Random notes

1. I'm don't remember what I dreamed about last night, but I woke up with the insistent thought that post-apocalyptic America won't smell very good.

2. Remember a few weeks ago when I claimed to have learned about the importance of wearing pants while weedeating? I was lying. I did it without pants again on Sunday, and now have a pair of bruised and bloody legs to show for it. Damn rocks.

3. I just finished Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, which is a feat at 688 very dense pages. I finally figured out this morning that the writing style is a bizarre combination of 100 Years of Solitude and a Dickens novel. It is obvious from the beginning that the story is an allegory, but I never did get it. I can see parts at a time, but I can't fit the whole thing together.

4. I have recently discovered how important gender is to people. Everyone who knows I'm pregnant asks if I want a boy or girl, and what B wants. I have also heard every crazy crackpot theory about how to tell. People want to dangle strings over my belly, want to know my birthday so they can look it up on astrology charts, want to know how sick I am (very), want to know how much weight I've gained (none, thanks to being sick all the time), and do I think my nose has changed shape. Of course I'm curious, but I'm perfectly happy to wait another 6 weeks or so to find out, and I wish everyone else was also. Or maybe I'm just cranky. I bet B would say so...

5. I have started to ponder how my child and my friends' children will rebel when they are teenagers. If your mom has a couple tattoos and a nose ring, what else is there to do? Maybe dress like your grandma?