scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

30.4.07

but how do we get there from here?

this is going to be a crap movie. For, you know, me. Full of hope and bullshit and impossible dreams that i really ought to be done mourning by now. And a million people are going to say how wonderful and inspirational and touching it is and how it has changed how they see things and the way that they will live and that it is one of the movies everyone ought to see.

i have no suggestions. it's all very frustrating. something in me believes that change comes from within. and that i cannot influence that. changes also come from pharmaceuticals and alternatives: another choice i can't make for anyone but me; and without the change-from-within, temporary at best. and i know the path to acceptance but i don't want it. Still. Yet.

Labels: family

scrawled @ 18:51

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29.4.07

where is the JAWS theme music when i need it

it's moving.

Labels: baby

scrawled @ 19:55

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25.4.07

second breakfasts

why are people asking if i would return to the united states to give birth? The united states, which does not automatically give everybody a midwife (let alone TWO), which does automatically give me a highly medicine-intervention-orientated doctor, which does not fully expect me to stay in the hospital with lots of support from said automatic midwife for five days, which does not have anywhere near universal in-rooming, which has weird ideas about all sorts of things, which does not give me insurance, and on top of which, do you really think i'd get on an overseas airplane with either a full term pregnancy or a newborn if i didn't have to? and what i want to say, but don't, is, are you fucking insane? No. No. No, i'm not going back. But i can't help giggling at them a bit. More and more every time someone asks.

If the scale at work is right, though, a doctor with a little bit better english would be nice. and while they don't recommend quite as much weight gain here, i'm feeling behind the curve, and the current doctor is very jolly but hasn't given me any guidance at all. Though i should probably call my three-in-the-afternoon strawberries and yogurt and walnut-croissant-thing "tea" instead of deliberately turning even more into a hobbit.

Labels: baby

scrawled @ 13:50

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20.4.07

hills like fat grey elephants with happy floppy ears

shopping hasn't been like therapy for quite a while. Which is something i really like - that i don't just go out and randomly spend. That i don't particularly want to. The same way i don't want, say, crack. see? good.

(i did buy curtains. Because the old ones were see through, and also, falling down, and also, maybe slightly thicker curtaining material will make it dark enough in the morning for emily to sleep until, maybe, if we're lucky, and possibly make a pact with the devil, dawn. But that's irrelevant. We needed them. We needed sleep.)

With that said,

dropping a big wad of plastic on a maternity wardrobe is fucking awesome. Mind-blowing. you think your body is changing shape all slowly because the old clothes still mostly fit, and you don't look completely weird but just sort of subtly something - and then the maternity pants and the tops, god, the tops! And suddenly out of nowhere there's a BELLY. That i don't have to be fresh out of the shower to notice, that is clearly visible (well, from the side) from a good distance away.

Weird.

Labels: baby, emptor

scrawled @ 17:18

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19.4.07

plato, aristotle, socrates? Morons.

1. it is absolutely repugnant that people are reading that virginia tech student's plays. by all accounts, they're awful; and killing people does not make one an artist, whatever tarantino thinks.

2. More people die, every day, in iraq. More people die, every day, from cigarette smoke. More people die, every day, from not wearing their seatbelts. More people die, every day, from malaria. More people die, every day, in darfur. More people die, every day, from aids. More people die, every day, from cancer. More people die, every day, from gang violence. More people die, every day, from a million other things that are just as random and fucked up and way more fucking preventable. why don't they get to be tragedies?

