i have wished and wished for summer. now it's hotter than a japanese heatwave and gonna be hotter than hell tomorrow. now i wish and wish for a pair of shorts. stretchy to fit over my belly. short so i'm not melting. 

i've moved. i have internet again. i have a nice place to live and a very patient boyfriend. my scaredy-cat is no longer a scaredy but loves going outside to climb trees. he loves being inside with us too while we watch a movie or an episode of Battlestar or Scrubs, my head laying on josh's lap, simon using the rest of it to curl up on. we've spent money on food and house stuff. we're nearly there. just baby room stuff to get. i haven't had a day when i come home and just sit and read yet but it's coming. just the busy work of getting things together as there always is after you move. i'm in a weird stage of my pregnancy where i feel like it's all i've been and i'm kinda tired of it. the monotony of it. work is also monotonous, but i'm scared to think how life will change when she's born. i am happy in my new place. things are looking up. 

Diane di Prima wrote in her autobiography ( the "her" is referring to herself, in third person for impact):

"Among her peers, her immediate friends, there were no women with her certainty. No women writers who were artists first, who held to their work as to their very souls. There were writers and would-be writers among the women, but they held other, alien priorities, assumptions. The assumption that Art (always the capital A) was compatible with comfort, a nice house in the suburbs; all this poverty and struggle was a kind of trial period, something you passed through on your way to better things. (Like going to medical school.) The assumption that there truly were better things.

Those women were present and articulate, and friendship with them was possible, though bewildering. Led to enmeshment in the "eight worldly concerns": gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and obscurity. Those eight obsessions could cloud the artist's mind, and though she didn't know them by name, she already knew that about them.

And then there were the women who while throwing themselves utterly in to their work threw themselves concomitantly into drugs (heroin usually) and sometimes into prostitution to pay for the drugs. Sirens of the scene, glamorous seductresses who found themselves destiture, sick, discarded and quickly dead, poems scattered on the wind. Or locked up again and again in some Long Island madhouse.

These women, while venturing further in the work than their middle-class sisters, fell prey to the same delusion: that there was something a man could do for them that they couldn't do for themselves. And in these ones, too, there was a gnawing uncertainty- "lack of self esteem" we say today, as if that explained or solved anything at all. They literally threw themselves away for a smile or a song."

Diane Di Prima, Beat poet extraordinaire, wrote an autobiography called "My Life as a Woman, The New York Years". I love it. In it she discusses a lot, including family stories. Here's an excerpt. I am Antoinette in this scenario. Sadly and completely. And now, not when I'm 80!!

"There was a story told in the family about my grandmother, Antoinette Mallozi. For twenty years she had shopped and done her errands in the same Bronx neighbourhood, but one day she went out and didn't come back for hours. It turned out there was- or had been- a sign, a woman's boot, that had hung out over the street to signal the existence of a cobbler shop. For Antoinette, it also signaled the place where she had to turn to get home. On this particular day, for whatever reason, the sign was gone; perhaps the shoemaker had retired or died, perhaps the sign was simply being cleaned. In any case- no boot, no turn. Antoinette wandered for hours, till Domenico finally found her, not all that far from her home."

my week.

-played devil's advocate in conversations with my sister so she'll soul search what she really wants out of her  current love situation. inner struggling the stuff of victorian novels is what i saw.

- had lovely dinner with my boyfriends grandparents.

-watched grandpa morison scare us all by having a little health scare spell during dinner.

-found out i am most likely having a girl. struggling to find names for her but both josh and i agree, if it's a boy it's name will be Hunter.

-got scared that i was losing my relationship with my sister. got scared that she would stay mad at me forever if josh and i moved out ( the person that was going to take over my part of rent and my room flaked out. gr. ) My stomach hurt all day with the possibility she would hate me.

-ended up having a lovely night with my sister. and her boyfriend. and our cats. watching Gordon Ramsay is like therapy for my sister and I.

-bonded with people at work.

-had really vivid dreams. last night's involved a murderer and a witch. it was gory, suspenseful and complicated. it ended well.

-went to the movie Smart People. It's fantastic. See it.

-dealt with my back hurting nearly constantly. got a cold.

-gave up on trying to do anything creative or crafty during the week and watched a lot of TV, most notably my new DVD of The Smurfs first season. That show is way weirder and way better than i remembered. I love when that happens.

and that was my week. and today is tuesday for everyone else and my saturday. off to my doctor's appt!

