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Okay, I wasn’t that into Scrubs in the first place, and I stopped watching it at all once it switched networks. But, as Josh watches the show, in the interest of spending time together I sat through the episode called “My Full Moon”. I was mildly amused, and somewhat entertained, but then in the final moments I went to full on pissed off. The show ends with Elliot, a female doctor, saying that someday when she’s married, has children, and is financially independent, she will quit being a doctor. Call me crazy, but that bit about being “financially independent” seemed an afterthought by the lone woman in the writer’s room. The real idea was that this educated, experienced doctor, who in the course of the show demonstrates her strength as a good mentor and diagnostician, will give up her career once she’s married and has children.

The sentiment expressed in this show is exactly the opposite of what I want my daughter to see on television. It reinforces my idea that marriage and children have historically weakened the role of women in society. Someone tried to sell us the idea, several hundred or more years ago, that it was a good thing to stay home and raise kids while the men go out and work.

Update for those who like to live in reality. The men made this up. No, really. If you go back a thousand or more years, you’ll find that children were raised by the community, usually by the elderly or a few nurturing sorts, while both men and women went out to do work. The men usually did the hunting, because as much as I hate to admit it they usually can throw spears further than we can. The women did the gathering, because we have more patience, and being closer in to the children is a good idea when you ARE the food supply. Not to mention that whole thing about not being able to run very far, or very fast, when you’re enduring the inevitable and endless number of pregnancies that occurred in the absence of modern birth control. Anyway, this was fairly functional because there was a lot of work to be done, and everyone had to do what they could. The adults worked, and the children thrived because they were socialized into the community early on and learned the necessary social skills while being taught history and some basics of life by the elders. I like to think of this as the very first daycare system.

Somewhere around the industrial era it became apparent that machines were going to perform some of the jobs that used to require the brute force that men are able to supply. John Henry aside, the men were rendered useless and they went into a tizzy. Then it occurred to one of them that office work was actually a really good alternative to manual labor, but that women, being the less able to lift big stuff of the two sexes, had taken many of those jobs. That’s when the whole “angel in the house” thing got into full swing. A PR campaign got underway saying that the perfect woman was one who stayed home and suffered. Fabulous! Bring on some of that womanhood for me. There was an immediate backlash, thanks to Ibsen, but the majority of people kept on with that angel idea.

As to why woman would buy into such a ridiculous concept, my best guess is because it’s easier. Not the actual staying home. The staying home is hard. Those kids demand your every second, you don’t get time to yourself, and you’re left with the feeling that nothing you do is important or good enough, because you don’t earn money and there’s always more to do that you just can’t get done. So, the actual staying home is way hard. When I say that it’s easy, what I mean is that it’s devoid of risk. It’s akin to hiding. You can’t get reprimanded, fired or judged. There’s no evaluation. There’s no chance that someone will tear you down just because they can. When you have a bad day, if you cry, no one takes you out of the running for the promotion. There ARE no promotions, so you can’t get passed up for one.

There is one risk though, and most people never consider it. That’s the risk that suddenly, after taking no risks in life, the social structure you’ve bought into will get yanked out from underneath your slippered feet. One day you can come home and find that the husband is gone, but the kids and the mortgage are not. Then what? What resources do you have? What skills? What sense of self? What balls?

The way I’m raising my daughter is back to the REAL good old days. The ones when women and men alike contributed to society, while the young were raised with other children and cared for by those with the most nurturing personalities. My daughter is going to be brought up knowing that her mother took risks, tripped up sometimes, and foraged onward, and that is the role model I want her to have. If I ever have a son, I want him to see the same. I want children of mine, regardless of sex, to know that a real woman is one who can take care of herself. That their mother is the sort of person who doesn’t need anyone else to survive, and stays married by choice. That no matter how much money there is, the work isn’t about making money. It’s about being a woman.

