Melissesages

I am occasionally asked, by Tyler or my family, how my day was. The life of a nine-months pregnant woman isn’t exactly the whirlwind of glamour and adventure you’d expect. So I decided to blog what a day in my life is like, for those of you who might be curious:

11:30ish (all times are approximate, because…I never have to be anywhere) I wake up for the day, let the dogs out, and eat a bowl of cereal while they run around. I take some pills. If I didn’t shower the night before and I’m not too physically wiped out, I usually shower.

12:00ish I confirm my suspicions that there is nothing on television. If I have something TiVo’ed from the night before, I watch it. This is rare.

12:30ish If there are any mini-adventures for me to have, this is where they go. Mini-adventures include trips to Target or Walgreens, a doctor’s appointment (weekly now), or the occasional drive to the Princeton Club so I can waddle around the track for awhile. First, though, I have to spend some time getting my socks and shoes on. I can sort of do it by myself, but it hurts my midsection. I am sure it also looks ridiculous, even to the dogs.

3:00ish By now I’m usually home again, and this is the most boring part of my day (if there are no mini-adventures to be had, it starts much earlier). If I have anything to watch, or can think of any of our movies that sound good, I do that. I try to do some of the light housecleaning stuff I can still manage okay - anything that doesn’t involve lots of bending or carrying heavy things. Sometimes I play the Wii, or read a book if I have one. The dogs pester me for attention, and I am again frustrated that I can’t play with Max more. I usually also berate myself for not working on my book here, but the truth is I find afternoons depressing, and that’s not a great time to try to be creative. The past few days I’ve also felt pretty icky during this time - not nauseous, not contraction-y, just kind of…icky. Time drags by.

5:45ish If I’m feeling up to it, I start dinner for Tyler and I. This involves something simple like Hamburger Helper or paninis or chicken and rice. I attempt to include a vegetable.

6:00ish Tyler calls wanting to know what we’re doing for dinner. If I have cooked, I tell him to come home. If I haven’t been feeling well enough to cook, I ask him to cook or stop and get something fast-foody. This is tricky because a) I do try to stay as healthy as possible, along the lines of Subway or Panera, which limits our options, and b) Tyler is incapable of making decisions, so we usually spend some time doing the “what do you want?” “I don’t care, just pick a place.” “I can’t think of anything that sounds good, what do YOU want” dance. I loathe this conversation, but still seem to have it at least three times a week.

6:20 Tyler comes home! This is an awkward moment, as I am almost always bummed out and bored by now, but Tyler has been out having his own day, which may have been awesome or horrible. I inevitably feel guilty about being in a bad mood when he comes home, giving him one more thing to deal with. We try to square away our moods over dinner. Usually it works.

7:00ish Time to figure out our evening plans, which often follow the “What do you want for dinner” model of Melissa and Tyler conversations. It’s not that I don’t have opinions, (obviously - this is ME), but by this time of night I’ve been faced with these same options for the entire day - watch a movie, watch TV, play Wii. I literally do not care anymore. If there’s something new on TV we’re saved. If not, some serious time is spent on this matter. We almost never go out, because it’s difficult for me to get around and because we are seriously poor.

This is also the delicate time when I have to ask Tyler to do the household chores that are his designated jobs or that I can’t manage very well, like carrying baskets of laundry to or from the basement, taking the garbage out, unloading/reloading the dishwasher, etc. There are also usually at least three home improvement jobs that I have been promised will get done before the baby arrives, but show no signs of progress. I hate this part of the night, because I feel like a nag and a jerk, given that Tyler had to work all day and I didn’t, but there really isn’t any way around it unless I want to spend the following day still smelling the garbage, or worrying about, say, not having the new smoke detectors up or the nursery closet done. Tyler, to his credit, responds well to these requests about 80% of the time. (Though of course, if he is visibly exhausted or clearly crabby, I am smart enough not to ask.)

9:00ish After hours of trying to get me to play, Max gets frustrated and gives up. He goes to lie between Tyler and I or on the floor, and I feel really, really guilty about owning a big dog that I am unable to play and roughhouse with. I usually try to get Tyler to get down on the floor and play with him. He agrees about 50% of the time. The other 50% I feel like an asshole.

