Thursday, January 26

He's a boy we got the proof


Okay so these one's are hard to figure out, but you are looking at him from the bottom up - note the lil butt on the left of the photo - the white spots are the but bones. Legs & thighs are jutting out toward the right - you can sorta see toes & feets.. and yup there between the thighs & the butt is what Emily referred to in the ultrasound appt. as his "stuff"

Tuesday, January 24

Year of the Dog


Year of the Dog

1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006

People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They have a deep sense of loyalty, are honest, and inspire other people's confidence because they know how to keep secrets.

The Dog is a giving, compassionate personality. He offers kind words, support and advice to friends and family. He is a listener, always available to lend an ear or a shoulder to a friend in need. Often Dogs know more about their friends than their friends know about them or even themselves! Dogs are incredibly attentive.

Dogs are loyal, faithful and honest and always stick to their firm codes of ethics. However, this Sign has trouble trusting others. It's generally quite trustworthy itself -- except for the occasional "little white lies" the Dog tells in order to make things go more smoothly. The Dog makes a wonderful, discreet and loyal friend (despite any white lies) and is an excellent listener.

This Sign tends to root for the underdog and its keen sense of right and wrong makes it duty-bound to the core. The Dog's mantra seems to be, Live right, look out for the little people and fight injustice whenever possible.

Sometimes though, Dogs should pay more attention to their own needs. In private, many Dog people worry a lot.

Dog People are somewhat selfish, terribly stubborn, and eccentric. They care little for wealth, yet somehow always seem to have money. They can be cold emotionally and sometimes distant at parties. They can find fault with many things and are noted for their sharp tongues.

Dog people make good leaders.

Dogs can also be rather dogmatic, too. They don't go in for light social banter; instead, they go straight for home, expostulating on the topics that are most important to them. At these times the Dog's narrow-minded or stubborn side can become apparent; this Sign has trouble staying light and calm when an important issue is at stake. This Sign can also be very temperamental; mood swings characterize its emotional life and often the Dog needs to run off to be alone in order to recuperate. Part of the problem is the result of this Sign's load of irrational fears that turn into niggling anxieties that turn into hurt feelings and occasional grouchiness. This sensitive Sign needs to warm up to others over time and gradually learn to trust them. Without that trust as a foundation, Dogs can be judgmental and coarse.

The Dog's discerning nature does make it an excellent business person, one who can turn that picky, guarded nature into a keen sense of the truth of another's motives. Where love is concerned, Dogs often have a tough time finding the right match. They can be so anxious and overwrought in the romance dance that they'll stress their partner to the max!

In any forum, this Sign is happiest when able to be quite physically active; at home or at work, the Dog will always be constructing something new or cleaning something up in order to make things better. Dogs like clean residences. Not only straightened-up, but also deep cleaned. Changed sheets, washed clothes, dusted blinds and wiped down mirrors are only a few of the Dogs weekly chores. His home must be well-organized and easy to navigate all of the time. Dogs want to be comfortable and take luxury in overstuffed pillows, big, cushy couches and oversized recliners. Although they are open-minded, Dogs prefer to stick with traditional décor when decorating a room.

Dogs need to work on controlling their irrational worries and would also be well-served to relax their mile-high standards, which can sometimes wind up alienating the ones they love.

CHARACTERISTICS
Responsible
Compassionate
Reliable
Honest
Pessimistic
Anxious
Overwhelming
Nosy


LIKES AND DISLIKES
Since Dogs are born under the same Animal Sign, they often share likes and dislikes. Following are similar likes and dislikes of the Dog personality.
Color Preference: Pale Yellow
Gems and Stones: Moonstone, Carnelian, Jasper
Suitable Gifts: Rocking chair, novel, roses, massage therapy
Hobbies and Pastimes: Cooking, rearranging, dancing, arts and crafts
Dogs Dislike: Hurting other people’s feelings, getting angry or aggressive, being treated unfairly

DOG INFANT AND CHILD
Dog children are creative, able to entertain themselves for hours on end. They don’t mind playing by themselves, often inventing games and puzzles while doing so. They are responsible children who love to take on and complete as many tasks as possible for it gives them a sense of accomplishment.

