Yesterday was Chrysty’s birthday. Not that you’d know from my blog. Where I wish every single other person I know a happy birthday. 
I celebrated her birthday with her on Saturday, at the 60th Annual Bellevue Arts and Crafts Fair. But that was days ago!
Happy belated, hon! Now you get out of jail free if you don’t publicly acknowledge my birthday till the 2nd of October. 
A friend sent me this video, “In the Dash.” I like this friend very much, so I watched it all the way through. My skull nearly burst out of my skin with boredom and frustration. In fact, I found myself yelling, “Oh, come ON!!!” at the screen at least twice.
Here’s what I wrote her:
“Thank you for thinking of me. The poem is lovely. However, I’m far too impatient for the video — I did watch it to the end, but I kept wanting to “dash”! Or to fast-forward it so I could get to the point. Is that horrible of me?
“I don’t feel that way with real people — I just don’t deal well with inspirational videos.”
I think it might be a generational thing. I don’t know. I’ve gotten them from friends in their 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s. However, all my friends in their 30s loathe them and refuse to forward them.
Why the difference? I have no idea. Maybe we OD’d on that kind of thing young. Too many sappy Hallmark cards, too many moving commercials, too much MTV (which is so much faster than sunrise fading to mountain vista fading to closeup of flower fading to…).
I also hate being told to slow down when speeding up is really honest to goodness truly the only way I can even get half of what I want to done. I spent too many early years of my life reexamining my frickin’ priorities. I would now like to LIVE them, thank you very much. And I am. Slowing down to contemplate my navel has been proven to be a bad idea in large quantities. In small quantities, sure. But a video is not gonna do it for me.
If I want to slow down, I’d much rather have tea with the friend who sent me the video. She’s far more delightful, and more beautiful to me than the best generic photo of a sunset.
OK, I have read one too many articles recently about all the things women shouldn’t do when they’re pregnant. (Don’t get all excited, this is not some weird way of breaking dramatic news.) The one I read yesterday was about things you shouldn’t do around the house once you’re knocked up. (Seattle Times, DIGS, “Pregnant? How to Safely Prepare Your Nest“)
Now, admittedly, I’m not much inclined to disagree with any article that tells me I can’t change the kitty litter (twist my arm!) if I’m pregnant, even though that warning is based on having an outdoor cat and our cat is indoor only (the risk factor is a certain bacteria only found in soil).
But I start losing it when someone tells me that at any point in my life I need to be careful not to use craft glue or bleach.
Yes, really.
People, if I want to make some frickin’ handmade cards while I’m pregnant, ain’t nobody gonna stop me. I’m going to use the glue to make things stick together, not huff it, for heaven’s sake.
In fact, I may even be so radical and baby-hating as to have a beer every once in a while. Especially since you’re all well aware that 3/4 of a beer is about my limit unless I want to make the transition from giggly blonde (that starts at 1/4 of the beer) to totally asleep.
And for sure no one is going to put me in some bubble so I don’t Damage! Our! Unborn! Child!
Frankly, in my most irritated moments, I think all of these “helpful” articles about what we potential Vessels of Human Life should and shouldn’t do while vesseling are all about control. Control of women. Yeah, that again. No, we didn’t solve it in the 60s.
But a little common sense intervenes at this point. I think it’s also about fear. Our country was attacked, more terrorist plots are being discovered, fairly large chunks of the world hate us, and some of us believe our administration is actually making it all considerably worse. Meanwhile there’s antibiotic-resistant bacteria, school shootings, the big bad booga booga internet gonna pervert your children’s minds, etc. The only safe place is the womb. Only the women in charge had damn well better make sure it stays safe. So we need many, many fearmongering articles to keep us in line, to keep that last safe place truly safe.
Of course, the problem is that, being told to be afraid of everything, I am inclined to sneer cynically at all the warnings. This same article that told me not to use glue told me that pregnant women need to be careful climbing ladders because their center of gravity has shifted. Notice: it did NOT say that pregnant women shouldn’t climb ladders, just that they should be careful. This is actually very good advice. Mixed in with bad or hysterical (hmm, nice pun) advice, however, it makes me want to throw the — oh, Lord, rescue me from that cliche! — whole article out.
The whole “you are your womb” attitude toward pregnant women scares me. I see it happen to obviously pregnant women, and to fight it, I do my best to still talk to them like women with brains and other interests than one particular organ. I just hope that, if I’m ever in the same boat, others will do the same for me.