Tuesday night was the first time I’ve been in a dance class since becoming pregnant. I used to dance all the time. I took regular classes, and also danced out at clubs with my friends. I’d say that between classes and social dancing I was moving to music at least three nights a week, and sometimes as much as five. Now, not so much. I’m a wife and a mother. I barely have time to pick up dinner from Boston Market. Fitting in dance class is hard, and the idea of going out clubbing is a joke.

I finally put my foot down and decided that dance classes are a necessity item, and I’d just have to find the time. I found a “Beginning Jazz” class that meets Tuesdays at 7:30PM. I’m beyond a Beginner level class in terms of experience and knowledge, but I figured that anything more advanced than that would kick my butt right now. I can barely pull off a grand plie at the moment, and pirouettes are out of the question with my usually fuzzy sense of gravity kicked even further off by the misplaced lumps of my post-partum body. The additional bonus of this particular class is that it is taught by Doug Yeuell. I’ve taken classes with him before and I know he truly believes in making dance accessible. That gave me a level of comfort that I really needed.

Some things the body never forgets. Executing a “kick ball change” is exactly like riding a bicycle. Once your body know, it just knows. All conscious thought turns off and you move. That is how most of dance is for me. I used to be amazed at how “real” dancers could memorize entire routines in the space of minutes, but at some point I started being able to do it too. So, at the end of the class when we have to memorize and perform a combination, I shine. I learn the combination right away, and it’s relatively easy for me, so I start having fun - adding little flairs - and really getting into it. That’s when I hear Doug placing us for the final “performance” of the combination. I have been put at the front. All of me. In leotard and leggings without even a decent cardigan to hide behind. And now my big body has got to dance on my really tiny feet. Big girl in leotard spinning on small feet equals elephants from Fantasia. Period. Not only can they all see me, they’re supposed to all see me. That’s why I’m in front.

I’m going to say that I was definitely the only person in that room who weighed over 120. And the crazy part is that while I’m sure other people noticed my size, I’m also sure that’s not all they saw.

But it’s all I saw. A room full of eels and one whale. I got sick to my stomach, but swallowed it back. Then I started to cry, and fought that back too. I’ve earned front of the room status. I wasn’t born knowing how to dance. I worked for that. But when I saw everyone looking at me, part of me was waiting for them to point and laugh. Then, instead of laughter, only beats, rhythm and movement. The room moving as one. With me at the front.

I just found out that the sister of an old friend and lover, who I’ll call J.H., was killed by her husband. Even if I did not know this woman, that would be a horrifying story. In this particular case, though I had only met this woman twice, I cared for her a great deal. When she was a teenager - maybe 16 - I put makeup on her and gave her my I.D. so she could sneak into a bar with me. A few years later I spent the day (and the night) with her brother, and witnessed a “fight” between them over the name of their childhood pet. She insisted the bunny was named Thumper. He wouldn’t give up calling the bunny Rambo. I loved her right away.

I was involved, on and off, with J.H. for many years. His family always extended themselves to me, and I loved them for it. I loved him too, sometimes in a messed up way, but I did really care. His family was a bigger part of that than I realized at the time. They were kind, affectionate, and shared my messed up sense of humor. The last time I spoke to J.H. his sister was about to get married. Who could have ever thought it would end like this. I’m sending the family all my love, even though I know they will probably never see this. Just putting it out there into the world will have to be enough. Leah, you will be missed.

It’s this funny quirk of mine that on the one hand I have the ability to lie without blinking, and on the other hand I’m morally opposed to telling a lie. It really does depend on the situation. In personal relationships I think that lies are wrong, and will go to great lengths to avoid them. In pricing negotiations however, I have no such hesitation. I see “lies” as a way to even the playing field.