Had our ultrasound today. The baby was moving around a lot but the tech is 90% sure it's a girl. HURRAH!

i need a miracle. my boyfriend's lease is up in may. we already planned to move in together. originally he was going to move in here with me. there is a lack of space however. and we thought his lease was up in august. so we thought we had more time. but if we don't move now we are moving in october and that means he has to share time between this house and his to see his baby between august and october. and he doesn't want that. and neither do i. plus, moving with a 3 month old won't be any easier. i have someone to take my room. i can get out of my lease.

here's the thing tho.

i thought i was prepared for this. but i'm not. i made my bed by deciding to keep the child, lie in it, right? but it's all too real. i'm really really nervous about moving in with josh. i am. it changes the dynamic. we're playing house, pretending a baby is happening. we play house every time we stay at each other's houses and help each other out. but to think that we will soon be a family, no more games. that's fucking terrifying. i don't want a repeat of my last situation where we got on each other's nerves and reality was too real. josh is amazing but he's scared too. how will this affect our relationship? it will definitely change things. but josh isn't a douche bag like my ex was. i'm sure it will be fine. i'm just a little bit cautious.

and i'm so sad. the place i have in is perfect. i just finished setting up my room the way i want it.  i have all my photos up, my books organized. my money caught up. my cat settled in. figured out what goes where and who does what. it's not a utopia by any means, but it feels like home now. it's also kinda cool being able to live with my sister and have a girl in the house.  and i have to pack up and move. i just unpacked everything.

and the choices out there are slim. i have a cat in a city that hates cats. we are expecting and need a place with a washer/dryer. i wish my credit was ok. i would just take out a mortgage and fuck renting.

i'll get through this. timing sucks in my life lately but hopefuly this time i can move and be settled for awhile. hopefully. i am sick of being a nomad.

sometimes i feel so overwhelmingly in love that i can't even express it in words to my partner. he does nothing in particular. he pours a glass of juice a certain way, or bugs me about something i've said, or wears my favourite shirt cuz he knows i like seeing him in it, or he is just standing in his kitchen making us food....and my heart just sighs and swells, and i think "i am so goddamn lucky it's you i met randomly. i'm so freaking happy it's you that i'm starting a family with. i'm so lucky that it's me you love!!"

......................and then he looks at me and notices me staring, says "what" and all i can reply is "nothing". cuz saying "you make me happy" sounds so lame. not to say there aren't times when we get annoyed with eachother. but it's good. really good.

after my last breakup my friend urged me to sit down and physically write a list on paper on what i was looking for in love, not just a boyfriend, but someone i would want to love for the rest of my life. and not shallow things, but a well rounded list.  it forces your brain to not just contemplate it but to consciously think. and seeing it on paper makes it seem real, and you end up crossing out a lot of stuff. it was hard, really hard. i did it, lost the piece of paper when i moved 8 months later but always remembered the list. and the one i'm with now has those qualities. it's pretty neat. i feel like the couple in the movies that you watch, and everyone in the movie theater claps when they end up together.

his aunts say he is the most stable boy; the most laid back, responsible boy of his age they've met in a long time. they say they are not just saying that cuz he is family. they say he will make a wonderful father.

i am beginning to like the city i am in. a city is a city. i must make my place in it. we are starting a family, i can't be as transient and nomadic as i was. there are beautiful points to the city. lots of good parks, lots of neat little homey restaurants, lots of specialty shops. yesterday we went for a little walk and it felt like spring. we stood on a bridge and looked over the river. the chinook winds were blowing through my hair and i was content. i am so unused to being happy. to be looking forward to things.

i had a lot to be grateful for this weekend. josh's hand in mine. his family singing me happy birthday. mostly my sister. our day together was amazing. our family is in repair. but we are family and our sister day was a jewel in the week. it was relaxing and fun and i was so happy to have that time together. we didn't rush, we ate good food and made some great memories. i am blessed to be so close to her. i look forward to spending more time with her. i am happy she is around.

the baby will change so much. it will be stressful. but i look forward to it too. the only thing i don't look forward to is going back to my job after my holidays. but can't have everything.