THE FIRE DOG 1946 AND 2006
Fire Dogs are natural leaders. Fire Dogs are popular, charismatic people, always surrounded by a group of admirers. Not only admired for their vibrant personalities, these Dogs also possess a sexual attractiveness that makes them irresistible. These people are adventurous and vivacious, yet, honest and openhearted. However, because they are so active, they are generally not the settle down type.

GEMINI DOG
Gemini Dogs can talk your mother under the table. They are charismatic and charming, not intimidated by other people. They love to take on new experiences.


They are compatible with those born in the Years of the Horse, Tiger, and Rabbit.

Monday, January 23

Sick to my stomach & eating crap

I don't know why I think that a mini box of Frosted Flakes is going to make me feel better when I already have an after-dinner stomach ache. I am getting so tired of eating being no fun. I miss enjoying my lunches & dinner. I thought of going to a meeting tonight but by 8 O'clock I was too tired to get off the couch - so now its me, a big glass of ice water and West Wing reruns on Bravo.

I am kinda worried that these are spossed to be the "good" weeks of the pregnancy - ouch

Wednesday, January 18

January OB Visit


Well everything went well again - of course. I have begun to notice that at about the 3rd week between ob visits I start to decide that the lil blasto is gone. I am fine at the visit - more than fine - we hear his heart beat, they tell me he's moving around etc but then after the first week or two I don't know what happens - I just start thinking oops I did this or didn't do that or had that funny feeling --- yup baby's gotta be gone. I don't think that this is normal.

So the stats on me - good blood pressure - its staying the same each visit. Okay weight - it's also stayed the same each visit - actually this month I lost a pound - but since I started out with my weight ... shall we say substantial... the docs not too worried since I am eating. Its funny that my weight isn't changing cause my shape is FOR SURE. My belly is big & hard & sticking out funny. My breasts (uggh) are maybe twice their size and also solid - somehow. I figrure that the energy of making a baby and the little bit of exercise that I am doing is making up for the weight gain that the baby & all adds. The doctor says that I better expect this phase to end now & I'll be looking at adding a pound a week. Well see...

As for lil blasto --- it took a minute to find his heart beat but as soon as she got it it was loud, strong and fast - good news. She asked if I could feel him moving around because she could hear lots and lots of movement. I am not feeling punches and kicks yet - its more like rolls and cramping - last night at bed time it felt like he had a hand on one of my organs and was having fun pulling it and literally making me say ouch, ouch, stop it... Em thought that was funny.

As for em she didn't make it to this appt. but she is good to come with me to the big Ultrasound that we have scheduled for next week!!!!! Which also means new photos for anyone who is actually reading this lil blog.

Peace....

Friday, January 13

20 Weeks Pregnant - from Visembryo

Week 18 Post Fertilization...

A dramatic growth period for the fetus.

HEAD - Fetus has phases of sleep and waking and may prefer a favorite sleep position. Temporary hair called lanugo appears on the head. Lanugo may fall out in the second week after birth, allowing fine scalp hair to grow. Eyebrows begin to form.

SKIN - Brown fat (colored by capillary growth) coats neck, chest and crotch areas around the lymphatic system. The vernix (consisting of dead skin, lanugo cells, and oil from glands) is now clearly formed and visible covering the skin.

PLACENTA - Placenta is fully formed and grows in diameter though not in thickness.

Saturday, January 7

Blasto Does Vegas

Here we are in sin city - baby boi blasto & me... The trade show has been the hardest ever - between me being sick & not able to take much - Blasto being along for the ride, Alicia (my workmate getting sick too - sorry) - all the porno fans and the largest convention in the world happening at the same time & in parts of the same building.