Baby stores, car dealerships, and similar places of ill-repute always have the upper hand on their customers. They’re negotiating with all the facts. They know what their cost was for the item, what the average customer is paying, and tricks of the trade to convince you that you must buy this item. Now. At retail. So, if I come in and tell lies, it’s without regret. Do I have a coupon? Of course. Oh no, how did I manage to leave it out of my purse today. You wouldn’t make a pregnant woman drive all the way home for a coupon would you? Sure I can bring it next weekend - right after I call customer service, add myself to the mailing list, then call back and insist that my old coupon was lost in the mail so another one needs to be sent out to me asap. Oh right, that’s the part I lie about. I don’t tell them the last bit. See, if I didn’t tell this lie I’d be paying way more money, and for an item that another couple may get for even cheaper still. For an item that will still make the company I bought it from, and the salesperson who sold it to me, a bunch of profit. I see this as a tactic more than a lie. No guilt, not even a little, and I can look you in the eye while doing it.

The lie I can’t tell is the lie to a friend or family member’s face. The more I care about the person, and the stronger I think the person is, the more blunt I become with the truth. Maybe an aquaintance who is sensitive about her weight will get “I think I’ve seen other things flatter you more” when she tries on something that makes her look fat. But a totally strong close friend who tries on an unflattering top and asks my opinion is going to hear “your arms look big in that; put it back”. And I’d want someone to tell me the same thing back. There’s no excuse for being allowed to walk out of the house looking like a bigger piece of flab than you actually are because someone refused to tell you about the wing-shaped flaps on backfat that you can’t quite see in the mirror.

Okay, but people recover from bad fashion decisions. My entire wardrobe from the 90’s proves it. There are other decisions that aren’t as easy to let slip by, and aren’t quite as reversable (though no one can ever erase the sight of me in a baby-t from their brain). There are decisions that impact the direction of an entire career, or an entire marriage. One small moment can ripple out. These are the moments when I definitely say what I think. Sometimes it’s hard to hear. I think most people in the world, when you tell them about something or someone that’s making you upset, immediately rush in to say “it’s not your fault”. I do the exact opposite and try to find the parts of it that ARE your fault. This isn’t mean-spirited, it’s actually the only way to solve the problem. If nothing is ever your fault, then you have no ability to fix anything. By seeing how you contribute to your destiny you are better able to steer. Ego coddling may pump up the person’s spirits, but then what.

There’s another advantage to my blunt approach, and it’s easy to forget about this one. When I give a compliment, I mean it. Someone who is always worried about hurting other people’s feelings to the point of masking her own is hardly trustworthy when giving any feedback. My feedback is always real. Always. I’m shocked at how few people realize this about me, and see my bluntness as only applying to critiques. No, it’s universal. I mean what I say.

I had a friend in college who said that I was her way of filtering out the weak. If someone could take my personality then she knew how strong that person really was. At the time I don’t think I understood that comment, but now I think I do. I guess it takes a lot of inner confidence to hear the truth.

I always look forward to Jewish holidays for family and food. Normally I’m pretty committed to getting to services as well. Not so much this year. The thought of getting more sleep was far more compelling than the thought of getting to services on time. Or even on time by “Jewish Standard Time” reckoning. Once at services, all I could think was “why don’t they blow in more air conditioning? Are they trying to kill all the pregnant people?” I didn’t have half the stamina I usually do.

At dinner “we” tend to “debate” politics. By “debate” I mean that a large group of well-educated liberal Democrats sit around a table and yell at each other in agreement for two hours. By “we” I mean everyone except for my husband. Josh does not participate when politics are on the table instead of brisket. I knew I married him for a good reason.

Since I couldn’t travel up to New Jersey to see my parents, they made an effort to come to DC to see me. I was a little worried about the visit. The last time I saw my parents they hit me with such force about my weight, blood pressure, health, health of my baby, etc that my body couldn’t take anymore and I wound up in the hospital with contractions. This time I promised myself that no matter what was said I’d find a way to deflect the comments as a sad representation of what my parents are, as opposed to an attack on me.