12:00 AM ish By now, Tyler’s eyes are drooping, so I send him to bed. I will be unable to sleep for at least another two hours. This time is usually a repeat of my late afternoons - if I can think of anything to watch or read, I go for it. Otherwise I am bored and impatient. This is also the time of the night when I may start to go a little nuts with baby frustration. Why, why won’t this kid just be born already?

2:00ish I am ready for bed, but my body isn’t. First I have to get over the hurdle (no pun intended) of the Restless Leg Syndrome, which kind of feels like a million bugs crawling under my skin. I take a sleeping pill, which is sometimes enough. If not, I have to go take a shower, as hot as I can stand it, and scrub my legs really good to get the bugs out. I let the dogs out one more time and try to trick Max into getting into his crate, which is awkwardly positioned on the other side of the bed from me. I have to squeeze between the wall and the bed to get to it, which is more difficult every day. Between that and Max jumping on him, Tyler usually wakes up, but goes right back to sleep and doesn’t yell at me (though if the position were reversed, sleepy Melissa would totally yell at him). He’s good like that.

2:30 I make it into bed, where I have to take more pills, put lotion on my already-monstrous stretch marks, etc. I also have to convince sleeping Tyler to give me some of the covers and more space on the bed. Sleeping Tyler likes to cuddle, but Pregnant Melissa needs a lot of frickin’ room on the bed for her enormous stomach, thank you.

3:00-3:30 I finally fall asleep.

1130ish Repeat.

Looking over this list, it really doesn’t seem so bad - lots of hours for reading and watching TV, two things I love, right? And I barely have to do any chores and can sleep in as late as I want. But this has been my schedule for MONTHS now, and I am so very sick of it. I’m tired of not being able to move around properly (I had to line the couch with pillows so I can get up off it without help), of not knowing where I might be working in two months and unable to apply for any jobs, of being crabby and depressed, of putting more of a strain on my husband than he already has as the sole breadwinner now. In short, I’m sick of myself, and spending most of my time alone with me. Everyone (except Tyler, who knows better) tells me it’ll all be so much worse when the baby comes, and I should enjoy this relaxing time. I wish violence upon these people. When Mattie does arrive, I will finally be free to make plans - plans to visit my family, to have her baptized, to find a job, to get daycare, etc. Yeah, she’ll be an infant and all, but I’ll have someone else to talk to and be with all day besides myself (I am very boring company after about six weeks). My body will belong just to me again, and I’ll be able to tie my shoes and enjoy the occasional cocktail. Most importantly, though, when Mattie’s born my life will start to move forward: she’ll begin to grow, Tyler and I will have new challenges to sort out, and say what you will about newborns, but I doubt I’ll be very bored. Seriously, Mattie. Anytime now.

Tonight I rewatched Sin City, the very excellent special edition DVD version. The film is based on three different graphic novels and was shot almost entirely on green screen, and the two-disc set includes two different commentaries, a ‘green-screen’ version where you can watch the whole film with only the actors, and, in a very cool addition, extended versions of each of the three novel adaptations - while the complete “Sin City” is these stories spliced together, the special edition allows you to watch each story entirely separate from the other two. Oh, and director/producer/editor Robert Rodriguez, who definitely has a sense of humor, includes short films “15 Minute Film School” and “10 Minute Cooking School,” which are exactly what they sound like. I’ve owned the special edition for ages, but tonight was actually the first time I went bumming around through all the extras. I was still watching commentaries hours after Tyler had gone glassy-eyed, but I was entranced, probably because he whole thing made me very homesick for film school.

Now, post-graduate career aside, the day-to-day purpose of film school is to serve one of two functions: you can either figure out how to intelligently explain why you like a certain movie you find enjoyable, or you can spend lots of time figuring out why a certain movie you dislike is actually good. For example, one of the films we watched in class was this German movie called “The Tin Drum.” The movie is about a German Nazi midget (sorry, little person) with sick sexual preferences and kind of an Oedipal complex who can easily break glass with his screams, and it has the unique distinction of being the movie in all the world, in all of film history, that I hate the most.

