Some Changes

Well, July happened. My goal of increasing my once monthly posting to thrice monthly clearly did not go as planned. There are a few things to catch you up on.

1. We (by we, I mean Scott) sold one 1998 Saab convertible with a top that won't drop via Craigslist. Score! Also, this meant we would be able to travel together. Us and an 83 pound dog in an extended cab Nissan truck. It was...cozy and pant-y.

2. We made it to Texas. Though Tucumcari, New Mexico, is one of my favorite U.S. town names, I do not recommend stopping by in late June. That day was perhaps the hottest leg of our trip, and try as we might to find food on a Sunday that didn't involve McDonald's, Pizza Hut, or Sonic, we headed back to the hotel with a bag full of Sonic burgers and tots. Did I mention it was hot? The Nissan's air conditioning in Tucumcari didn't even try. We drove the length of the town, as far as we could tell, in four directions, and all we found was sad. The internet told me there were old Route 66 attractions in town, and I thought we might find some interesting stuff. Not on a Sunday afternoon. Just hot and sad and Sonic.

I remember passing through in my old Subaru years ago (also with a busted a.c.), probably running to or from one thing or another in the chase and escape ways of my youth, hair flying in the hot wind, scribbling a poem on my knee (something about Tucumcari and Mingus and, I'd imagine, heartbreak). Those were not hotel days. I traveled with a different dog then, one more wary of strangers, and was more apt to throw a tarp and a sleeping bag down in a field or desert patch off the highway a ways.

I'm happy for hotels these days, but I'm also glad for those old trips. I keenly remember waking up in a Kansas wheat field one morning and setting out to find a pay phone to call Mom and tell her that I made it through the night. It's a good story to tell, that of me and the dog driving the country alone, heating tea by the side of the road. In reality, I know I didn't get much sleep those nights and kept a knife tucked safely in hand. An adventurer's spirit and a worrier's heart. When the sun finally came up, and I could retreat to the safety of the road, all I felt was relief until the field was far enough away to become a good story.

That's probably why I thought Tucumcari would bear fruit this trip, my habit of romanticizing my rear-view. Say it, though. Tucumcari. It just sounds good.

3. There was a good deal of nausea on the drive because, well, I'm pregnant. There is nothing like quitting your jobs and calling the pod company for a cross-country move and then finding out you're pregnant to remind you of how little control you have of things at times and to help you get in touch with some ill-defined, long lost faith. So, it seems that while there will not be a baby elephant in my future, my body has decided unexpectedly to produce a baby human.

Trust me, there were tears. But. What an unexpected and crazy thing. There is a tiny human growing inside my body. I think I watched too many science fiction films when I was younger because every time I think of this live thing growing inside me, I get totally freaked out and unable to comprehend how this is actually possible. Sigourney Weaver's birth scene from Aliens flashes through my head daily. 

Not pleasant. Yes, a baby is a beautiful thing, and as time goes on the tears are fewer and wonder and excitement take the place of the total freakout. However, you have to understand--I'm 37. I have an amazing fellowship before me. Time to write. Until now, everything's been on my terms, more or less. If I'm selfish and lazy, well I'm selfish and lazy, and I bear the brunt of that. That's not entirely true, of course, since I talked Scott into sharing all that. But, still. We're both adults, and thus far, can change our own underpants and still use the toilet and wake up in the middle of the night without crying (mostly).

So there's been a pretty heavy adjustment period. More on that next time, I suppose. I'm at a coffee shop in East Austin, and my battery is dying down. But first, I'd like to say that one of my biggest (and probably most selfish?) fears at first was becoming a person who could only talk about pregnancy/a writer who could only write about the miracle of life in my body. This blog post notwithstanding (really internet, that's one word?), I think I'm coming to terms with me just being me, just me with a tiny human inside me (so weird).