Fortunately everyone behaved themselves. What I could see they wanted to say was almost nearly never said. And, let’s face it, even though I actually can read their minds it’s better to be able to assume that I could be wrong about their opinion of my flab than have them tell me and erase all doubt. They were so close to leaving. I thought I was safe. It was 1PM, Sunday afternoon and we were all saying our final goodbyes. Then my father says “so you’ll have this baby, and then we’ll address what you need to do for yourself.” It wasn’t the worst thing he could have said - far from it - but it did let me know that he misses the point.

I held my dad by the upper arm and said “look at me. I know you love me. I know you only say what you do because you love me. But really Dad, there’s no “we”. There’s just me. I’m the only one in this body. I’ll do what I have to for myself. If you keep commenting like this, you’re going to kill me.” Then we hugged it out.

I don’t think he understood what I was saying, or why I needed to say it, but he did actually hear the words come out of my mouth. When I repeated the interaction to Josh he said “if there’s any “we” here, it’s you and me, not you and your Dad.” I agree with that. Josh is the man who’s in my life every day, and whose unconditional love doesn’t come with the baggage of my youth. His skewed image of my body makes me more attractive than I am - and while that doesn’t help me with my weight it does help me with my self-esteem.

Most importantly, first I have to have this baby. Everything else will come later. It just has to.

Ever since college I’ve had this on and off shooting pain in my right lower molars. Every few years it would get really awful, and I would panic thinking that only some horrible infection or other similar affliction could cause that kind of pain. I would go to the dentist and be told that absolutely nothing was wrong, so I took pain killers and got used to the idea that very hot and very cold food needed to be chewed on my left side only. The whole thing made no sense.

About a year ago I found out that the fillings in my molars had all cracked and needed to be replaced. It occured to me that I was grinding my teeth - that I had bruxism. I thought about the times that I had sought out dentists for the worst pain. They were while writing my senior thesis, during law school exams, and during a job search. The whole thing started to make sense. I wasn’t destined to have tooth pain, I was just a Type A personality. This gets a great big “duh” from those who know me I’m sure. Apparently this is a common problem in high stress DC - so common that it deserves a Washington Post article. Secure in knowing that I’m a victim of my own drive to succeed, I put a few hundred extra dollars into my flexible spending account and planned to buy one VERY expensive night guard with the money. The dentist assured me that eventually I would get used to sleeping with a huge chunk of plastic in my mouth, and that it would be worthwhile to spend the money now in order to save the cost of repairing cracked teeth later. The prevention part of that made sense, so I purchased the guard.

I received my new guard six weeks ago, and started wearing it on a nightly basis. Last week I noticed that I had chewed a hole in the area covering my second to last molar on the right. This is the exact spot where I’ve always had the worst pain (and therefore it would make sense that this is where I do my worst grinding). Six weeks doesn’t seem like a reasonable lifespan for a medical device that cost about $800. I called the dentist to complain, and scheduled an appointment. He saw me this morning and examined the guard. He admitted that when he got my call he assumed I was exaggerating about having chewed a “hole” in it. The actual hole that he could see threw blew a, well, hole in that theory. He was a big overwhelmed with how to describe his reaction without offending me as the patient. When I offered “are you trying to say I’m one seriously tough cookie?” He laughed from relief and said “yes”.

He’s ordering me a new guard, at no additional cost. Hopefully that comes in soon. I wonder how long that one will last.

I have only had two car accidents since I got my license. The first was a few months ago, shortly after I found out I was pregnant. It scared the heck out of me because I was still only getting used to the idea of pregnancy, and I had the racing hormones. Here I was trying so hard to do the whole body as a temple thing, and some guy comes through a red light straight for me. Ugh. The second car accident was this past Tuesday. I’m only getting to write about it now because I’ve only just calmed down.

I was driving down Rockville Pike. The Pike is a local connector road of the type that exist in every suburb I’ve ever seen. It’s three lanes in each direction, with lots of lights and lots of strip malls. It was a rainy day, and the road was slick. The cars in front of me, despite there being no light directly ahead, were at a full stop. I had a concrete divider to my left, stopped cars in front of me, and stopped cars to the right of me. When I saw the guy coming at me in my rearview mirror, there wasn’t much to do but wait and pray.