So I started getting sick just after New Years and got on a plane on Wed am & flew out to Vegas - I did sudafed for the flight -hopefully not a HUGE mistake. I think I could feel my blood pressure going up - probably just from the fear that I was messing with Baby by taking a decongestant. While I was standing in the SW line at the Oakland Airport Deb S. called me & told me that Eliot just got on a plane to Vegas cause he's going to the CES show - yeah a friendly face amongst the crowds!!!!

My flight was ok - mercifully short although very crowded with techie boys coming for the not porn convention. Found the hotel ok - its old. It has windows that open. We are on the 24th floor. The casino really smells like smoke & I am very congested.

Eliot & I make plans to meet up on Friday - I wait for Alicia to arrive to get dinner - we go to the cheesy cafe in the hotel - not bad not good - Go to bed early.

I am up EVERY HOUR - either coughing or peeing - this sucks!!!!!

Thur am Alicia & I get ready our plan is to go to the show early and make the most of the trade only day - While she is getting dressed I cough so hard I puke - second instance of vomiting in the whole pregnancy - did I mention this sucks ?? Alicia is gracious - this must be a real dream come true for her. We get it together catch the monorail & realize we have to walk from Harrah's past the golddust to the Venetian & through the venetian to get to the Sands Expo center - what we just saved in cab fare we wasted in a half hour hike - I get blisters from the new Vans. Alicia is wearing heels she looks good but gets blisters too - we aren't even at the show yet.

Registration - hey that part goes ok, starbucks - tazo tea check, quick walk through of the B to B section of the show - spot Tantus, Vtex, GV, Fun Factory, et al good. We head upstairs to the DVD section to walk through there - wowwie Mister... these folks spend some $$$ on their display booths - all the major players are here - Vivid, Wicked, VCA, Club Jenna, Tera P., Mayhem, Evil Angel, Red Light, and on and on and on.... the First star we see is the incredibly Hot & Dirty Belladonna - oh my god she is soooo cute!!!!!!!!! Alicia and I both gush like schoolbois. Then we head back to the Gay VN mini section and chat up the guys at Channel One Releasing - I co-visit some other video booths with Alicia then leave her on her own to work her magic (and meet ms. Jenna J.) and I head back down to the Novelty Folks.

I run into Metis and join her for a quick walk, then need to make my own food run (blasto calls) I have just about the worst sandwich of my life - it cost $10. See JP of GV and go over & offer congrats about the Boston expansion - they are all very excited. Alicia finds me & we go back to our hotel room so I can take a nap.

My meetings in the Suites go really well - it is exciting to see that the big manufacturers are really starting to make some fun items - bright colors, better materials, more options - stuff thats cute & sexy!!

I drop down to Canyon Ranch for a minute and ask about prenatal massage - yep they do them - what a tease.... I want a spa day SO BAD - but I can't go into saunas or tubs anyways so its really a silly thought... maybe next time.

I go back up for the hosted cocktail party - run into the GV crowd and hang with them - they have so many folks here - merchandising, marketing, wholesale mgr, buyer, web mgr .... A lot of new folks too - again they are very jazzed to be announcing the opening in Brookline. I say hi to Mr. Doc Johnson - he has no idea who I am... but Ms. California Exotic does so thats a win.

Dinner at Aqua Knox - truly an exercise in overindulgence - I am caught up in the spirit and switch from trout to surf n turf at the last moment... the lobster is the size of my arm (really I am not joking) the steak is the size of something much larger than my stomach in its present state - did I mention the cocktails, the appetizer plates, the chocolate fondue, the bottles of wine...

Slept much better tonite - sleeping the sleep of the overstuffed lobster queen.

