june 16, 2003.

Saw Cranly last night. It was a very odd chain of events that culminated in a very late night at the Victory.

First, this Sunday was my first break from marking that was long enough for Dirk to give me a fairly decent account of his just-concluded trip to the Fatherland.

"Dirk Gently: his powers are mostly ceremonial". - my proposal for Dirk's new slogan

"8 year of listening to outrageous proclamations." - Dirk's proposal for the back of my Hot Dirk Injection Factory t-shirt.

We had made plans for a Sunday night coffee date at Future Bakery. When I arrived, he & his friend Wednesday were drinking beer and looking at German photos. Discovering that all three of us were famished, we ordered big, hearty Germanic dinners (by an odd coincidence, Future Bakery, though not German, has a very Central/Eastern European menu) and swapped lies & laughter over schnitzel. After a few hours I became uncontrollably jealous, and started to mock him.

"Really, Dirk? Do they do it better in Germany? Isn't everything better in Germany?!"

At some point in our sunny evening, Ophelia wandered past the patio with a boy and informed us that Cranly was in town during an interminable stop-over to Edinburgh. Apparently he had told no-one of this, and had bumped into Ophelia in the street. I decided to drop by after the Boy had arrived and he & the other two were deeply involved in pints of beer (from which I was, of course, excluded). (Rocketbride: as of March 7, her body belongs to the state.) Among other things, pregnancy has largely robbed me of spontaneity - so although my decision was lighthearted & swift, I had to content myself with a slow steady sashay (read: waddle) to the Victory.

(Oh, have I mentioned? I have a new fun symptom of pregnancy. The cartilage holding my pelvic bones together is loosening (ew!), meaning that I occasionally feel a dull ache in my lower, lower pelvis. The pain - and my resultant crabbiness - has made me extra special entertainment at weddings and bar mitzvahs. It also slows my walking a great deal, making me (if possible) less inclined to walk anywhere than I was previously.)

Cranly was surprised to see me, as he'd probably considered his arrival in Toronto extremely stealthy. He was also a bit freaked out by my pregnancy (which, although he hadn't mentioned it before yesterday, I knew that he'd been aware of for weeks as Ophelia's congratulatory email had mentioned him as her information source). He commented, "every time I see you, you're on the verge of something big & life-changing." Hey buddy, try visiting more often! And I'll try to hang out on more sidewalk patios, so I can harvest information from passer-by like so many pieces of discarded confetti.

Paul wanted to know why we hadn't told him the news at St. Stephen's going away party. I had to think about it for a few minutes before I realized that I wasn't pregnant then. I feel like I've been pregnant - or at least, gaining weight - forever. Also, half the people I run into after an absence of years or months seem to know that I'm pregnant already; I'm getting very used to the "yeah, I know" expression that flits across their faces.

Eventually I had to go back to Future to get the other three members of my portable party, and while the prospect of another evening in the Victory was not met with complete enthusiasm, I managed to drag them all out. The 7 of us (Cranly, Paul, Ophelia, Wednesday, Dirk, the Boy & myself for those keeping score at home) had a very nice looping conversation and I was up way past my bedtime. When I woke up - far too early - this morning, I was still suffused with the warm glow of hanging out with people who still looked upon me as funny, bright, talented and reasonably attractive (in spite of and because of the baby). I smiled to myself a lot as I invigilated a huge English exam - it's been way too long. I usually feel either out of touch with my exciting friends or out of touch with my unexciting co-workers (with a few notable exceptions of course). Last night was just satisfying.

I think I felt the baby move today.

All of my books describe the first quickening as an elusive flutter, something experienced mothers pick up on but new moms mistake for gas pains. I've been consumed with curiosity for days, ever since I moved into the "average first movements felt" time period - when would the baby move? Did it move yesterday when I woke up in the middle of the night? Is it moving now? How 'bout now?

Today I bent over to pick something off the floor. When I straightened up again, I felt a slow roll in my guts. My first thought was that I was about to spew my chicken sandwich - it'd happened the night before, and I'm discovering a very long list of foods I cannot eat with milk lest I lose them. While I'd supervised an exam that afternoon, I had felt everything clenching in a sickly wave - but this wasn't like that.

Huh, I thought.

As I continued on, the slow rolling persisted. I walked into the main office and started thinking about quickening. I decided not to tell the ladies in the office - they're all grandmothers and they don't think too much of me to begin with. I didn't think I could bear to have them laugh off my hopes as mere intestinal discomfort. One of my young colleagues wandered by and I whispered it in her ear. She looked startled, and continued on her way.

I'm waiting for it to come back. It's amazing, and not just because it's another sign that I'm chugging toward the expelling of a life - it's amazing because the feeling itself is wonderous. In tactile terms, it feels the way whale singing sounds: slow and majestic, action-packed and perfectly content in the moment.

This is really cool.

Ooooh! It happened again! I was sitting alone in a booth at the Dance Cave, watching the boys dance, and I felt that majestic slow rollover again. I think I may have been the only one grinning like a fool to myself during Ministry. But that's okay. Suddenly my buried hopes to have A Very Industrial Baby have been renewed.

DJ Shannon, by the way, was thrilled. I am somewhat less thrilled about the fact that I won't be able to take the Sprout into the Dance Cave once s/he separates from my body. I suppose that puts me squarely in the trailer park, wanting to take my child to a bar for heaven's sake. This is what happens when you take a girl whose previous big social decision was, "which colour of striped tights should I wear?" and make her think about life insurance and wills. Oddness ensues. Which, come to think, is a great next-title for this journal. Oddness Ensues.

Booty Call: Day 101 - Baby continues to grow rapidly; adds blinking to its list of refluxes (sucking, swallowing are others).