon than threatened by it.

"Now ALL of them are looking over at me," murmured Neil. I suppose that poor Neil honestly believed the women were looking at him merely because he's got purple and green hair. I don't believe that for a moment.

"I'll make them stop staring," I said. And touched his cheek. Sure enough, I could hear the audible crackle of four necks twisting back around, away from Neil and me. I smiled at my beloved boyfriend. I teased him for the rest of the day about all the cute younger women drooling over him.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The ultrasound technician made me sign a consent form before she'd tell me the baby's gender. At the last ultrasound, s/he had his/her foot directly between the camera and the private bits. But this time, the technician seemed sure enough to hand me a clipboard and ask me to sign it.

"Now, these things are never sure... we've had lots of surprises," she said.

"Are you more than fifty percent sure?" I asked.

"I'd say about seventy-five percent," she replied. Then she looked back at the monitor and said, "Yeah, I'd give you about an eighty-five percent here..."

A pause. She wiggled the ultrasound thingy. Neil and I glanced at each other and smiled.

"We tell people," said the technician, "that with girls, we see a coffee bean shape, and with boys, we see a turtle... So, right here--" She was pointing at the monitor, "--is baby's leg... And this is baby's other leg... And right here..."

Boys have a turtle. Girls have a coffee bean. That is so freaking cute. I'm SO going to use those as euphemisms forever now...

* * * * * * * * * * *

My mom called last week to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. I had to tell her I didn't know.

"Well, some of the people at my work are going to donate some stuff for you... But they asked me whether it's a boy or a girl so that they can give me blue stuff or pink stuff..."

"For crying out loud, ask for purple!"

These people and their insistence on a binary gender system. Oy.

Pink or blue?

Coffee bean or turtle?

I think I should make you all sign a consent form before I tell you -- with 85% certainty -- what the technician's verdict was.

But I'll give you a hint... With me and Neil as parents, which could you really expect: a turtle, or a coffee bean?

* * * * * * * * * * *

D. is in the kitchen; it appears he's about to attempt to cook. This is worrisome enough so that I'm ending this entry right here to go and offer my assistance. And condolences...

Ohhhh, fuck...

~Helena*