Sunday, January 1

George Saunders’ “My Amendment”

George Saunders’ “My Amendment” (linked from LesbianDad)

published in
The New Yorker
Issue of 2004-03-08Posted 2004-03-01


As an obscure, middle-aged, heterosexual short-story writer, I am often asked, George, do you have any feelings about Same-Sex Marriage?
To which I answer, Actually, yes, I do.
Like any sane person, I am against Same-Sex Marriage, and in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban it.
To tell the truth, I feel that, in the interest of moral rigor, it is necessary for us to go a step further, which is why I would like to propose a supplementary constitutional amendment.
In the town where I live, I have frequently observed a phenomenon I have come to think of as Samish-Sex Marriage. Take, for example, K, a male friend of mine, of slight build, with a ponytail. K is married to S, a tall, stocky female with extremely short hair, almost a crewcut. Often, while watching K play with his own ponytail as S towers over him, I have wondered, Isn’t it odd that this somewhat effeminate man should be married to this somewhat masculine woman? Is K not, on some level, imperfectly expressing a slight latent desire to be married to a man? And is not S, on some level, imperfectly expressing a slight latent desire to be married to a woman?
Then I ask myself, Is this truly what God had in mind?
Take the case of L, a female friend with a deep, booming voice. I have often found myself looking askance at her husband, H. Though H is basically pretty masculine, having neither a ponytail nor a tight feminine derriére like K, still I wonder: H, when you are having marital relations with L, and she calls out your name in that deep, booming, nearly male voice, and you continue having marital relations with her (i.e., you are not “turned off”?), does this not imply that you, H, are, in fact, still “turned on”? And doesn’t this indicate that, on some level, you, H, have a slight latent desire to make love to a man?
Or consider the case of T, a male friend with an extremely small penis. (We attend the same gym.) He is married to O, an average-looking woman who knows how to fix cars. I wonder about O. How does she know so much about cars? Is she not, by tolerating this non-car-fixing, short-penised friend of mine, indicating that, on some level, she wouldn’t mind being married to a woman, and is therefore, perhaps, a tiny bit functionally gay?
And what about T? Doesn’t the fact that T can stand there in the shower room at our gym, confidently towelling off his tiny unit, while O is at home changing their sparkplugs with alacrity, indicate that it is only a short stroll down a slippery slope before he is completely happy being the “girl” in their relationship, from which it is only a small fey hop down the same slope before T is happily married to another man, perhaps my car mechanic, a handsome Portuguese fellow I shall refer to as J?
Because my feeling is, when God made man and woman He had something very specific in mind. It goes without saying that He did not want men marrying men, or women marrying women, but also what He did not want, in my view, was feminine men marrying masculine women.
Which is why I developed my Manly Scale of Absolute Gender.
Using my Scale, which assigns numerical values according to a set of masculine and feminine characteristics, it is now easy to determine how Manly a man is and how Fem a woman is, and therefore how close to a Samish-Sex Marriage a given marriage is.
Here’s how it works. Say we determine that a man is an 8 on the Manly Scale, with 10 being the most Manly of all and 0 basically a Neuter. And say we determine that his fiancée is a -6 on the Manly Scale, with a -10 being the most Fem of all. Calculating the difference between the man’s rating and the woman’s rating–the Gender Differential–we see that this proposed union is not, in fact, a Samish-Sex Marriage, which I have defined as any marriage for which the Gender Differential is less than or equal to 10 points.
Friends whom I have identified as being in Samish-Sex Marriages often ask me, George, given that we have scored poorly, what exactly would you have us do about it?
Well, one solution I have proposed is divorce–divorce followed by remarriage to a more suitable partner. K, for example, could marry a voluptuous high-voiced N.F.L. cheerleader, who would more than offset his tight feminine derriére, while his ex-wife, S, might choose to become involved with a lumberjack with very large arms, thereby neutralizing her thick calves and faint mustache.
Another, and of course preferable, solution would be to repair the existing marriage, converting it from a Samish-Sex Marriage to a healthy Normal Marriage, by having the feminine man become more masculine and/or the masculine woman become more feminine.
Often, when I propose this, my friends become surly. How dare I, they ask. What business is it of mine? Do I think it is easy to change in such a profound way?
To which I say, It is not easy to change, but it is possible.
