Rae decided I needed a blog, so I got a blog.

Rae decided I needed a blog, so I got a blog.

( 11:09 PM ) Pandora Rahl
How much do you all suppose it would hurt if I were to tear out my spine with my bare hands?

As per usual, my back is killing me. The fun part of this is that I'm not allowed to lay on my back, which is the only comfortable position in which to sleep anymore. I have to lay on my left side until I give birth. Needless to say, I'm sick of being pregnant.

Ben has a girlfriend now. Yay, Ben! Amanda...I met her a few weeks ago, when we went to Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, and at the time, they seemed to have some really awesome chemistry. So here's to them. May you two bring each other great joy.

Does anyone feel like buying me a present? I need "Clerks"! I have the entire Jersey trilogy, except "Clerks"! Granted, my favorite is "Chasing Amy", and I have that one, but "Clerks" is the one that started it all! Well, actually, for me, the one that started it all was "Dogma", which I also already have. I'm such a Kevin Smith whore...that guy is a genius. I'm really looking forward to "Jersey Girl" when it comes out, and I'm really bummed that I'm going to be too pregnant to travel to the Wizard's Comic Con in May, which Kevin Smith will be at.

Man, I'm set to give birth the day before opening day of "Star Wars: Episode II", too. My daughter will have a lot to answer for when she's born...

Speaking of, I know Tom is nervous about her impending birth, and this is wont to make his memory not 100% perfect, but I swear, if I have to tell him for the fifth time that the date we're aiming to get his paternity leave for is May 15th, I'm going to bang my head against the wall. He keeps forgetting, and asking me when he's supposed to ask off for again. Oy. #

( 4:26 PM ) Pandora Rahl
Damn, I haven't written in here in a really long time.

I just...I've been so tired. I'm sorry, guys. But then again, you're not all that interested in my life, are you?

Saw "Queen of the Damned". HATED IT. OMG, I hate that movie. It was complete and total crap. The characterizations were bad, the costumes were awful, the casting was laughable and the writing was a nightmare. The only reason it was doing so well at the box office is because Anne Rice fans don't want to speak up about the horrible way the book was distorted because Aaliyah died. If she hadn't, there'd be enraged book fans bashing the movie left and right.

It actually makes me really sad, because Aaliyah was such a beautiful woman, and talented actress, and that stupid-ass movie is what she's going to be remembered for. Geez, she didn't even get a chance to act! She had very few scenes, next to no lines in those scenes, and when she did speak, the writing was so cheesy, you just wanted to sink into your seat and disappear because you didn't want to admit you'd actually seen the movie.

The whole thing was cinematic fanfic, which they used Aaliyah's beauty to sell. (Come on--look at that costume she was wearing, and tell me that they weren't gearing that movie towards teenage straight boys!)

*sigh* I hope that "TVL", if they decide to do it, will be handled by someone else. Geffen did such a good job with "Interview"...I think that's why "QoD" was such a disappointment for me. Ah, well. Life goes on. At least "Lord of the Rings" was good....

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( 1:39 AM ) Pandora Rahl

So I nearly had a baby yesterday.

I started having contractions around nine in the morning, and they got to be five to ten minutes apart, which started me worrying. When it was noon, and it hadn't improved any, I called the doctor, and she had me come in. It was the first time in my entire prenatal career that I managed to see the same doctor again. (It was Dr.Benham, the doctor from my very first appointment, back in November)

It's kind of funny...by the time Justin and I were on our way to the hospital, the contractions were too close together for me to even really tell I was having them anymore, so I thought that they'd stopped, and was really, really worried that the doctor would get mad at me for wasting her time and send me home. The reason this is funny is because I ended up spending the entire day in the hospital, with an IV stuck in my left wrist (yes, my wrist--a new experience for me; I've never had one in my wrist before), monitors strapped to my belly by a too-tight elastic band, and generally feeling icky and gross and wishing I could go home.

Getting the IV in there is also a very funny story, since every single time that Justin tells it, I sound more evil and conniving.

See, what no one understands is that I hate needles. And I don't mean, "Oh, I hate needles; they're uncomfortable," I mean that I. HATE. NEEDLES. I actually have a horrible, irrational phobia of them that reduces me to a hysterical, screaming, writhing, kicking mess on the table/bed/whatever that will cause bodily harm to any doctor, nurse or innocent bystander that is inflicting or helping to inflict the torture.

The nurse I had, Claudette, was this very nice Jamaican woman who kept promising to be gentle and telling me that she hated needles, too, but I wasn't buying it. Once the tourniquet was on, my fear took over, and there was no reasoning with me.