The other driver, his passenger and I got out of the car to exchange information. A police officer and a guy begging for change on the corner ran over to make sure we were okay. Both of them wound up being slightly amused at the sight of us. I don’t blame them - we were quite a sight. I’m standing there seven months pregnant. The guy who hit me, who we will call Frankenstein, had staples down the side of his head, and Frankenstein’s mother, who was in the passenger seat, had a cast on her leg and was walking with crutches. I didn’t even bother trying to ask exactly how many car accidents these people had been in lately.

Truly there is such slight damage to my car that I don’t think I’ll report it to my insurance. Of the 85 scratches on my back bumper, only I know which one is from this accident. Nothing is damaged, crushed, or injured in any way including (thank goodness) myself and the baby. Still, the idea that the baby could have been hurt was the scariest part. I did slam into the seatbelt, but not into the steering wheel. One of my friends said it never occurred to her how problematic it was to wear a seatbelt while pregnant because of where it hits on the body, but of course you can’t stop wearing a seatbelt. If you did, and sailed through the windshield, you’d just take the baby with you and that’s hardly better. I’m just hoping I can erase whatever hex has been put on me and get through the rest of this pregnancy as easily as possible.

Oh, and in regards to the picture in my last post, I’m starting to feel more like the elephant than the boa.

A few weeks before the last Maryland Primary, one of my clients called me.  He’s someone I’ve worked with regularly for more than two years, and I think I’ve done a fairly good job of demonstrating my general capacity for intelligence in that time, but only on work-related issues.  I have helped him with employee relations, changes in his health plan, and the retooling of his employer sponsored retirement plan.  I would guess that at some point he has spotted my general liberal bent, but until this moment we had never talked about anything but work.  Then this conversation happened:

“Janet, B.R. here.”

“Yes, hi Dr. R.  How can I help you?”

“Would you vote for a woman just because she’s a woman?”

[Pause so pregnant the head is crowning.]

“No, I’ll admit to a general pro-woman bias, but I’d like to think I vote on the issues.”

“Okay, now about the health coverage…”

It’s one of those times that your head goes spinning because you don’t know exactly how you wound up where you just wound up.  Holy segue.  Still, my statement was accurate.  I love being a woman.  I love the clothes, the accessories and the ability to make people.  I love having women in my life, and do admit that I assume that because someone else is a woman I’ll be able to find at least some common ground in a conversation.

But, lest anyone be confused, I will not vote for a woman just because she is a woman.  Not red, not blue.  Not liberal, and not conservative.  Someone, during my 7 years of all-female education, taught me to make decisions based on ideas, and not merely on sisterhood.

I’m really hoping we’re ready for Obama.  By “we” I mean Caucasian Americans, and by Obama I mean the mixed-race person with a commitment to public service who is the first person of color with a real chance at leading this country.  Now, if you don’t happen to support Obama’s positions, then that’s okay by me.  I may disagree, but disagreement is fine.  Disagreement is, in fact, healthy.  By debating issues we learn from each other, grow our understanding of the issue, and learn to support our opinions with facts.  The people who are bothering me are the other people who “should” support Obama, but don’t.  Some of the people who spent most of their lives voting Democrat, and talking about equality, are now part of the Obama resistance.  Or, I should say, resistant to the idea of Obama.