I know, because I have done it.
When young, I had a tendency to speak too quickly, while gesturing too much with my hands. Also, my opinions were unfirm. I was constantly contradicting myself in that fast voice, while gesturing like a girl. Also, I cried often. Things seemed so sad. I had long blond hair, and liked it. My hair was layered and fell down across my shoulders, and, I admit it, I would sometimes slow down when passing a shopwindow to look at it, to look at my hair! I had a strange constant feeling of being happy to be alive. This feeling of infinite possibility sometimes caused me to laugh when alone, or even, on occasion, to literally skip down the street, before pausing in front of a shopwindow and giving my beautiful hair a cavalier toss.
To tell the truth, I do not think I would have scored very high on my Manly Scale, if the Scale had been invented at that time, by me. I suspect I would have scored so Fem on the test that I would have been prohibited from marrying my wife, P, the love of my life. And I think, somewhere in my heart, I knew that.
I knew I was too Fem.
So what did I do about it? Did I complain? Did I whine? Did I expect activist judges to step in on my behalf, manipulating the system to accommodate my peculiarity?
No, I did not.
What I did was I changed. I undertook what I like to think of as a classic American project of self-improvement. I made videos of myself talking, and studied these, and in time succeeded in training myself to speak more slowly, while almost never moving my hands. Now, if you ever meet me, you will observe that I always speak in an extremely slow and manly and almost painfully deliberate way, with my hands either driven deep into my pockets or held stock-still at the ends of my arms, which are bent slightly at the elbows, as if I were ready to respond to the slightest provocation by punching you in the face. As for my opinions, they are very firm. I rarely change them. When I feel like skipping, I absolutely do not skip. As for my long beautiful hair–well, I am lucky, in that I am rapidly going bald. Every month, when I recalculate my ranking on the Manly Scale, I find myself becoming more and more Manly, as my hair gets thinner and my girth increases, thickening my once lithe, almost girlish physique, thus insuring the continuing morality and legality of my marriage to P.
My point is simply this: If I was able to effect these tremendous positive changes in my life, to avoid finding myself in the moral/legal quagmire of a Samish-Sex Marriage, why can’t K, S, L, H, T, and O do the same?
I implore any of my readers who find themselves in a Samish-Sex Marriage: Change. If you are a feminine man, become more manly. If you are a masculine woman, become more feminine. If you are a woman and are thick-necked or lumbering, or have ever had the slightest feeling of attraction to a man who is somewhat pale and fey, deny these feelings and, in a spirit of self-correction, try to become more thin-necked and light-footed, while, if you find it helpful, watching videos of naked masculine men, to sort of retrain yourself in the proper mode of attraction. If you are a man and, upon seeing a thick-waisted, athletic young woman walking with a quasi-mannish gait through your local grocery, you imagine yourself in a passionate embrace with her, in your car, a car that is parked just outside, and which is suddenly, in your imagination, full of the smell of her fresh young breath–well, stop thinking that! Are you a man or not?
I, for one, am sick and tired of this creeping national tendency to let certain types of people take advantage of our national good nature by marrying individuals who are essentially of their own gender. If this trend continues, before long our towns and cities will be full of people like K, S, L, H, T, and O, people “asserting their rights” by dating, falling in love with, marrying, and spending the rest of their lives with whomever they please.
I, for one, am not about to stand by and let that happen.
Because then what will we have? A nation ruled by the anarchy of unconstrained desire. A nation of willful human hearts, each lurching this way and that and reaching out for whatever it spontaneously desires, trying desperately to find some comforting temporary shred of warmth in a mostly cold world, totally unconcerned about the external form in which that other, long-desired heart is embodied.
That is not the kind of world in which I wish to live.
I, for one, intend to become ever more firmly male, enjoying my golden years, while watching P become ever more female, each of us vigilant for any hint of ambiguity in the other.
And as our children grow, should they begin to show the slightest hint of some lingering residue of the opposite gender, P and I will lovingly pull them aside and list all the particulars by which we were able to identify their unintentional deficiency.
Then, together, we will devise a suitable correction.
And, in this way, the race will go on.