Full Circle.

Right as Nova turned 6 months old, I returned to my pre--pregnancy weight.

I wish I'd kept better track of what has gone on, but here are the broad strokes:

I lost weight consistently until about 4 months postpartum. Then I didn't lose any more until I quit drinking and started working out again. This seems like a total no-brainer, because it is. Within a week of eliminating the booze and reintroducing weight training to my life, I lost the last five pounds to bring me right back where I started.

More interesting has been the process of watching Nova change. She has gone from a tiny little grunty hedgehog to a full-blown real person, pulling herself up on furniture and walking around it, making little proto words and generally finding new ways to make her desires known to me on a daily basis. Like right now, for instance, she is lying prone on the carpet and screaming piteously, having lost her balance in an unsuccessful attempt to stand. She doesn't even want to go anywhere in particular, she just wants to walk there. If it was about getting places, she would be crawling. She can, in fact, crawl reliably well. She would rather spend her energy refining her standing/walking attempts, however. Crawling is for babies.

Life has been interesting. My last project ended when my lab unexpectedly lost funding. And so I have been out of work for the past two months. While this carries attendant stressors, I feel fortunate to have had these two months to stay home with Nova. It has been a kind of stasis, having nowhere to go, and nothing to do except figure out what comes next. I wanted this blog to have more of a slice-of-life quality to it but my slices have been aimless. Flavorful, but oddly shaped, with a dubious list of ingredients indeed.

I hope to be back at work by next week. One of the objectives I have developed, marking time as the growth of a tiny little person, is to keep a better record of my days. 140 characters doesn't cut it. And now I have more realistic expectations re: time, energy, whathaveyou.

And so I will draw this little account to a close. Larger purposes will be served in other places. Thanks for reading!

Well, hello.

adventures in retail

It's been a while.

The days all blend. Time doesn't fly at all though. The moments have been long, and surreal and intimate. The waiting, the immediacy of experience. The functions of the body coming online - in an infant and in myself.

39-26-37 141 lbs, I bf% with the calipers and I think 16-17 but I'm not sure. I am anxious to receive the wisdom of one Stevie Santangelo.

Nova weighed 13 lbs at her last doc visit but must surely weigh more by now. She sits independently. Most of the time. She wants to grab everything and is anxious to run everywhere.

But you have to learn to crawl before you can walk. So we work on sitting. And creeping.

She eats yams, avocados, strawberries, peaches, yogurt, lentils, broccoli and lemons. And formula and milk.

And she smiles constantly.

Things are in flux in my person as well. I'm within a couple pounds of my weight prepregnancy, but things are a little different, which is to be expected. I lucked out - no stretch marks. And I've never been flat chested, but the huge boobs are new. Not as fun as you'd think they are. For one thing, they leak. They also get uncomfortably full if there is not a baby immediately to hand. Any kind of ballistic activity proves challenging.

I'm looking forward to more Kung Fu in my future. I visited a school last week and it was everything I seek and then some.

I returned to work for about 2 months - and then my lab lost some funding. And I find myself seeking employment again, like so many others.

Just wanted to make some contact - It has been a long time since I have written - preferring to bask in the sensorium, learn new skills, submerge myself in the feel of this new time and place.

Thursday

Long slow twilight, just the baby and me. I shield her little eyes from the barbeque smoke, prod the charcoal. Gueralita sola. Bottle rockets pop and chihuahuas are the ones who really run the show on this block. Ice cream trucks are finally (finally!) silent - a neighboring dj makes a tentative Thursday offering. I put the baby to bed, crack open a beer, pull meat directly from the fire into my mouth, the way God Himself intended. Onions too. Cats are still roaming in the empty lot. All the stomae are open in the garden and the aroma of carne asada is cut throigh with soil and honeysuckle. Pandora cycles through a list of music that was new fifteen years ago. I slap her down when she brings me hootie and the blowfish, and we achieve a new level of understanding. The fire will need to be extinguished, lest the canyon burn afresh, and all the squirrels and bounce castles and mariachi with it. Can i bring you here, to this twilight? Will the words i pull together act as a preservative to anyone but myself? This fleeting assembly of moments, the private memories that i havent even shared brought about by the music playing, the way that one bright crescent planet hangs there; can i give any of this to you, truly? After Nova is asleep in her little nest, empty gums determinedly working some phantom air nipple, am i still alone if i reach out through the internet and tell you about my steak, my beer, my neighborhood? Does it dilute the solitude? Or simply present it for your appreciation, a dusky purple summer magic trick - solitude shared in the hum of helicopter blades, children laughing far away, cool air, hot grill. The promise of the workday tomorrow. The soft cheeks of the slumbering infant upstairs. Matter, energy, considering itself for a moment. I have an evening, its tones and textures represented as a series of impulses in a vast wet network of thrumming cells. I make some letters and now your cells are thrumming too and you can maybe even see the sillhouette of the hills against the darkening sky, the observatory, the stadium, hear the freeway. But even if we were sitting next to each other, eating the same tacos and listening to the same Tom Petty would we be any less alone? Would we be any less identical? When the universe is so freaking vast how can we even think of ourselves as separate anyway?

Things I Want My Daughter to Know (continued):

16. Be careful what you wish for.

HELLO!

Shocker of the Day: Accidentally turning breast pump ALL THE WAY ON instead of ALL THE WAY OFF.

Sweet, loving Jesus did that ever get my attention.

Testing, testing -

I have a Blogger App for the iPhone. We shall see how this works!

I'm loving my life right now. Its true, im missing BIL. But last night was great fun. And today is delightful.

The communty and living situation i currently enjoy are unique and modern and hard to explain. Rather than belabor the particulars, it is sufficient to say that i am loving every second of it. Meets and exceeds expectations!

Here we are back onstage at Big Art Labs, with Sylvie and new friends from Vau de Vire...

Things I Want My Daughter to Know (continued):

15. You are the only one responsible for your feelings. People say and do hurtful things all the time, but allowing yourself to be hurt by them is a choice that you make.