So far I’ve seen non-Obama supporting Democrats fall into two categories.  The first I do not interact with directly, but I read about at length in the paper.  I’m assuming they really do exist, and they seem to exist mostly in the states east of California and west of Pennsylvania.  These are the people who are Christians and moderate Democrats with too much time on the internet.  They’re the ones who believe every anti-Obama story about his faith, his upbringing and his patriotism.  I won’t repeat those stories here, because I don’t want to add to the already ubiquitous coverage of lies.  I think it’s a little easier to believe lies when you’re suspicious already.  When something in your head is looking at that light brown skin and saying “is he really one of us?”  Then the doubts can slip in.  It’s sort of like the old Richard Gere vs. the rodent tale.  No one would have believed it about Hulk Hogan.  But that Richard Gere?  He did always seem a little suspect.  How did he know so much about opera in that hooker movie anyway?

The second category is the people who really think of themselves as Liberal, live in Blue states, and are of varying religions and ethnicities.  They live in communities where they see and work with people of diverse backgrounds all the time.  Here in the DC area, it would be really difficult to not have diversity in your community.  Sure, there are places that are mostly Caucasian (some by accident and some by design), but getting through a day without interacting with a mix of races, ethnicities and religions would be really difficult.  Even though diversity is the norm for these people, they still live under the burden of their own assumptions and stereotypes.

For example, I invited a man to my wedding who is African-American.  On the way to the cocktail hour he had not yet met up with the friends of mine who he knew, so he was standing alone for a moment.  Several Caucasian guests came over to him to ask him questions - like when the bar was opening, where the bathroom was, and when the meal would be served.  Ugh.  Thank goodness this man has a strong ego and a great sense of humor.  When I talked to him about it later, he agreed with me that the reason he laughed it off is that these are not actual racists.  He believes that if I was invited to any of these people’s homes, and brought this man as my guest, he would be welcomed by them as my friend.  But, in that setting, in that context, a Black man was the hired help.

Assumptions are the hardest thing to fix.  Gut reactions are just that.  They are the thing we think before we actually think.  Years of door-to-door environmental campaigning taught me that no matter who answers the door, no matter the color of the skin, no matter the outfit, make no assumptions.  Never, ever, ask if the owner is home.  Assume you are talking to the owner.  When a woman of color wearing a maid uniform comes to the door of a 5 million dollar house you’re better off starting your spiel, and then having to say “oh I’m sorry.  I’ll wait while you get the owner” than asking for the owner and having to say “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you owned this home”.

Seeing Obama as the President, and not the Black President, will be hard to do.  Recognizing that we are all subject to pre-conceptions about race really hurts, but it makes us real.  I hope that the people who agree with Obama’s ideals, but are struggling with their own pre-programmed conceptions about race, will be forced to confront their biases.  It will make this election a true representation of where the USA is today, and will make everyone that much stronger for it.  Meanwhile, I hope I can stay up late enough to watch Obama’s acceptance speech when it happens, and not the next day on youtube.

I haven’t posted in a while because there’s been too much to say, not nothing to say.  Last week was rough.  I was in a lot of pain.  So much pain that I couldn’t wear maternity pants because they caused pressure on the belly.  So, I had a week of dresses and Tylenol.  I’m feeling better now, but I hate being told that I can’t do things.  I can’t work out or do yoga, I can’t eat salty foods, I can’t lift anything heavy…it’s downright annoying.  I’m not used to having anyone tell me what to do and I don’t like it.  I also don’t like the feeling of not being able to get dinner on the table, or work a 10 hour day.  My normal is 9-10 hours at the office followed by grocery shopping, cooking and serving dinner.  Followed by, at least three times a week, enjoying my husband.  Now I’m told that I can work for 8 hours, but then I immediately need to go home and put my feet up.  No shopping (which is “my” time), no cooking, and no nookie.  I hate this shit.

I would do anything for my daughter, and as I’m being told that following these instructions will protect her I will play along.  I will admit to contemplating loopholes.  Like, if I do pre-natal yoga with all the pregnancy modifications that’s not really working out, is it?  How about a quickie - that can’t do much.  And I have done some cooking.  Well, heating up anyway.  I mean, take aways are sodium-packed, so if  I can’t cook what are we supposed to live on?  Cold cereal and anything Josh can put together?  This kid will just have to tough it out.