The Thin Pink Line

Edgar and I found out on the morning of Wednesday, February 3rd that we were going to have a baby. And for a couple that had vigorously been trying get pregnant for the last three months, it was somewhat unexpected. I didn't think I was pregnant; a few days before I had peed on a stick on what would have been the first day of my period and it had come back negative.

At least, I thought it had come back negative. And then Edgar, after examining far more closely than I would something that had recently been doused in urine, said "Wait, is this a line? It kind of looks like a line." I grabbed the test from him and after inspecting it under a brighter light saw the faintest of all faint pink lines, a veritable mirage of a pink line that didn't even extend the entire width of the indicator window as one would expect. I immediately dismissed it as a malfunctioning test.

Because, you see, really, there is no such thing as a little bit pregnant, and this test WAS SHRUGGING ITS SHOULDERS AT ME. Am I pregnant? Eh, could be. Try again later.

THIS IS NOT WHAT PREGNANCY TESTS ARE SUPPOSED TO DO. They are designed specifically to test for a pregnancy hormone in your pee. Either you have it, and the test is positive, or you don't, and the test is negative, or you do, but in such a small amount that it cannot be sensed by the test, in which case the test is supposed to read negative. This test was saying 'maybe'. IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO TELL YOU MAYBE. THERE IS NOT A 'MAYBE' READING IN THE INSTRUCTIONS. There is a regular pink line that matches the control pink line, and then there is no pink line. There is not an iffy pink line.

But after not starting my period that day, or the day after, I found my always-regular self getting all excited and confused and scared and crazy and could not wait one more day when the alarm went off for Edgar to get ready for work on February 3rd. I rubbed the crust out of my fuzzy eyes and opened up the last pregnancy test that we had and crossed my fingers. Then waited. Three whole minutes. Because I follow the directions, unlike some pregnancy test that's too totally fucking lazy to do its job. And then......

Is that a pink line? It kind of looks like a pink line.

AGAIN.

Once again, we were faced with the control pink line and a maybe-pink line. This maybe-pink line was definitely darker and thicker than the maybe-pink line before, but it wasn't what we were expecting. We called it a win anyways.

And then Edgar had to go to work and I had to go to work, and I was all WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DO THIS IN THE MORNING BEFORE WORK, REYNAGA? Because walking around the office going "Holy crap, I'm pregnant" in my head and smiling like an idiot and running to the bathroom every 15 minutes to make sure that I really didn't start my period was not a good look for me. All I wanted was to be at home with Edgar celebrating our victory and naming our baby and dreaming about that baby smell--you know, that smell, when they're all warm and snuggly and you're holding them while you give them a bottle and they're making that cute little gurgling noise and you're patting their butts and watching them jerk their arms around like they're conducting an imaginary symphony and OH MY GOD I'M HAVING A BABY.

Bombshells

It's been almost one entire month since I've written a post on this blog. Life has been kind of overwhelming over the last few months and after severely trailing off in my posting habits and fretting to myself about it I decided to give it up for a little bit just to get my head back together guilt-free. So now I'm going to try to pick up where I left off.

Reasons why my head was not together:

1. My father was diagnosed with cancer.

2. I'm pregnant with my first child.

My friend Jessica just read #2 and slammed her forehead into her monitor in disbelief.

The pregnancy is not new news to me anymore. We've known since the beginning of February that I was pregnant. I'll be writing posts specifically dedicated to this pregnancy and catching up on what has happened so far, but this is the quick version. Our plans were to keep the pregnancy a quiet secret to all but close family until my first trimester was up. Just as that milestone was reached, the diagnosis came down about my father, who had been ill for quite some time. There will be more blog posts dedicated specifically to this battle and what he's gone through so far as well. In the mix of all of that, calling up friends to share the good news and writing blog posts about it in light of the bad news just didn't feel right. And all of a sudden here I am over five months into this pregnancy and the only people I've told are my parents (who I relied on to spread the news through the family) and my co-workers in light of the fact that my belly was about to pop and make the news very obvious on its own.

I have a lot of work to do.

Lolz

My brother-in-law is going to the taping of American Idol today. I wish I could say I was joking.

Needing to move

In "this is another reason I need to get the fuck out of California" news:

A man was shot in the back of the head on the street corner opposite my apartment building on Thursday night.

I heard the shot. I thought it was a car backfiring.

On being wrong

We rented Avatar this weekend. I actually kind of liked it. And saying "I actually kind of liked it" is my way of admitting, and the closest I will ever come to saying, I was totally wrong when I adamantly insisted for a very long time that it looked stupid and why would I want to see a movie full of fake looking blue people?

Being wrong sucks.