I pulled my arm away if she so much as touched it. I tried to talk her out of it. I tried to talk Justin into talking her out of it. Finally, she had to hold my arm and stick the needle in my wrist while Justin forcibly held me down. I let out a bloodcurdling scream that I really feel bad about now, because the nursery was literally right across the hall, and I must've scared the hell out of those poor babies. I don't know if I kicked or not, but I did squirm and try to get away and managed to wrench my arm out of Justin's grasp. I hit him over and over again while I screamed, and he kept trying to get ahold of my arm again, and once he did, I started to cry and told him, "I hate you, I hate you, I'm going to kill you!"

Now, while I don't remember it quite this way, according to Justin, I looked up at him with this innocent, scared puppy dog look and begged, in my sweetest voice, "Justin, let go, please; you're hurting my arm." (I do remember saying that, though I don't think I acted that innocent or sweet)

He let go, at which point, I reached up and clawed at his neck. (He has two large, bloody scratches down the side of his throat that he's been showing off to everybody) He immediately grabbed my arm again, and I screamed and twisted and begged him to let go, and he, of course, said no.

"Please! I promise, I won't scratch you!" (Note: I was secretly thinking, No, I'm going to deck you, you son of a bitch!)

"No."

"I won't scratch you!"

He actually laughed. "No. I'm not falling for it again."

"I'm going to kill you!"

Eventually, the torture did stop, and I had to spend the next four hours with a big needle in my arm. Later, when I was finally allowed to go home, Claudette came in to reset all the monitors, and I happened to look down at her pantleg and saw that it had huge bloodstains on it.

"Is that mine?"

It was.

The one good thing that came of this experience is that I have decided that I will NEVER have another male gynecologist. I had to have quite a few internal exams, because my cervix was dilating (a piece of information that scared the hell out of me) and they had to keep checking it. None of Dr. Benham's exams hurt, I didn't even feel it, but the guy they had later, after her shift was over and she went home, was torturing me.

I got the vibe that men don't realize that, even though we don't have testicles, we can still feel pain. He was rooting around like a little kid with his hand in a grab bag at a birthday party, and I nearly broke Justin's hand while he did it. He also took a few cultures, which was just a quick swipe with a Q-tip, and he somehow managed to turn that into torture, too.

When he got the swab out of its plastic package and started to take the cultures, Justin asked, "Do you want me to hold your hand?"

"No, this doesn't really hur--OWWWW!" I grabbed his hand and twisted it to the point where I nearly broke his wrist.

So no, I don't think I'll have another male OB/GYN again any time soon.

They managed to stop the labor, and I finally got to go home. They kept me longer than I wanted, though; I figured it was safe to let me leave about half an hour after the contractions completely stopped, but they forgot about me entirely and didn't even come to check on me until an hour later, and then I had to wait an extra half hour while they went and got the grab bag guy to come in and check to see if I was still dilated. Ahh, the efficiency of modern medicine. #

( 2:00 AM ) Pandora Rahl

You know, I actually had a moment of true happiness once.

I know, it's odd to begin an entry that way, but I realized today it's the little moments in life that really change everything, that give you the feelings you'll carry with you until you die. Fingers brushing at tears, hands tucked in someone else's back pockets, feathery kisses across your belly in unison with the feathery movements inside, knees poorly managed during tickle wars, dogtags lost in the sofa cushions, hands tangled in hair...a warm body asleep next to you on a rainy morning, the smells of skin and sweat and laundry detergent and something else...something that's just him...

Last October, Tom's car broke down, and when he got his pass for the weekend, he had to take the train up. The weather was really awful then, damp and absolutely freezing, and Justin, his dad and I had to go all the way out to Philadelphia proper, which is somewhere between half an hour and an hour away from Justin's, to pick Tom up at the 30th Street station at one o'clock in the morning.

We got into the train station, and Justin and his dad pretty much abandoned me in the lobby...Justin went to get food, and his dad went to check the schedule, to see if Tom's train had unloaded yet. I was so nervous...I hadn't started showing yet, but you could feel this hard little lump in my stomach, and I thought he'd be wierded out by it, or some other such nonsense...but then, he just came walking up to me. I don't even remember which direction he came from.

I was smiling so big, my face hurt...I was so happy to see him, and he just looked quietly happy, y'know? He had this small smile...he's always been so subdued when it came to every day emotions.

He came up to me, and before I could even say anything, he picked me up and kissed me. And for a whole minute, he just kept walking, carrying and kissing me at the same time, his arms really tight around my waist.

