Thursday, April 10, 2003 posted by Jen at 4/10/2003 01:59:00 PM
Woke up at 4 a.m. to find this hard, knobby....thing slightly but visibly protruding from my tummy. Got freaked out. Tried to wake up husband, who rolled over (eyes still closed) and put his hand on the protrusion.
"Feels like a foot," he said, and fell back asleep. Leaving me to lie there with this tiny little foot poking me, with scenes of Alien, and its many sequels, running through my head.
Woke husband up again. "Do you think I should do something? Because this is kind of weird."
Husband leans over. "Attention, baby!" he says. "STOP KICKING YOUR MOTHER!"
And then I rolled over a few times, and the foot went away, and has not reappeared thus far. But still. Very strange.
I finally caught up with "The Bachelor." Didn't you just love Drunk Girl (TM Saturday Night Live?) The moaning? The retching? The "my teeth feel like they're falling out!" comment? Hee. And then she gets a rose anyhow! Of course, I'm having my typical reality-TV problem -- too early in the season, too many interchangeable contestants, too hard to tell one toothsome blonde twenty-two-year old apart from the next, but I expect this will resolve itself soon.
Also, thanks for all the nice letters about Ms. "Are You There, God? It's Me, Bitchface" and her angry "why didn't you write me back" email. I know that the price of hearing from hundreds of really nice, kind, supportive people is that you're going to occasionally hear from one cranky not-nice one, but every once in a while, I need to be reminded. So thanks to everyone who wrote in to remind me.
Now I'm off to buy a Diaper Genie. Does it get more glamorous than this? Didn't think so.
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Wednesday, April 09, 2003 posted by Jen at 4/09/2003 04:46:00 PM
On a non-baby-related note: if Ruben Studdard on "American Idol" were any smoother, I'd be able to spread him on my English muffin. Love him!
Meanwhile, the new season of "The Bachelor" has begun without my noticing. Why, God, why!?!?! But I've got the Television Without Pity recaps to keep me up to speed, and I intend to rectify the situation post-haste.
I'm in sort of a mood today. Got my once-every-six-months angry fan missive. "I wrote to you! And you never wrote back! You're rotten and rude! And I'm not going to read your new book or watch GOOD IN BED on HBO, because you never wrote me back and when I wrote Judy Blume a fan letter she did, and she's written way more books than you have! You suck! Suuuuuck!"
Okay, I'm paraphrasing...but not by much. And this is vexing for a few reasons.
Reason one: I'm pregnant to the point that turning over in bed is as laborious and time-consuming as executing a K-turn on a crowded street. And I'm devoting my limited energies to getting my third book into shape before the baby comes.
Reason two: I've got my email set up to auto-respond to people so they at least know that I'm reading their letters. And I respond to as many letters as I can, without spending so much time that I've got none left for the book. It's not that I don't want to spend all day answering my email, I just don't think my publisher would be very happy with that choice.
Reason three: I don't have an assistant. Judy Blume does. How do I know this? Because we've asked her for quotes for both of my books, and always gotten a very nice response back....from her assistant. The reason I don't have one is that I figure if people are writing to me they want to hear back from me, not an assistant -- even if it's just the autoreply.
The good news is, the nice letters outnumber the cranky ones by far. But the cranky ones bug me. Then again, at this point, everything that's not the imminent arrival of the Bun bugs me.
Sunday, April 06, 2003 posted by Jen at 4/06/2003 06:56:00 PM
This is officially getting ridiculous.
The other night I was trying to call the dog to let him out. "Wendell!" I yelled. No dog. I tried again. "Wendell!"
Adam looked over and started cracking up. "What's so funny?" I asked, a little grumpily (you, dear reader, would sound a little grumpy, too, if you'd been waking up each and every night with the Heartburn of Death).
"Jen," said Adam. "He's standing right underneath you."
I stepped back. I looked down. And there was Wendell, merrily wagging his tail.
You have to understand that at this point in the game (37 weeks tomorrow), my feet and their environs are basically a myth. I know they're there. I believe in them. I just haven't seen them in a while.
In spite of the vanishing dog, and my husband's bemusement at same, we had a really nice weekend. On Friday I snuck off and saw "Bend it Like Beckham," which was terrific -- funny and sweet and heartwarming and empowering and all. Yesterday Adam and I saw "Spirited Away," which was wonderful in a very different way -- strange and trippy and magical and disturbing (and disturbingly similar, in some ways, to the book I'm working on now, only my heroine is thirty-three instead of ten, and Jewish instead of Japanese, and there's a lot less vomiting).
And then today I went for a walk in the woods with my friend Lisa and her nine-month-old baby Jack, who I think is now my baby ideal. He's round and cheerful, and he laughs a lot, and checks out the world -- dogs and people and peach yogurt. Best of all, he seems perfectly amused by his own feet. At lunch he took his time divesting himself of his sock, and then he looked down at his feet and made this screech of sublime appreciation: You again! Then he put his sock in his mouth. It was excellent. I only hope I'm as blessed in the baby temperament department.
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Welcome to A Moment of Jen, author Jennifer Weiner's constantly-updated take on books, baby, and news of the world. Email me at jen (a) jenniferweiner.com.
