Chewy coconut cookies and WTF baby blues
Two weeks ago I moved in with SJ. Hired three guys to load all my stuff, including my coffee table (SJ does not believe in coffee tables -- he calls them "shinbangers" -- so when we want to watch 30 Rock instead of talking to each other, we eat dinner on a piano bench, like highly educated vagrants); five bags of nail polish, which I never use; and an aloe plant that won't die no matter what I do to it or don't do to it and that, because of this, has earned a place of respect in my new home.
SJ's mother -- MOSJ -- visited that week. And this small, Finnish woman, with a short, smart haircut, round spectacles, a pajama T-shirt from a lesbian café, and a flannel shirt, did pretty much everything else. SJ told me that he once set up a video camera in a corner of her house during a family vacation and then fast-forwarded the footage into a time lapse. Whereas everyone else did not move much from their various pieces of furniture, over a number of hours MOSJ traced a pattern across the screen: here, there, and everywhere. This is an incomplete list of what MOSJ did in 10 days:
Mopped the kitchen floor three times.
Combined our overflow of food items -- like, opened the bags and poured one into the other -- including but not limited to:
Our flour
Our sugar
Our coconut collection
Took the filter out of the vacuum cleaner and pounded the dust out of it.
Vacuumed.
Beat the rugs.
Apologized for not beating the rugs enough.
Labeled spices that had previously gone unlabeled.
Made a container out of an old tea box for loose tea bags.
Took all the shelves out of the refrigerator and cleaned them.
Threw out very old food.
Washed out the jars that had contained very old food.
Loaded and unloaded the dishwasher (and loaded and unloaded the dishwasher again).
Arranged all the cleaning supplies in the laundry room.
Did three loads of SJ's laundry.
MOSJ remarked to SJ that she was surprised at how well we got along during the move and how she even heard us laughing. On my part, this was because I was Doing Something. I am always happy when I am Doing Something, even moving out of a home where I was very happy and which I did not particularly want to leave. For the past two weeks, however, this is what I've been doing:
Getting up.
Going to work.
Looking longingly at old Facebook pictures of my vacations to Mexico, Thailand, Bali, Italy, etc.
Coming home.
Getting up.
Going to work.
Looking longingly at old Facebook pictures of my vacations to Mexico, Thailand, Bali, Italy, etc.
Coming home.
I can't go to Mexico right now to visit my favorite couple in the world, a handsome pair who are living my dream -- newly married, new dog, writing poems and short stories in a sunlit apartment until the grant money runs out -- because of the fucking Zika virus. And anyway I'm banking all my sick and vacation time for maternity leave. And my to-do list is growing exponentially; and my ass hurts constantly; and as SJ remarked, we have moved from the party-mester to the stinky-mester; and the reality -- or finality -- of all the choices I have made recently is sinking in.
And so I have the baby blues.
(Technically the baby blues happen AFTER birth, which means that, as usual, as in all things, I am early.)
The blues are not my habit. See the list above. See my list-making in general. I am really good at ANXIETY. God, am I good at it. Is there something out of my control that I can worry about NOW? Can I make a list about it in an attempt to control it? I'm on it. I'll even lose a couple pounds doing it. But the blues? They take too much energy away from worrying -- for example, about the fact that we are on one waiting list for infant care and their next opening is in A YEAR AND A HALF.
But here I am, crying in the morning, crying during the day, crying on the train and in cafés. Also, a couple things happened recently to compound my blues. I recently learned that one of my most popular blog posts, according to WordPress, is not, for example, one of the ones I thought was funniest or the most excruciatingly personal/relatable. No, it's the one that has "HENTAI PORN" in the title. In fact, the top thirty or so search terms that lead to my blog include:
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Hentai fuck by both side in park.
Sometimes I love humanity. Sometimes I hate humanity. Either way, I don't want to know people's nasty sex search terms (at the least I want to know that these fellow perverts are actually reading my blog once they reach it on accident). (Also, what is someone looking for with "Kim chee sex"? Worse, what's the excuse for "Slutyy" and "sullty"? Is someone typing so fucking fast they can't spell "slutty" correctly?)
Also, in an attempt to cheer myself up, I went in for a pedicure. And this is how that conversation went.
Jenny: Hi! Do you have time for a pedicure?
Tiffany (peering at me): You want lip wax?
Jenny: Haha! Do I need it?
Tiffany: And chin wax?
Jenny: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.
Tiffany led me to the back room, where she covered not only my lip but MY ENTIRE CHIN with wax, and then (apparently) ripped out some hairs I guess I can't see through the thick scrim of pregnancy hormones. I want to say that it made me feel better to feel cleaned up. But it did not. It made me feel like a pregnant homunculus covered with chin hairs like Strega Nona.
So in addition to madly searching for mommy groups and taking an emergency sick day last week (my first in four years -- we can talk later about the insane American culture of high productivity and our self-identities as connected to career trajectory and hours worked per week), I have been doing what any rational pregnant woman would do: taking it out on other people!
I was at Starbucks one morning to get a decaf latte, and a douche bag with a trimmed beard and a HAL 9000-type electric scooter was waiting by the pickup counter. My first thought was, "Oh, what the fuck is that. And I bet he rides it with no helmet. Yep, no helmet."
Then, as I watched, he got his 64-ounce iced sugar drink, scrunched the paper off his straw, and LEFT IT ON THE COUNTER OH NO YOU DIDN'T YOU TECHIE DICKWAD WITH NO COMPUNCTION ABOUT LEAVING YOUR GARBAGE OUT FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO CLEAN UP YOU DIDN'T SEE ME HERE BUT I AM LEANING AGAINST THE WALL BY THE MUGS FOR SALE AND I AM SIX MONTHS PREGNANT AND DELIRIOUS WITH HORMONES TOO BAD FOR YOU.
"There's a trash can right there," I said, and I pointed to the trash can that was literally so close he only had to turn his head. DB turned, dropped his paper in the trash can, and said tiredly, "Feel better?"
"Yes," I said brightly. "Yes, I do."
If you have five pounds of coconut and you need to get rid of it, these simple-looking cookies are actually really delicious. You need:
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup coconut oil (measured solid), melted and slightly cooled
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup shredded, sweetened coconut
1 cup quick oats
You need to:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together sugar, eggs, coconut oil, and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Stir in the oatmeal and coconut.
Drop by tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until the cookies are set and slightly browned. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and cool completely.