going to my friends wedding. it was a gong show how to plan the car rental, hotel etc. it's hard to do stuff when one of you is under 25 but also the credit card holder. people don't like that apparently. and it's hard to plan when the wedding is being held in some obscure area of a far off suburb. but all crises averted. we are going.

i was stressed but now i'm really excited. and i get to see my best friends. and my boyfriend is going to let me show him off to a roomful of complete strangers in a city he hasn't visited since grade 9. and i get to go away and stay in a hotel. and i love hotels.

but the amount of planning it has taken to even get to someone else's wedding made me realize something. i don't want to ever plan my own. if i ever get the chance to get married i am going to elope. when i get back i will rent a hall and have a huge kegger type party. and when people ask, "why are we all here?" , i will have to reply, "oh yah, cuz we got married". not that there is any talk of marriage. he doesn't really believe in the whole process, likes the common law idea instead. we shall see.

i'm looking forward to the dancing.

in short, even tho life has been stressful lately, it's all gonna be ok i think.

i just watched the Myth of Fingerprints for the umpteenth  time. it's about a dysfunctional family getting together for thanksgiving. and i only wihs mine were that stable.

my father has snapped. anyone have ideas on how to get a person who doesn't believe in therapy into it? he is depressed and angry and basically a nutcase. we had an argument in july and i told him that his family and daughters don't care anymore, that we just want to be a family again. clean slate, no placed blame. for some reason he blames my sister`s boyfriend for every past misery int he past year. he`s not to blame. he doesn`t have a malicious bone in his body. so i write that to him, trying to put it in a semi-neutral way. like this:

``no offense dad but that is no longer the point. the point is that you hold a grudge against james. and sometimes you have to let the little things go and move on. james has matured, mik is still in love with him and things in our lives are changing dramatically. whatever happened happened and we moved on, lived our lives. james admits his little fuck ups and i don't believe he did anything maliciously or fucked up in a big way. i've read your love letters to mom when you were james' age and you were no angel either. you made mistakes too and said things you probably regret. i think that james deserves an apology and mik a grand gesture to show you still have faith in her decisions and love her dearly.

i REFUSE to keep circling this issue. i am mostly trying to patch things up between all of us because i would love us to be a family again, i think you'd be a great grandpa and a big part of it is for mom. cuz mom still loves you and it breaks her heart to have us all divided.

so decide. hold a grudge or forget the past and move on with your life as part of your family.``

and he replies:

``what the fuck were you expecting. i get fucked over by james with the help of you and mikayla. i didn't do anything wrong. that is the point. the whole point. james lied and cheated me and you guys helped him. you won't tell me what i did wrong because i did NOTHING WRONG! i don't hold a grudge. i hate him. james is the most hideous lowlife scum sucking human that i have ever met. when he dies the world will be better off. he is a fucking lying duplicitous psychopath. his apology to you is hollow. james hasn't matured, he's just had more time to suck up to you.

i help james. i help mikayla. i help you. you all fuck me over then go hide. i try to talk to you both. you have "nothing to say". i try to explain what happened from my side. you ignore most of it. the only reason that you started to talk to me again is because you are pregnant. and i'm getting cheated out of that by james too. everything that i had in my life is gone because of that miserable cunt. everything that i could have is ruined and scarred. and you want to call him family? you love james? i should apologize to james? for WHAT??????????

i don't know what is wrong with you guys or what you are thinking but i can't go on like this. no explanation, no talkiing, no nothing. i'm just supposed to gloss over the whole thing. no thanks. you can continue in your delusions of what james is but i won't. i hope he gets run over by the c-train. i can't believe what you guys have done to me. i could never dream that something so horrible would happen to me.

so until someone explains to me what i did and why it ISN'T ALL JAMES FAULT i guess we won't be talking. send me back my books and that drawing program.``

by `fucking him over` we tried to talk about why he was so angry at mik and james over a slight money misunderstanding while they lived together (dad was charging them 1200$ to stay in a place that cost 1300$ to rent and there were 4 people living there). dad kicked them out and they left. cuz he told them to. um.....yah.

i have no father.

which is sad cuz when we were little he was this:

loud music and cartoon shaped pancakes on sunday.

card games and food fights.

watching movies and buying us big boxes of candy.

snowmobiling and trips to the lake.

baking cookies with us and making up funny stories.

long walks in our little town.

throwing us in the lake in the summer and canoe rides.

