Hey thanks for your kind thoughts for me and the FB. It is good to feel encouragement and doubt at the same time eg how I feel about everything, all the time. What is the oddest thing about being (semi-conciously) pregnant, I hear you asking? My hair. It's the weirdest thing. I have - had - the thickest, poofiest, abundantly massive thachet of hair. Tamed only by hairdressers who I insist use only a razor, Calming shampoos, NEVER hairdrying (god no, the resulting poofiness has been dubbed "the helmet") and daily application of my friend the flatiron - whose inability to work in Europe even with transformer was one of the sorrows of my life. Seriously, hairdressers are freaked out by it, always ALWAYS commenting "wow, there sure is a lot here" as I grit through my teeth, "I know, just use the razor and for gods sake, skip the hairdryer". I coveted the hair of those girls with perfect limp ponytails that just lay politely down their back in my Roman History class as my own sprang every which way but loose. So imagine my surprise when last week I woke up and ran my hands through my hair - the hair of a stranger. Kind of thin, kind of limp, kind of straight. It's taken a week for this to fully sink in but it appears to be sticking. I had no idea I ran my hands through my hair so often but I do, multiple times a day, and each time I reflexively jump a foot and think "who the hells hair is that?" It looks so odd. Apparently this is a perfectly common side-effect of pregnancy and it just makes me wonder - what can't hormones do? They rule the world. Or my world anyway. I have a hair appointment on Friday and I have no idea what to tell the stylist to do. This is new hair territory. I have stowed away the flatiron under the sink, that is how serious this is.

Yes, my biggest concerns are aesthetic ones. The bags under my eyes! Also a common side-effect ( um, EVERYTHING appears to be listed as a common side-effect which I secretly believe is The Man's way of saying "we have no idea how any of this really works") the bags are TREMENDOUS and as blue as the sea. God, all the beauty products I used to be mystified by - Volumizing shampoos and heavy duty concealer among them - now make perfect sense. I really can't emphasize enough how haggard I look. Despite the fact that I could, and often do, nap all day. Today, for instance. I had plans to get up. And go to work and school. And do homework and cook a nutritious dinner. But - have you ever read the Roald Dahl book "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More"? In the title story, Henry Sugar tries to learn to see things with his inner mind and to practice, has a servant put wads of raw dough in his eye sockets and wrap layers of bandages around them so he cannot open his eyes if he wanted to. That is how I feel every single morning. I am an early riser! I hop out of bed, cheerful and immediately awake! But not anymore. It's me and the raw dough eyes, struggling to come to life. Today is gray and cold. I hate my classes today. I don't actually want to go to the gym. So I stayed in bed with books and toast and mostly sleeping until noon. Noon. Who is this person and what have you done with me? I have skipped more classes in the last 3 weeks than my entire first 18 months of school. But if anyone asks I will likely snap and say "Excuse me, I'm growing an umbilical cord here and that is just as difficult and tiring as it sounds so go suck on your Lacan theory book, okay?" I am so very very lucky I don't have a regular job with regular hours right now because I don't know how women do it. They are amazing.

And I'm not even throwing up. I'm just servant of the insane Crave-O-Monster where no food sounds good but I am desperately starving. The thought of sitting through a 2 hour class without a full battery of food supplies is truly panic inducing. But nothing sounds good. And what sounds good one week - it was tuna pasta salad last week - why? - now sounds awful. Luckily, the part I was worried about - missing beer - has become a moot point. I couldn't drink a beer even if you put an ice cold Pelican IPA in front of me and said my life depended on it. Sweet, nature has installed a very specific gag reflex. AH and I still attend Happy Hour in an attempt to keep our marriage somewhat normal but as I have explained very carefully to him - it's now all about the bar with the best food. No more beers and peanuts - because a club soda with lime and peanuts is just not a very good time. I may have emphasized this point by unexpectedly crying as he asked if I wanted to go to our old watering hold one night, the one with no food whatsoever. So he gets it now.

In more news, AH has a third interview with Duke University this coming week for a job he wants quite a lot. The job is good, the money is good and their benefits are - as they quoted - "gold-plated" and start the day he works there, no waiting period. For me too. Which would be rather lifesaving. I haven't even been to the Dr. yet, because everytime I research insurance options I cry and swear I'm moving back to Canada. So they fly him out on Sunday for the interview on Monday and I can only hope they wouldn't blow $1000 on last minute flights and hotels and taxis for someone they wouldn't want to hire, right? I hope so. It would be very very nice to move to North Carolina with a job and insurance already in place. However, his current boss told him when he gave his notice that if he didn't find anything he could keep working from home for them until he did. Phew. The future is not looking as dire as it could be. Now, excuse me, I need to eat something, anything.