I loved that...it was like a scene out out of a movie, and I'd always wanted to do it, and he just did it on an impulse.

The second my feet left the ground, I felt this...warmth. This spreading, light, indescribable sense of pure, unadultereated happiness that burned every other feeling out of my body...and for a whole minute, I knew what perfect happiness was.

The smile didn't go away after he put me down...in fact, it didn't go away for the rest of the night...

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( 9:48 PM ) Pandora Rahl

We had an adventure yesterday.

Ben finally got annoyed enough with the broken sound card (see 1/31 entry) that he decided to "fix" it. So he spent five hours backing up every single file we have on floppy and zip disks, uninstalled all of our programs, and then downloaded a new MP3 player (which would supposedly come with a new sound card driver, and fix the problem).

It didn't work.

Not only did it not work, but it screwed up AOL monoumentally, so he had to reinstall that....which didn't fix the problem.

So he got out his old Windows 98 disk, reinstalled that, then reinstalled AOL, then tried it again. (All of this took a grand total of nine hours to do, counting the backing up of files)

The funny part of this story is that Ben went to bed proud of himself because he'd fixed the computer.

By the way, our sound card still doesn't work.

Does anyone feel like buying me a present? I saw this neat deal on Amazon.com today..."Girl, Interrupted" and "The Virgin Suicides", together, for only $20.00...::drools:: I've been a good girl this year!

Ugh...we need to get cookies. I don't really like sweet foods, but I'm actually getting tired of ice cream, but I still have this sugar craving. We are in desperate need of cookies....I think I'll bug Ben about it tomorrow... #

( 11:59 PM ) Pandora Rahl

You will marry MAXIMUS (played by Russell Crowe) from Gladiator, live in a Coliseum in the middle of Rome, and spend your days moping about lost love and slicing and dicing other gladiators.

What's YOUR M * A * S * H future?

Well, look at that. I guess it makes sense, consdering that "Gladiator" is Tom's favorite movie of all time, and he's said before that if he could be anybody, Maximus would be the one. Though, being that we both have Celtic roots, I think we'd more likely follow the Romans' path to Ireland/Scotland and make our home there. Though I wouldn't mind Rome...

Someone explain to me how a few sips of water turns into more than I would've peed in an entire day before I got pregnant. I don't get how that works. Tigerlily says it's because as the baby grows, there's less room for the bladder, which has the same effect as if the bladder has shrunk. While that explains how it is that I have to pee, like, all the time, it doesn't explain how a tiny bit of liquid turns into a whole bunch of liquid.

Tom's visit was somewhat disappointing...I got to see him once, for about two hours, during which we had important discussions...ugh; not fun.

We did, however, manage one conversation I find very amusing:

Tom (upon seeing me naked for the first time since I started showing): "You don't have a belly button anymore."

Me (trying to cover it): "No...No, I don't."

Tom: "No, it's cute...after you're un-pregnant, will it stay like that?"

You know, I don't know why Geocities bothers offering FTP...except in the case of Blogger, it's a lot faster to just upload through the file manager.

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( 10:46 PM ) Pandora Rahl
Justin got fired today. He's amazingly chipper about it. Though I guess I would be, too...his job sucked, and he's getting some pretty good severance.

I realized today that on/around February 21st, I will have officially known him for three years. About five minutes later, I realized that February 21st is the date of my next doctor's appointment, during which I'm having blood drawn to check my blood sugar and to test Darla for cystic fibrosis. Justin's going to this appointment, and though he's pretty good with blood, last time he held my hand during a blood test, he nearly got his arm ripped off. I also told him I hated him a number of times.

Happy Anniversary to us, eh?

Tom didn't pass his PT test...but that's okay, because they decided to let him come home for a few days, anyway. So we get to have a little R&R together...I'm very excited about it! He's going to rub my back, my legs and my feet. He doesn't know it yet, but he's gonna. :-D I'll do his, too, of course...but I sooooo want to go first!

I spent all day at the mall today...I tried strawberry-banana smoothies for the first time today. Ohhhh, so yummy! I also nearly finished "Getting rid of Bradley" (a book) at Walden's; it's very funny so far. I bought my first maternity miniskirt, which made me want to cry, because A) they had full-lnegth mirrors in the changing room and I got to see a full side view of myself, and B) because it was a tad tight, which made me realize just how huge I'm getting. (Maternity clothes are tight!!!!!) Oh, well...at least my legs still look okay, even if my belly button sticks out too far now. #

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