bbqs.

helping me with math homework and being patient when i didn`t get it for the first 2 hours.

when i got bullied in grade 7, 8 and 9 he taught me how to throw a punch since telling her to eff off wasn`t working. i never had to use it but it was still useful. he told me to use it as a last resort and if she cocked back her fist first.

he taught us how to sew.

listening to all my woes in uni and sending me the odd $50 if i was short for books or bills.

helping me move, twice.

you know, dad things. we have lots of good memories.

it`s too bad i don`t have a dad anymore. there`s this monster posing as him but i`m just hoping he goes away. i want him to get therapy. something he doesn`t  believe in. so i don`t think i`ll be talking to him again.

so i emailed on crackbook and got a great response.

does the love of literature and words (my friends joke that i love words more than books, that i don't notice the words make beautiful sentences, the sentences paragraphs, the paragraphs pages and the pages a story...), the love of learning and telling what i've learned, the love of children and people, the love of schedules and deadlines and a slight hint of perfectionism...does that make a person a good teacher? or the fact that i've had the most restful sleep lately in dreams that i am an english teacher; even with the dream including fighting kids, the bad pay and the mountains of papers to grade, count for anything??

god i hate this city. i'm lonely. i grind my teeth at night. i get sick and i get headaches. i get used to the cold and then a chinook wind comes and i get used to the warm and it's forty below. i need a car cuz transit takes 2 hrs to go two blocks and my car is a piece of shit. i have no friends here. i make plans with the few that i have and they all flake out on me with the friends that they've had longer or their boyfriends. the only people to make an effort to stick to plans are guys that i was sleeping or fooling around with that want to prove that they are friends now that i'm in love with a different guy. things that don't suck are that i live in a house instead of a tiny apartment and that i'm in love. but when i'm not with my love what's the point. and what's the point of having a house if you have no people to entertain. i wish i was back in vancouver. 

so i think i can feel little flutters in my stomach. my baby is growing teeth at this stage in its development. that weirds me out. i had a dream last night it chewed it's way out of my stomach. there has been some cramping but the dr says it's normal for some woman, as long as there is no bleeding. nope. so i'm good. all i can think of is the scene in Juno where she decides not to have the abortion cuz it's growing fingernails and hair. and her friend asks her if it's gonna claw it's way out of her vagina. eek. haha. i'm excited. i worry that my tendency towards depression will be inherited. or that my worry wart "gene" will be passed on. must...work...on...being...zen...goddess.

i have a feeling it's a boy. anybody have any guesses? if it is a girl, i wonder if she'll be like me. shy but blossoms under attention. i always needed more. i always liked to be fussed over but had too low of self esteem to ask for what i needed in a mature way...or not mature, but effective. and when i was younger i was very much christina ricci's character in Then and Now. i taped my boobs to my chest as flat as possible. i plucked every stray hair growing in. even now i shave the hair off my arms so i am more smooth. i didn't want to be a boy. i just was afraid of growing up and being on my own. also afraid of the attention being curvy would give me. i didn't want to be seen as a woman. i liked being a child and being taken care of. if i notice my child doing that i hope i can give him or her the strength to face the world instead of hiding.

now if you will excuse me, i have cravings to attend to. and mint tea to consume.

i am 11 weeks pregnant and due on august 31st. I am officially excited and feel like i can get my life on track for this. as my grandma said, "i was terrible at finishing projects. the first project i managed to finish and get organized for was pregnancy". i am like her. 

i feel bad for my sister and her boyfriend. i've been touchy lately. i do take things more literally now, and i could blame some of it on hormones. i think mostly it's the fact that i just want it all to stop. i have had the stress of pretty much getting kicked out of my old house, living in a party house but having to thank the gods for a place to rest my head, moving, morning sickness and my dad blocking all contact with me when he found out i was pregnant. and then i thought, phew!, it's all done. i can have a day off where i rest, maybe go to toys r us and buy the unborn a gift, read. maybe even sleep in and ignore the fact i feel like shite and all bloated. but no, my car has to break down. so instead of buying stuff i need, like food, i have to fix it. and i have no credit cards, no live in boyfriend to cover groceries this round, no savings. so i'm a little freaked out. plus, i miss josh every day i don't see him and that makes me feel pathetic. i want to live with him, be domestic with him, cook dinner with him, sleep beside him. it's weird living with a couple. especially when they have the life i had until a month or two ago, and now i have to think about family life in the near future. as for wanting josh around,  i think too that it's my maternal instinct kicking in- wanting my baby's dad around. makes sense. and every time i joke around about it, josh goes and backs off, makes sure i know we don't live together yet and he's not thinking of it. and i don't want to quite yet either. i'm just in a weird transition. and i love mik and james and i like living with them. it's really neat having my sis around and to not have to drive a billion miles to hang out with them. sigh. i'm just stressing out as usual. i think too much, need to sleep. 

