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Would you be insulted if I told you the first thought I had upon reading the news was, "I'm so glad they're breeding!"

Nope :)

Who is Steven? I didn't know there was a third, I think I've only really seen you and G. out together. Do you keep him locked in the basement of or something?

Steven (aka imnotandrei) is my legal husband and longest-term partner. I think it's mostly coincidence that you (in particular) haven't met him; he was at the last Queer Open Mic, for example, and if I had known you didn't know each other I would have introduced you. It's true he is more of a homebody than G. or me, and he tends to stay away from dance clubs, big parties, and the marches, partly due to ADD overwhelmitude. You'll see him more often at readings, small parties, and things like that. Also, of course, if you come to any social occasion at my house, he'll be there, b/c we are a three-adult household.

I would like to take a nap with you. Can this be arranged? Because you would look awfully cute in a napping, puppy pile with me.

Yes, I think this can be arranged. :)

What do you want your parental title to be? And G. and Steven? Do you have a particular affinity or aversion to the usual Mom/Mama/Mommy/etc.?

I'm perfectly comfortable with "Mom/Mommy." I am willing to entertain more creative variations, however.

I think G. is happy with "Dad/Daddy." He might not be as amenable to embellishment :)

Steven wants to be known as "Bear Daddy" or "Uncle Bear Daddy."

How old are you? Was it difficult to get pregnant? Why do you want to have kids? What do you envision your parenting style will be, other than obviously AWESOME?

I'm 37. It took a long time, over a year, to get pregnant, and I was actually just beginning treatment for infertility when I got knocked up (I was doing my Clomid resistance test -- thus, twins. My last obs/gyn appointment was scheduled to be about discussing my blood test results, but, um, something came up. My blood tests, btw, were absolutely normal).

I'm one of those people who has always wanted kids. Not in a "because that's what you do when you're an adult" kind of nonreflective way, but in a more concrete way. I've done day care, I've babysat, I have several younger siblings and cousins that I watched growing up, and I can't explain it better than that I just knew I wanted a chance to see the process of raising up an entire person through. Also, you know, I want a chance to raise kids in my community and family structure. It's one I'd like kids to grow up in, and I have the ovarian resources to do it...

Also, I really wanted to experience the biological process of pregnancy. Not because I am some Earth Mother type (ha!), but more in a weird biology sort of way. Like a mad scientist, experimenting on myself.

I don't really know what my parenting style will be like -- or, maybe I have a sense of it, but don't know how to describe it. I am a big believer that kids are resilient and adaptable, and I have a feeling I will tend toward benign neglect once they're mobile and all. There's a reason I wanted multiple adults in a parenting role -- I want someone to hand off to so I can go write or read a book or take a nap in the garden. And I expect I will be encouraging a high degree of autonomy. Which should be fun when teenagerdom comes. :P

We are still discussing who gets to be good cop and who gets to be bad cop. We will probably alternate. Steven is permanently excused from the role and gets to be indulgent uncle instead.

But mostly, I am willing to figure it out as I go along.

Soup Madness

Last week, I made three different soups. Carrot soup, minestrone with kale and winter squash, and magic chicken-lemon soup to cure colds and flu. Soup, soup, and more soup. The magic chicken soup in particular was divine -- and now gone, but leftovers of the other soups still haunt my fridge.

(no subject)

I cannot tell you how teeth-grittingly angry statements like "women can easily get sex [from men] anywhere, they just need to go to a bar or a grocery store or other public space" make me.*

This shit makes me so mad, in fact, that I become completely inarticulate in the face of it. It's just so wrongheaded, I don't know where to start disentangling the morass of incorrect, sexist assumptions here.

I, of course, am not actually entitled to critique this idea, b/c when people like this say "women," they do not mean me. I am fat, and I wear pants and no make-up, and you know the rest. I am ugly and undesirable and that's not what they meant.

But I'm not the first to be teed off on this subject, and, fortunately, other people can be more articulate than I. Back in December, for example, prominent blogger Chelsea Girl wrote an excellent polemic on just this subject.

"The generalization that really bothers me today, and mostly because it arose as the basis for a comment to a recent post of mine wherein I lamented my recent lack of sexual activity, is this: that women can always get laid, whereas it’s ever a challenge to men.

Pondering this truism, I find it harder to discern whether at its core the idea is more misogynist or misandrist. It is an idea that glows forth ultra-violet in its disregard for women as much as it does in its disregard for men, and that makes it rare indeed."

The author of this polemic, unlike me, does qualify as attractive and desirable by contemporary heterosexual US standards. She has the credentials to call this bullshit what it is, as it were.

Still, lots, and lots, and lots of people came out of the woodwork to tell her she was wrong. Just plain wrong. Most of these people were men, of course. There was a lot of quoting of truisms like the "bad pizza" one, i.e. for men, sex is like pizza -- bad pizza is still pizza. (Which I think says something else than the people who repeat this stock justification really mean, but that's another story.) Men know. They just know how it is. We gurlz can deny it, but we're just deluding ourselves. B/c men will always take sex when offered. Always. They don't have standards, and they never say no. That's the premise, innit? Bad pizza is still pizza.

Excuse me while I choke. On laughter or anger**, I'm not sure which.



* To top it off, today I ran across this statement, almost verbatim, as "evidence" that my workplace is essentially a scam, b/c why would women need to post real profiles anywhere online, ever, in order to get laid? Now, my workplace and its business model may have its problems, but come on.

** See? Still too angry to put together a coherent critique. Might take a book anyway, and I'm just not that patient. I'd rather just smack anyone who says this in the mouth, please.