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| New Blog Home! |
| 05.22.04 (11:54 am) [edit] |
Here it is in all it's glory, my new bloghome. No popups, either.. Booya!
[url=http://www.oliviadrab.com/blo...]The NEW IMPROVED Mind of Olivia Drab[/url]
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| ...and the Winner Is: |
| 05.21.04 (10:11 am) [edit] |
BLOGGER!! I went with Google's own blogspot. My new blog is in its infancy, so I need to get the links up and running.
More to come...
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| Bloggity Bullshizzle |
| 05.20.04 (9:44 am) [edit] |
I am pretty damn tired of my blog always being down. I am shopping for a new blog host. I would ask if anybody has a recommendation, but seeing as how my comment field isn't working these days...
It's a head scratcher.
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| Dream Psychology 101 |
| 05.18.04 (4:28 pm) [edit] |
[i]"I've got dreeeeeams to remember..."[/i]
-Otis Redding
I am fascinated by my own subconscious, and taken to frantically attempting to interpret the droplets of thought patterns that drip-drip-drip from my mind. Often it is a cryptic series of events that I will likely never decipher.
A common recurring dream involves a theme park. Each dream, the situation is different. My guests are always different, or sometimes I am alone. But the theme park in its vastness remains a constant and I always know my way around the park without a map.
Occasionally, the visit is thrilling. Fun rides, good food, laughter. But then there is the dream that is anything but fun. Rides in which I am not properly strapped in, or alone in a park at night and unable to get back out. Strange themes emerge.
I've never fully interpreted those dreams, although I suspect the theme park represents my life as a whole. The guests are literal--the people in my life. What happens in the park depends on the events of my everyday waking life.
It fascinates me that it has been such a recurring event in my dreamworld, since I was a teenager.
Occassionally, my dreams stray from this symbolic world to other, often more encrypted worlds. Sometimes they take a much darker and apparent direction, the anxiety inside them frightening me when I wake.
Last night was such a dream.
I was at work. Brad called my cell phone asking if I could pick him up from work. I agreed. I had to drop off a package at someone's house on the way home first.
I arrived at the house, left my purse in the car and ran up a flight of stairs. She wasn't home so I left the package inside a ceramic jar on the stoop.
When I returned to my car, it had been robbed. My wallet stolen. My belongings strewn out across the parking lot. I crumpled to the ground and wept.
My cell phone rang. Brad, asking where I am.
I regained what composure I had left, got back in the car and picked him up from work. We drove to our house, which was surrounded by police cars and surveillance teams. No one would offer an explanation for why they were there. I was furious and demanded they leave immediately.
Upon entering the home, I discovered my mother was throwing us a surprise baby shower, diapers everywhere. I became hysterical because it was too early and I couldn't bear the thought of a shower at this stage.
I awoke with a start. The meaning was all too clear. Anxiety, anger over having been probed and examined for years for no apparent reason, precious belongings taken away from me beyond my control... and the baby shower at the end. All the while, Brad reminding me that he is STILL HERE.
Damn, the subconscious is scary.
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| 1881 Women's Care |
| 05.15.04 (2:23 pm) [edit] |
Brad and I went to a rare/used book store this afternoon as I was succumbing to the urge to own a copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting". They didn't have this book, but they had plenty of other jewels.
I was skimming some old leather-bound medical journals and found a book entitled "A Handbook of Uterine Therapeutics and of Diseases of Women", published in 1881. OF COURSE I had to read it.
I read some of the scariest shit. It made Stephen King and Dean Koontz seem like Dr. Seuss and A.A. Milne. Allow me to paraphrase:
"For a woman experiencing morning sickness in a pregnancy, the best option is administering an opiate..." Of course. What else do you do with a woman bitching about throwing up if you are a well-to-do gentleman of the 1880s? Drug her out of her mind, of course.