Labels: politics

scrawled @ 13:17

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18.4.07

slightly adapted: strawberry cheesecake

first: crust. Crust should be graham crackers, which are very sadly not available here: instead, there are caramelgebacken, which come individually wrapped, and vollkorn cookies, which come in a yellow box. A generous cup, crumbled. 1/4 cup butter. Some sugar. Find a friend with a 9" springform pan, having buttered the bottom and sides; press into the bottom, and wax paper makes it easier. bake at 175C for 15 minutes maximum, until it appears crunchy and a little bit browner. (Not a lot browner.)

next: cheese. 4 packets cream cheese which have been not in the fridge for at least an hour or two or quite possibly more, and 1 packet mascarpone. Slightly less generous cup sugar. Big spoonful of vanille-zucker, since there is no such thing as vanilla extract, and on an average day, quite honestly i don't miss it. Small spoonful of corn starch, which also comes in a yellow box and starts with an M. Hope the friend has a nice mixer: you will need it, especially if your cream cheese was in the fridge more recently than one might hope for. 3 eggs, added one at a time and mixed thoroughly in between.

next (note that this is a ridiculously messy recipie and will use every pot and every bowl and every spoon in your kitchen): strawberry. Frozen. About half of one large (500g, i think) packet, vaguely melted. Hope the friend has a blender, too. One large spoonful corn starch. A little extra sugar, a little extra water: should be a little more liquidy than the cheese mix.

Alternately, pour cheese and strawberry on the crust, mixing a bit in between and swirling at the end to make it pretty. Bake an hour at 175C without opening the oven door; then, apparently, we didn't, but you're supposed to let it be still in the oven for a little while. Make space in the fridge. Cool for a minimum of several hours.

Labels: food

scrawled @ 16:12

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whiny

this was not a choice i wanted taken away. the feminist in me is really fucking pissed. i'm wondering if i need a career change or if i'd even be able to go back at all. they laughed at me. i am very smart. highly trained. more than highly capable. and while i may be too zen to have the ambition to go along with it, thinking of sitting at home for months and months and months, let alone years, suggests that i am at sky-high risk for PPD.

even though the, well, burgeoning mama is doing a happy dance.

it's all making me a little dizzy.

Labels: baby, family, health, reflection, work

scrawled @ 13:47

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17.4.07

perverse incentives

i just got mommy tracked. it is not quite as bad as being fired - but close. that thing where the coyote runs off the cliff and then hangs in the air for a second, and it looks at you, and it didn't want this? it's a long way to fall.

and, on going back to work afterwards: if i don't go back, the Austrian government pays me for staying home and out of the workforce, and i get free health insurance, and don't have to find day care. and when i asked about it at the day care nearby, just to see, they thought i was kidding. They thought i was kidding. Go back? So soon? No, no, they prefer to take kids when they are 3. Years.

it has never occurred to me not to go back.

wait, what decade am i in?

Labels: baby, vienna, work

scrawled @ 14:54

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10.4.07

NameVoyager

don't get any ideas.

Labels: baby, internet

scrawled @ 08:25

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9.4.07

but, all the same,

i can use fancy wine-glasses and -openers and -stoppers to drink artisan-winery-bio-organic white grape juice. because all that they say about the fruit here, it is true. the strawberries taste like strawberries. the schnozzberries taste like schnozzberries. and the grape juice is like freaking candy.

Labels: food

scrawled @ 12:57

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5.4.07

things i can not do include:

standing still and letting strange drunk men beat me with sticks to honor a Czech easter "tradition" without castrating them for it

switching fingers for my wedding ring

apparently, haveing a fully knowledgeable glass of wine

things i can do include:

eating strange things, like, well, for instance, austrian blood sausage, which has a very interesting texture (nearly identical to canned tunafish) and is oddly spicy but one doesn't quite want to know why, but now we don't have to wonder what blunzen is any more, and also, i'm completely not anemic now, thanks

considering the possibility of wearing said wedding ring on a necklace, on a temporary basis

allowing the contents of my uterus to completely do their own thing without telling me, the prospective mama, at all, for three freaking months, which doesn't mean anything except that yes, this is definitely my kid.

i couldn't have posted on april fools' day. but. and also, don't think for a second that this means i like baking now, what with the whole thing-in-the-other-thing. and know that i'm a little disappointed (OH, OH, IT'S THE BLACK LINING) that i can't paint the apartment now because it does really need it. so because, if i squint at the mirror and stand just so and also if i am naked, then i can just pretend that i am almost perceptibly showing. gravida: 1, para: 0. ETA 29-09-07.

Labels: baby, drama, expat, family, health

scrawled @ 19:15

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