However, if required to (and I think I was) I could spend a couple of days in the library and come out with a 10-page paper on why “The Tin Drum” is a Good Film. It’s been awhile, and I’m a bit rusty, but presumably I would go on about its stark, brutal imagery, its social criticism of a post WWII German society, the satirical portrayal of a little person, commonly associated with victims and clowns in film, as one of the worst offenders to humanity in all of history, and so on. I could do it, but I wouldn’t like it. It’s the Dark Side of film school - yeah, you can get drunk on the power, and you may gain some fear and respect, but your friends don’t want to hang out with you and honestly, are you really having fun anymore? Every once in awhile, that kind of intensive research and discussion DID cause me to change my mind about a film, but usually only in terms of respect. You can change how much you respect a movie, or how much you think it contributes to art or society, but (barring years of personal growth) generally your first impression on how much you ENJOY a film won’t change as much. There are plenty of “great” films, like “Taxi Driver,” “Apocalypse Now,” and “A Clockwork Orange” that I personally hate, though I could certainly defend their objective quality.

This is an especially interesting topic right now, as they just announced the Academy Awards nominations. Historically, most of the Best Pictures candidates are films that you have to learn to respect. The kind of movies that normal people love, on the other hand, rarely show up anywhere on the Oscar ballot. My husband is very upset that “The Reader” received a Best Picture nod while “The Dark Knight” did not, but them’s the breaks with the Oscars. The films nominated are never the movies that find great financial success, or feature, in any way, a bona fide supervillain (except for maybe “Silence of the Lambs"). I haven’t seen “The Reader,” but I understand it’s quite depressing and bleak, which doesn’t exactly make me rush right out for my ticket. If I saw the movie, I’m sure I could come up with a list of reasons why it’s Good, but I have very little faith that I might actually like it. And that, friends, is exactly why I haven’t seen it, and probably won’t.

Maybe that’s a sign of age, or of living in Wisconsin too long, but that wasn’t always the case. There was a time when I would go out and watch “The Wrestler” or “Frost/Nixon” just to see what all the critical praise and fuss were about. Now (and you can blame the economy, my general depression at being homebound and pregnant, or just being sick of Great Film) I just want to stick to movies I know I have a decent chance of actually enjoying. (Also, I think the Oscar system is corrupt and stupid.)

Which brings me back around to “Sin City,” and the good thing about film school. Eight years ago, I would have probably still loved “Sin City,” but I would be pretty helpless to tell you why. Now I know that I’m in love with the incredibly innovative technical artistry that went into the making of the film, the then unheard-of co-directorship of Robert Rodriguez and comic book author Frank Miller, the perfect casting, the well-pulled-off editing, and so on. I could write that same ten-page paper explaining why “Sin City” is so good- and so much fun, and that’s a paper I would very much enjoy writing.

We live in a time when film critics are dying off. Part of it is that the journalism business is liquidating - with the intense competition from television and internet, print journalism has been forced to consolidate itself, so while there once were fifty great voices of film criticism across the country, now there are only a handful. But I also think that part of it is that much of film criticism gets stuck on a basic pompous stereotype: that they’re there to educate the masses. Many (not all) film critics seem to see themselves as the wise educated elders of all the common ignorant movie serfs, and they must preach from their pedestals the virtues of Great Film like “The Tin Drum” and “The Reader.” I have to say, when I hear about the financial success of such complete crap as “Bride Wars” and “My Bloody Valentine,” I can kind of see their point.

But, in keeping that elitist attitude, film critics are actually hurting themselves. People are going to enjoy the movies they enjoy, and sticking to such a stern set of criteria is exactly why they’ve stop listening to critics, and probably why critics are dying off. Yes, “My Bloody Valentine” was horrible, but there are plenty of popular movies that weren’t. By focusing a little more on what makes certain BIG movies good, as opposed to just what makes little indie movies good, critics might actually get people to start listening. And if we can encourage people to really think about what makes “Sin City” or “The Dark Knight” or “Role Models” good films, well, that just helps everybody. I don’t think that all movie goers should have to agree on a certain set of standards, but I do think it helps if popular standards and critics’ standards are at least in the same ballpark. Because to get someone to like a completely different kind of movie that they usually would, you have to go with baby steps, and a starting place that everyone can agree on. Here’s where Orson Welles invented depth of field photography for Citizen Kane. Here’s how Robert Rodriguez used green screen and filming different actors at the same time to achieve the same depth of field effect digitally. Here’s why depth of field makes the content of a movie better, by showing different areas of action as equally important.