I called in sick today. My stomach was quite crampy and i did spend the night before throwing up pizza while i hissed to my little growing bean baby "you better be doing a lot of work in there to make me this sick". But i'm used to that. No, i called in sick cuz i can't work on 2 hrs sleep. I make huge mistakes and have to take a lot of breaks in between calls cuz i can't see the screen. I can't see the screen cuz i'm so tired my eyes cross and make me ill, make the computer swim in front of me like it's auditioning to be a mermaid. I only got 2 hrs of sleep cuz my temp roomies came home from the bar stupid drunk and played Rock Band and Wii Olympics at top volume while yelling anecdotes to each other. They quit at 4am. My alarm is set for 5am. I did the obvious and used my pregnancy as an excuse to my team leader.

I can't wait to move. To have my stuff unpacked, a room  of my own. This house is lots of fun but my lifestyle no longer matches the party house/band boys life. I cannot stay up til 3am and put in 9 hours at work.

I am nervous/excited about the move. My sis and her boy picked the place and i haven't seen it. It's like christmas and i get to unwrap where i live. I am counting the days.

Josh is out of town visiting his mom. It's kinda weird that i won't see him tonight, he has become such a part of my routine everyday. It's 3 nights but i'll miss him. Not in a sobbing heartbreaking kind of way. In the way where you are craving something terribly on a Friday night, and it's a specialty food you can only get at a certain marketplace. You go to the kitchen and remember you ate the last of it 2 days ago and the market you can buy it at is closed. And you really, really wanted it. And you know the market reopens on Monday, but it leaves you with a little sigh in your heart.  That kind of wanting, that kind of missing. That actually made it sound more like longing and need but hopefully you get the point.

I am still tired. Lately I can sleep all day without a break. I am always tired, always nauseas. My body is making a little human, it's neat and creepy. I crave things like strawberries, milk and steak. Things I have never craved before. There are so many changes. My head is reeling. I have only slept for 9 hours today. Maybe I better go lie down.   

i have a place to live in feb!  i am relieved and had no idea how good it would feel to find a place.  a whole house, just for us.

i am over-sensitive. i freaked out on my boyfriend and made him think i am crazy and yet at the end had no idea what the big deal i was trying to get at was in the first place.

i am okay with my job right now. i just need something to keep me distracted.

i had the best day today with my friend just doing some light shopping in the mall and eating out at Moxies. We bitched about boys and fuct relationships(hers) and talked about the future. glorious.

now a good sleep and to quit being so spazzy towards my boy. 

i am kinda worried tho that he won't be able to handle the reality of a long term relationship. his only "long" relationship before me was one that lasted a month. mine was an engagement that lasted 3 yrs. which doesn't give me a hands up on the situation. just more experience of how it goes after the honeymoon period. also worried he will feel like he missed out on the dating world. and leave just to gain more experiences. which is b.s. and my hormones going in to over-protective mode.

My sister is busy being Canadian and being out in the world skating and nonsense. Meanwhile, I am busy cocooning myself, my cocoon being a man's arms and the blankets of his bed. Two different types of lives right now. It's good. We're so the same but so different.

I mentioned I would like to read the remainder of the series he bought me for Xmas. He bought me four more books in the series. We saw "Juno" the other night and while walking out of the theatre I mentioned that I will have to seriously look for the soundtrack. The next night he had it downloaded for me and had listened through it once. I am pampered.

Last night I decided that my craving for gummi bears had come to the breaking point and stopped and bought some. I proceeded to eat half of the bag and feel really really sick. Josh had to go get me soda crackers and rub my back til the nausea passed. I barely remember a day without nausea. It's only scheduled to last 3 months apparently so at least it will end.

If we don't find a place to live soon I am going to scream and not be able to stop.