"Vaginitis: Women experiencing severe cases of vaginitis are prone to irritability and malaise," (ya think, bonehead?) "It is effective to administer an injection of LEAD." LEAD!!! An injection of LEAD for a yeast infection. I guess they didn't have yogurt in 1881.
I will allow that to sink in for a moment before hitting you with my favorite treatment solution.
Ready?
"Uterine fibroids may become large and can cause bleeding and irritation. To reduce the bleeding, apply leeches," (LEECHES!!!!!!) "to the cervical tissue."
WAAAAAHOO!!
It is a freaking WONDER that the human race has survived through this kind of Dr. Jekyll'ian experimentation.
I feel proud to be alive in 2004 knowing that my doctor isn't going to shoot me up with lead and apply leeches while I am in my opium-induced stupor.
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| "A Dream Is a Wish Your Uterus Makes: One Woman's Struggle" |
| 05.14.04 (7:21 am) [edit] |
I have been searching my mind's vaults for the perfect words for a blog entry, trying to think of something witty, wise and touching. Every time I start to compose my thoughts though, the direction is straight out of a Lifetime Channel original movie plot.
"I stared into my husband's deep blue eyes and felt a wash of love unlike anything I've ever known. Through the joyful tears, I wondered if our child would have his eyes or mine."
It describes the moment, the sentiment, to a T. But it also sounds very unlike me. More like the Danielle Steele side of me, one I didn't know existed.
Nevertheless, there is a switch that is thrown the moment you see the steady little flicker of light on the monitor and the doctor says "That's your baby's heartbeat." You DO turn into a Lifetime movie. Suddenly Tiffani-Amber Theissen is lying on the ultrasound table, spread eagle. Her voice is the one narrating your "journey from darkness to light". Except you're cheerfully living this movie, not gagging on the dimestore dialogue.
The next step is that you feel like the Fertility Bunny and you want to visit all the good girls and boys you know, dropping a colorful cellophaned basket of this feeling into their homes. Sort of a strange mutation between Lifetime and the Cartoon Network.
"Here comes Ollie Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail. Hippity Hoppity, babies on the waaaaay!"
Really. Random coincidence, good luck, baby dust, magic uterine elves, WHATEVER the fuck it was, I seriously hope to infect everyone who wants it.
Come and get it. The rest of the 90210 cast need jobs.
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| The Blog Entry I've Been Waiting to Compose |
| 05.12.04 (2:22 pm) [edit] |
*cough*
Heartbeat. We saw a heartbeat. A beautiful, peppy little heartbeat.
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| A likely drama |
| 05.09.04 (4:57 am) [edit] |
I began mentally writing a screenplay for a television drama series last night.
[i]Reproductive Endocrinologist Time Traveller[/i]
In the pilot episode, a modern RE comes home to discover her eccentric physicist husband has discovered a way to make time travel possible. Zaniness ensues and she becomes the first time traveller.
She visits Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. She learns that she has multiple miscarriages. She begins running tests, all the while staying under the radar as "The Queen's Midwife". She discovers that Katherine has an autoimmune disorder and covertly discovers Henry has a chromosomal issue. RE adminsters a crude aspirin therapy to Katherine and sneaks antioxidant food items into Henry's menu. Katherine gives birth to many healthy children, male and female, and the royal couple live happily ever after. No women get their heads chopped off.
In subsequent episodes: she visits the Biblical Rachel and teaches her to manage her PCOS to go on to produce many children; the court of King Louis and Marie Antoinette, where she disovers King Louie has a hydrocele, which she repairs one night when he's passed out on wine; and to the court of Catherine the Great, where she encourages Catherine to seek sperm donors to continue the Romanov line.
It's a work in progress.
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| Mania Stage 9: Pull Self Up By Scruff of Neck and Shake |
| 05.08.04 (4:08 am) [edit] |
I have had an evening of rest, a night of deep sleep and a full day of LOTS of thinking. E called me last night and it made a big difference just talking about it to someone. Then I reread my blog and thought, "Sheesh. Drama Queen."