If that’s too complicated, though, I suppose we could all just watch “15 Minute Film School.”

Today was a rough day. Nothing particularly horrible happened to me, it was just one of those days when stresses that have been building up all of a sudden become too much. I’m worried because my mom is going on vacation to Nevada this weekend, so if I go into labor she won’t be able to come and be with me (and what if Tyler passes out in the first five minutes, as I sometimes fear? My mom was supposed to be my big support gun). I found out that our insurance is refusing to cover my last ultrasound, and as it turns out, ultrasounds are expensive. I didn’t sleep again last night, and struggled with the RLS even just to take a nap this afternoon. (It’s never bothered me during the day before. Isn’t it great that this is the one part of my pregnancy that actually seems to be progressing?)

Thanks to all of that, plus the normal stress and physical discomfort of being 37 weeks pregnant, and it was just a rough day all over. By the time my doctor came in to see me at my afternoon appointment, I was crying all over the sheet that’s supposed to cover me during exams.

Here’s why I love female doctors: they seem to understand crying the way most men never seem to. My doctor came in, saw that I was leaking all over the place, and proceeded to speak to me calmly and as though I were an adult, treating me sympathetically but ignoring the tears. Maybe it’s not like this for everyone, but I hate it when you can’t stop yourself from crying and someone hands you a Kleenex box and wants to hear all about it, or when the person you’re with yells at you to stop being upset. These, for me, only lead to lots more crying.

I would also like to note here that me being upset today had nothing particular to do with pregnancy hormones. This has become a point of irritation for me lately: it seems like the moment a pregnant woman gets upset, the more people dismiss it as hormones in overdrive. Personally, I ran into hormones a few times quite early in my pregnancy (there were a couple of episodes of House that had me bawling), but at this point I don’t particularly feel that they’re influencing me all that much, and haven’t in months. I had a reason to cry today, and I did. Dismissing legitimate feelings because I happen to be in a stage where some women sometimes behave irrationally is not only unfair, it’s patronizing as hell. And it’s going on my sworn list of things I will never say to other pregnant women, ever, along with “it’s completely normal to feel this way” (do I care? Would my feelings mean any less if I was the only one having them?” and “It’ll be over before you know it.”

Rant over. Anyway, today was just not a good day. My doctor helped, by listening to me, prescribing me some more sleeping pills (yay!), and giving me a little much-needed hope. She did a little procedure called “separating the membranes” (I won’t explain it here on behalf of my squeamish readers, you can look it up if you’re curious) which is meant to push (no pun intended) things along if possible. Basically, if the baby is “ready” to come, separating the membranes will get labor started. If the baby’s not ready, then you get a couple extra hours of minor cramps for your trouble.

The baby, obviously, did not come, but it was nice having a few hours where I thought it might actually happen. And now I know (or I’m trying to convince myself) that the baby’s just not ready yet. This is a concept I’m trying to embrace - the idea that even though everything my body needs to do has been done, for some reason the baby and I just aren’t “ready.” In all honesty, it doesn’t really make that much sense to me, given that:

a) I’m dilated
b) I’m effaced
c) the baby has moved into the correct position to deliver
d) She’s technically full term and is around 8 pounds, well past minimum weight recommendations

A big part of me is like, “hello? What are we waiting for, here?” But for whatever reason, God or Mattie or my own physiology, something still needs to fall into place before she can be born. If I can just wrap my head around that and accept it, it’ll be a lot easier to make it to next Wednesday, when I see my doctor and we can try the membrane thing again. I also think I need to get out more, and spend less time sitting alone in the house obsessing over why the kid hasn’t come out yet, dammit.

At this point in the television season, the networks are beginning to premiere the second halves of the programs they like, as well as their all-new mid-season shows. “It’’s sort of like, “okay, we’re done mourning the good shows that were cancelled, now it’s time to forget all about that and pull out our shiny new programs.” Which is very similar to “Forget about that toy you got bored with, here’s a shiny new one!” Otherwise known as the Toy Story theory of television programming.) I’m especially grateful for mid-season shows right now, since I am just so very bored al the time.

