I am not pregnant.
I think I should start with the bombshell statement first, because burying the lede is a bad habit, and yesterday's 42 comment got a couple of people curious enough to ask.
I am also not trying to get pregnant. May as well throw that one out there while we're at it.
I've been doing this thing, see, and I've dropped a chunk of weight since the end of October. I'm still short, but I'm not nearly as round as I was. Now, because I'm in a long-term, committed heterosexual relationship and a homeowner, people have been sidling up to me and asking (politely) if I'm knocked up or what? And when I answer, "oh, God, no!" they don't just laugh it off. Well, some do. But a couple of people have patted me on the shoulder and told me to just give it time.
I get it, I do. Long-term, committed heterosexual homeowners (of the female persuasion) dropping a little weight are sometimes doing it with an eye towards starting a family. And it makes sense that some people who know us, but don't know us very well, would assume that seven years after pledging our love to each other and the Klingon god of companionship (I'm not kidding), and after four years of homeowner ship and with 30 looming on the horizon, we might be eager to hop aboard the train to Offspringville, and that me dropping to my fighting weight is a sign of bigger plans.
Except, not so much. Seriously. Our hobbies include taking photographs of art toys in amusing tableaux; driving small, impractical roadsters; drinking our way through the California coast and sushi. We make up new and interesting combinations of swear words, play with sharp objects and are completely self-involved. We are not child-friendly.
Someday -- and isn't that a lovely, fuzzy phrase, someday? -- we will probably have a kid. Most likely have a kid. A. Singular. Child. A child who isn't our recombined DNA, but a kid abandoned who needs and deserves a loving home, because we are turning into bigger and bigger hippies the older we get, that kind of kid. But that's someday. Far, far in the future.
The people who know us know about the someday clause. Our parents support us and don't put any pressure on us to make with the grandbabies. Yeah, I think the moms would love to have a little baby to cuddle, but they both had us in their thirties and understand there's no particular rush now. The people who don't know us very well, well, I guess I could try to explain the someday clause, but I don't think it'd go over well. The few times I've tried in the past, I get asked, "but don't you want to be a mommy?"
Um, no. Not right now. Especially when we're toying with the idea of returning to school. I've found a very intriguing masters program through the University of Washington, but it would require several semesters' undergrad work, which I may as well do at UNM, because if I'm going to have to take calculus, I'm going to do it at in-state grad student rates, thank you very much, and even then, I'm going to have to start at the bottom because my last math class was a dozen years ago, and I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how to solve for X.
Also, UNM's a pretty decent school, or so I hear.
Meanwhile, Adam's messing around with the idea of returning to UNM for his BFA in photography. And when I say "messing around with" I really do mean "messing around with." It's a seed of an idea. A nugget. A crumb.
Still, it was enough of a crumb to send us down to campus last weekend for the first time in four years. We wandered around, checked out the refurbished Student Union, hung out at the Duck Pond and discussed becoming those obnoxious non-traditional students we hated the first time around. So now's the time to look into applications and educational credits and juggling work schedules around class schedules. It's early days, yet. Something far more interesting could come along between now and the middle of August.
Like pirates. Or culinary school. Or culinary pirates.
Also, the do-we-or-don't-we-sell-the-house issue remains on the table. We're leaning towards selling. The neighborhood's getting scary. As Adam described it: "We are one megachurch minister away from 'Fahrenheit 451,' " which, you laugh, but it's closer to the truth than is comfortable.
Come and save us, culinary pirates!
So to recap: not pregnant. Not trying to be pregnant. No babies in the future. Possibly heading back to school. Selling the house. And finally, pirates.
And if that doesn't satisfy you, here's a picture of Target scanning his butt.
(not child-friendly in the least)
I think I should start with the bombshell statement first, because burying the lede is a bad habit, and yesterday's 42 comment got a couple of people curious enough to ask.
I am also not trying to get pregnant. May as well throw that one out there while we're at it.
I've been doing this thing, see, and I've dropped a chunk of weight since the end of October. I'm still short, but I'm not nearly as round as I was. Now, because I'm in a long-term, committed heterosexual relationship and a homeowner, people have been sidling up to me and asking (politely) if I'm knocked up or what? And when I answer, "oh, God, no!" they don't just laugh it off. Well, some do. But a couple of people have patted me on the shoulder and told me to just give it time.