Censored

When I was in high school, the bane of my summertime existence was the day that the reading lists arrived. I took accelerated English (freshman and sophomore years) and Advanced Placement English (junior and senior years), so summer reading assignments were a sad, inevitable occurrence that I just had to suck up and bear. Kind of like periods.

Junior year was the year that our reading lists exploded, expanding from 2 or 3 books to around 7 or 8. I love to read, I've made that clear before, but there's something about homework over summer vacation that made every indignant bone in my body stand up and say "Hey! No fair! I want to sleep until noon and then watch a movie and then go over to my friend's house and smoke some pot and eat inordinate amounts of Taco Bell!" Healthy, I know.

The summer reading lists were also a big pain in the ass because you never knew which books you were going to study first once school started. What's the point of reading a book in July if you're not even going to get to it in class until after mid-terms when you're just going to have to read it again because you'll have forgotten everything by that point? What was that thing I was saying about no fair?

Now that I live in California, I keep tabs on what's going on in my hometown by checking out Indystar.com every morning, the website for the Indianapolis Star newspaper. When I looked at it this morning, a headline caught my attention: "District pulls book out of students hands." Ignoring the lack of punctuation (copy editors, where?) in the title I clicked in to the story because I was kind of intrigued: was it a specific student that forcibly had a book pulled out of its hands? Was the district being a big bully and knocking books out of nerdy kids' hands in the hallway like in movies and TV shows? Or were they being a big douche and telling students that they couldn't read a certain book? DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER.

My alma mater is censoring Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison from junior AP English class.

People, people, people. Song of Solomon was on our reading list when I took junior AP English, oh, let's see, nine years ago. I THINK I TURNED OUT OK. I don't smoke pot anymore. Apparently some parent got mad that the book has (oh no!) sex and (eek!) violence and (oh, Lawdy, save us!) profanity. Profanity?!?!?!?! WHATEVER SHALL WE DO NOW? Our sad little Puritanical hearts and minds just can't take it!

I'm sure the parent in question has no problem with his/her son or daughter having their own TV and computer with an internet connection in his/her bedroom. Or unlimited text messaging on their cell phone. Guess what, Mom and Dad? Your kid knows what sex is, is probably already doing it, and I dare you to check their text messages because you know what? YOUR KID IS SEXTING.

This is just totally unbelievable to me. What's even more incredible is that this book has been on the reading list for that class for over 12 years (my sister read it when she took that class two years before me), and only now some parent complains. It's nice to see this regression of open-mindedness after over a decade of that book being taught with no problems. Oh wait, it's not nice, it's hugely and thoroughly disappointing and disgusting. If I recall correctly, we read A Catcher in the Rye in the same class. WANT TO JUMP ON THE BANDWAGON AND BAN THAT ONE TOO?

What makes me even madder is that I owe so much to that AP English class. Because of that class, and others like it, I was able to complete my bachelor's degree in three years instead of four, saving me I don't even know how many thousands of dollars in student loans. I went into college as a sophomore because I had earned so much college credit from those classes. And I got a 5 on that particular AP test, as did a ton of my classmates, because the woman that taught that class, the woman that still teaches that class, was no-nonsense awesome and new how to teach students about literature. I know for a fact that she's not in that classroom sensationalizing sex and violence in a book; she's in there giving those students an education and showing how it illustrates a story of racism and struggle and heartbreak.

I think these parents should be more worried about when their kids get to senior AP English and get that one teacher who only thinks about sex all day every day and relates every single sentence ever written in every work of literature to sex. Why is the knight green in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? BECAUSE IT SYMBOLIZES SEX. What was Chaucer talking about in this part of The Canterbury Tales? SEX. Why is the author of this short story talking about the moon? BECAUSE HE'S HORNY AND WANTS LOTS OF SEX.

Protect your kids from that, you pervert. Oh, and by the way, parents? Ever hear of a library? Your kid can still read that book whenever he or she wants.

Movie critic

Having nothing to do this Saturday, Edgar and I decided to head to Blockbuster and rent a few movies. We ended up with three. Two of them (Pirate Radio and Crazy Heart) were excellent. Phillip Seymour Hoffman rocks my world.

Needing to also fall prey to pop culture phenomenons, when they were out of Avatar we decided to give old New Moon a try. Not because we were expecting a great feat in cinematic marvels, but because we were looking for a laugh and it seemed like a good choice.

And oh boy, did we laugh.

And also kind of gagged a little at the Mormons-hate-gays allegory:

On being a werewolf--

Bella: "Well, why can't you just stop?"
Jacob: "It's not a lifestyle choice!" (read: "Like being gay is!")

Kind of odd since a bunch of guys that look like they spend way too much time in the gym and at the tanning bed spend a lot of the movie running around in tight wet denim shorts. Way to stick to your guns, there, Mormon writer lady! I also like the nice touch that they flew on VIRGIN America airlines. Hello hidden agendas!