However. Just as I noted the similarities between Forrest Gump/Benjamin Button and Liar Liar/The Yes Man, it seems like some of the new TV shows are the same as some of the old ones. First up there’s “Castle” and “Lie to Me,” two new crime dramas that seem to be ripping off the wild success of “The Mentalist.” They’re both about a charismatic renegade who doesn’t play well with others but has a special skill that makes him a great crime solver (one guy is a human lie detector, one is a horror writer who sees plots everywhere). Both men work with a way-too-hot female partner/skeptic, both are one-hour drama formats, and both seem ridiculously familiar, even just in the promos.

Then there’s “Cupid,” which is literally a remake - this never happens in television, but a few years back a showrunner named Rob Thomas (not the musician) did this show, Cupid, starring Jeremy Piven ("Entourage") and Paula Marshall ("Gary Unmarried"). The show had a lot of cult fans, but wasn’t nearly successful enough and got cancelled. A few years went by, and Thomas was in charge of a little UPN show that got quite a bit of attention, “Veronica Mars.” Even though, in the end, “Veronica” suffered the same fate as “Cupid,” everyone loved it, and when Rob Thomas pitched redoing “Cupid,” for some reason the TV execs thought, “Hey, great idea.” I have no idea why they expect the show to succeed now where it failed before (though the remake does star Bobby Cannavale and Sarah Paulson, both fantastic in their own right), but if nothing else it will be an interesting experiment.

And Cupid, at least, is honest about being a direct descendant of an idea from another time. Television is interesting this way: it’s pretty common for TV seasons, like anything else, to run in trends. Last season there was a host of new supernatural-themed programs, and the year before it was “Sex and the City” ripoffs. This season crime is king again, thanks to long-running warhorses like “NCIS” and “CSI,” plus the wild success of “The Mentalist.”

But a trend is one thing, and a copy another. So with these three shows that seem awfully close to a source program, are networks just getting lazy? Or, in this case, did all the fresh and creative shows that failed ruin it for TV? Do the networks think that because “Pushing Daisies,” “Dirty Sexy Money,” and “Chuck” are failing or have failed, they should just go back to recycling ideas that work?

It makes me sad. It’s one thing to cancel a great, original show that, despite a decent marketing plan and an adequate time slot, Americans just aren’t watching. That sucks, but sometimes it just happens. It’s another thing entirely to stop trying, to say, “well, people only seem to want “CSI” and reality weight loss shows, so that’s what we’ll keep making.” That, to me, is just depressing. But you know, I’ll be watching all of the new winter shows anyway, because I just have that little to do.

In personal news, the time is now 2:16 in the morning, which means a) my sleeping problems continue, and b) I am now officially at 37 weeks of pregnancy. Though the ‘official’ length of pregnancy is 40 weeks, 37 is generally considered full term (ie babies born now are NOT considered preemies). That’s all well and good, but doesn’t really get me any closer to actually having the kid, which is what I want most. I admit, I’m afraid of the next step; not the labor - I’ve come to terms with my fate on that one - but the having of an actual newborn. As I’ve said many times, I’m totally ready to have a kid, but still unsure about having a teeny baby whose chief extracurricular activity seems to be pooping and throwing up. That part still scares me. But, I am so fricking sick of this late-pregnancy stuff, and of the rest of my life being on hold while I wait for the baby, that I’m anxious to just get to the next stage here.

I’m just about ready for the baby, too, thanks to a little help from my friends. On Saturday I had my first (and probably only) baby shower right here at my house, and it was great. Two of my aunts from Chippewa came, as well as my mom and a few friends from here, and my mother-in-law. Over the last few months, as I’ve gotten married and gotten ready for this baby, I’ve really come to appreciate the value of showers. It’s not about the silly games or delicious snack-y items as much as a group of women getting together to help you start a journey. There’s advice and chatting and gifts that will help you in this big new stage of your life. Every silverware set or baby blanket is sort of a symbol of a community of women, your support structure, and I just really like that. When I first started having bridal showers, I felt terribly guilty about it, like everyone was going through so much trouble to hide the real point of the thing, which is to give me stuff. But five showers later, I know it’s more than that. The women who love you get together to show you, through gifts or homemade punch or just their presence, that they’re there. The presents are great, and in my case we seriously needed them (unemployment is so awesome on the baby budget), but they really are a part of something bigger. And for the rest of my life, I’ll remember the women who showed up, some from great distances, to support me. And, knowing what I know now, I’ll also take invites to future showers a lot more seriously.