I am scared. I won't deny it, I am scared out of my mind. But being scared isn't going to change the outcome. If anything, it might make things less safe for the little one.
So here's my plan. I am going to attempt to relax. I am going to do my best to maintain a positive outlook, say my prayers before bedtime, drink lots of water, eat my veggies and talk to the little stubborn ball of energy that is doing his best to survive and beat the odds. I will be my future child's biggest pep rally. Most importantly, I will hope that all the bad signs I have had in the last couple days are just boring, common crap that lots of pregnant women go through and the kid is still deeply embedded for a nice long 9-month hibernation.
And every time I freak out, I will drop a coin into a big money jar. Makes a good trust fund.
I wonder what stage 10 will be...
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| "Stop her!! She's an Impostor!!" |
| 05.07.04 (12:34 pm) [edit] |
I would like to rewind and play back a quote from my very mind, " I vow this to my unborn child and to my husband that I will enjoy every single minute of this pregnancy, even if it is short-lived."
Truth is, I am not enjoying it because my mind won't stop.
Yes, I am thrilled to be pregnant. Yes, this is a dream that I dared to dream for years. No, I wouldn't trade this for anything.
But I am terrified.
After being given the news that my uterus possibly has a fetus-murdering irregularity, I have lived in a daily fear that today the dream will end. Each morning I am thankful to still be pregnant and each day I wonder, "Is this the last day?" But up until today, I really had no concrete evidence that it would come to an end.
Until today.
"Clear discharge is ok. If you start to see blood or spotting, that's different. If it is just a smear, it's probably ok," the triage nurse told me.
What do I fixate on? "Probably".
Today I had yellow discharge that has progressively changed to a brownish tan. Does this qualify as "smear" or "spotting"? The boobs aren't sore, I don't feel nausea. Are these among the seven signs of the fetal apocalypse?
The heartbeat ultrasound isn't until Wednesday. I can go see my doctor Monday, but what would that do?
I cannot stop the worry. And at this point, there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. And that makes me feel helpless and small and weak.
I feel like an impostor.
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| Zany Haze |
| 05.05.04 (10:45 am) [edit] |
I am walking around in a happy little fog.
We had our 2nd ultrasound this morning. I expected bad news because symptoms were waning this week.
My friends, it was good. It was better than good. It was perfect. The perfect little gestational sac and the perfect little yolk sac (which the Dr didn't even expect to see today) were both in place in the perfect spot, deeply within the lining.
She turned the ultrasound monitor so I could see, and I cried. The kind of tears I was denied for two years.
I am stone in love with this dark blob on a fuzzy black and white picture.
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| Passing the time |
| 05.02.04 (7:36 pm) [edit] |
I have three more days to go before I get ultrasound #2. In the meantime, I have found things to do to keep my mind occupied.
Sleep. I sleep a lot. I lay down on the couch to watch TV and instanly visit snoreville. I arrive to class a few minutes early so I close my eyes and visit snoreville. I sit at my computer at work and... yep, start to nod off, visiting snoreville.
I harass Brad frequently. Why? He needs to remember to take his vitamins. He needs to make an appointment to have his cholesterol checked. He needs to cut back on slamming the strawberry milk. Nothing he doesn't already know, but I just want him to be healthy and that fact is amplified by my raging hormones and coming intrusive doctor visits.
I also bemoan the nasty house. I don't feel like getting up and cleaning anything, but I sure do bitch about it. I compile logical reasons why a maid is a good idea.
Movies. My Chinese doctor suggested non-action happy movies but happy movies are stupid. No happy movie every REALLY won an award. "Uplifting" doesn't count.
Whale Rider, excellent movie. BUT! It was technically a drama and had plenty of tearjerking moments.
Forrest Gump. Uplifting, sure. But lots of people died. I know what love is, Jen-ny.
I can't think of any others right now. I just know that I cannot honestly recall a movie giving me warm fuzzies that didn't immediately follow with gagging on the fuzzy leftovers.
I think I need to sleep.
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