I get it, I do. Long-term, committed heterosexual homeowners (of the female persuasion) dropping a little weight are sometimes doing it with an eye towards starting a family. And it makes sense that some people who know us, but don't know us very well, would assume that seven years after pledging our love to each other and the Klingon god of companionship (I'm not kidding), and after four years of homeowner ship and with 30 looming on the horizon, we might be eager to hop aboard the train to Offspringville, and that me dropping to my fighting weight is a sign of bigger plans.
Except, not so much. Seriously. Our hobbies include taking photographs of art toys in amusing tableaux; driving small, impractical roadsters; drinking our way through the California coast and sushi. We make up new and interesting combinations of swear words, play with sharp objects and are completely self-involved. We are not child-friendly.
Someday -- and isn't that a lovely, fuzzy phrase, someday? -- we will probably have a kid. Most likely have a kid. A. Singular. Child. A child who isn't our recombined DNA, but a kid abandoned who needs and deserves a loving home, because we are turning into bigger and bigger hippies the older we get, that kind of kid. But that's someday. Far, far in the future.
The people who know us know about the someday clause. Our parents support us and don't put any pressure on us to make with the grandbabies. Yeah, I think the moms would love to have a little baby to cuddle, but they both had us in their thirties and understand there's no particular rush now. The people who don't know us very well, well, I guess I could try to explain the someday clause, but I don't think it'd go over well. The few times I've tried in the past, I get asked, "but don't you want to be a mommy?"
Um, no. Not right now. Especially when we're toying with the idea of returning to school. I've found a very intriguing masters program through the University of Washington, but it would require several semesters' undergrad work, which I may as well do at UNM, because if I'm going to have to take calculus, I'm going to do it at in-state grad student rates, thank you very much, and even then, I'm going to have to start at the bottom because my last math class was a dozen years ago, and I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how to solve for X.
Also, UNM's a pretty decent school, or so I hear.
Meanwhile, Adam's messing around with the idea of returning to UNM for his BFA in photography. And when I say "messing around with" I really do mean "messing around with." It's a seed of an idea. A nugget. A crumb.
Still, it was enough of a crumb to send us down to campus last weekend for the first time in four years. We wandered around, checked out the refurbished Student Union, hung out at the Duck Pond and discussed becoming those obnoxious non-traditional students we hated the first time around. So now's the time to look into applications and educational credits and juggling work schedules around class schedules. It's early days, yet. Something far more interesting could come along between now and the middle of August.
Like pirates. Or culinary school. Or culinary pirates.
Also, the do-we-or-don't-we-sell-the-house issue remains on the table. We're leaning towards selling. The neighborhood's getting scary. As Adam described it: "We are one megachurch minister away from 'Fahrenheit 451,' " which, you laugh, but it's closer to the truth than is comfortable.
Come and save us, culinary pirates!
So to recap: not pregnant. Not trying to be pregnant. No babies in the future. Possibly heading back to school. Selling the house. And finally, pirates.
And if that doesn't satisfy you, here's a picture of Target scanning his butt.
(not child-friendly in the least)
6 Comments:
Even if you did get pregnant, they'd just sidle up to you and start asking when you were going to have the next one. And the next. Til you start opening your conversations with things like "I've had three kids and a tubal" Then they finally stop asking. :)
If the questioner gets really persistant, I like to launch into my Reproductive Lament, where I rattle off medical shorthand "endo/Lupron/PCOS/IVF" and do a little soft-shoe at the end.
Tell 'em you got a tattoo of a Volvo instead.
That ought to make them wonder just long enough before asking the next question...
Change "Volvo" to Miata and they'd be like, "Oooooooohkay" while backing away all slow-like.
And then all the kiddies in the neighborhood would be forbidden from playing in the street in front of our house, and peace would return!
BRILLIANT!
Not to be right angling to the comments above...but and I quote "UNM's a pretty decent school..." is a blasphemous statement and you know it -- But the duck pond is very cool!! ;^)
It's Harvard on the Rio Grande!
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