Meanwhile, although I got a lot of great baby stuff at the shower, there’s still so much I need - a baby mattress, a monitor, an extra car seat base, a Boppy pillow, etc - that I’ve been trying to save some money by shopping on Craigslist. I like to joke that Craigslist is my favorite brand name, because ever since I graduated college it’s been a huge part of my life. Craigslist is where I’ve found my apartments, my furniture, a job or two, my dog, and so on. And awhile back I realized that I’m good at Craigslist - figuring out the best deals, working out the details of meeting up with people, identifying scams and overpriced crap. So it made sense to jump back in for the gathering of baby gear. So far I’ve gotten a Boppy pillow, and I’m meeting with someone tomorrow about a new car seat base. I still have a ways to go on the need-to-buy list, but I’ve remembered something else: Craigslist is fun.

On Monday at the doctor’s office, I was given the excellent news that I could theoretically go into labor at any time. Mattie has dropped into the right position, and I’m already 3 centimeters dilated. Hooray! I was ecstatic, and spent the next hour calling parents and friends. That’s how excited I am about being done with pregnancy, and how worried I’ve been that Mattie won’t be born until after her due date (thus ensuring that she’ll be huge).

Unfortunately, that afternoon I spoke to my sister, who recently gave birth to her third child, and she informed me that she’d been dilated 3 cm and ready to go for about three weeks before Jonathan was born. That confirmed my suspicion that I’m basically on her exact path to childbirth: except for an extra helping of morning sickness and the whole incident at Thanksgiving, I’ve been proceeding along pretty much just like Chris. Who gives birth to giant babies that don’t come out voluntarily. As you might imagine, this was upsetting, and my thrilled mood did a quick crash-and-burn into depression.

On the bright side, I’ve got the go-ahead to give birth any time now, which means I can start (SAFELY) trying to encourage it to happen. There’s a few foods that can help, according to old wives’ tales, anyway, and walking, things like that. So yesterday I decided to try going for a walk. Tyler and I took Tucker the Snow Dog for a walk around the block in the new snow (which was a powdery, Tucker-kicking snow, so named because it’s perfect to kick at the dog, who adores this).

This walk also featured the spectacular kicking of my own ass. My body’s changed quite a bit, obviously, and due to the whole modified bedrest thing I’ve been unable to exercise at all for weeks. When we came home, I was exhausted and sore and felt as though I’d been beaten up, and this morning my body felt the soreness you feel after your first day of yoga.

Still, I’m determined to get this kid out, four weeks early or not, so I went to the gym today and walked around the track. I used to go to the gym quite a bit, and the one thing I’ve always liked about it is that for the most part you’re in your own world. Chubby or skinny, you’re there to do your thing, and so is everyone else. People pretty much leave each other alone, except maybe to ask if the guy next to you is almost done with a machine. I was surprised, then, to go to the gym and discover that EVERYONE WAS STARING AT ME. (Of course, it’s also a big room of mirrors, so it felt like many, many people). I’ve never been stared at at a gym before, but I guess while all different kinds of people work out, nobody expects a nine months pregnant woman to attend the party. And there I am, with a greasy ponytail, my glasses, and dressed head to ankle in Tyler’s sweats (mine don’t fit, okay?), waddling around the track at a pace Tyler refers to as “Fat Guy Speed.”

Ordinarily one might describe this as a humiliating or shameful experience, but at this point I couldn’t care less. When you’re pregnant, and strangers have looked and poked at your lady parts a hundred times in the last eight months, you pretty much give up on embarrassment or vanity. It’s very refreshing, actually. Not to whine, but my life currently consists of waiting around to go into labor, waiting around to find out about grad school, waiting around to start looking for a job, peeing every ten minutes, and not sleeping. It’s nice to have something that others might consider frustrating but I just don’t give a crap about. Besides, walking distracts me from the most terrible, excruciating detail of my daily life: despite doing all that waiting around, there is NOTHING on TV.