It's a Little Gritty But Nice Nonetheless

Let’s pretend for a moment that I would ever be caught dead in a brown suit, brown socks and brown—good god—what are those? Buster Browns? Sure, yes, whatever. Buster Browns. Let’s pretend. Because the sky is falling and people are whispering here in my office, grim news, grim reaper, election, war, mortgage crisis, bubbles popping, bursting, exploding, blah blah blah, yesterday was very nearly black so here I am clad in brown, my head stuck deep in the sand, my ass slathered in Coppertone SPF 50. La la la, fingers in my ears, this is becoming my very favorite song, I caaaan’t heaaar youuuuuuu! Tonight we get to find out just who is Kelly’s Baby Daddy on 90210. Oh, I know I previously panned the show but what can I say? I’m a sucker for the time suck, the soul suck, the chupa chup chupacabra of crap tv.

Last night I went to a movie with two of my oldest friends. Vicky Christina Barcelona. That is not their names but the name of the movie. Erin Christine Tiburon. That was the name of my evening. Erin and Christine are some of my oldest friends. I have known Erin since we were 14, Christine since we were 6. Very coincidentally we were all pregnant at the same time. Zoey was born April 2006, Christine’s daughter Charley was born in May, then Erin’s son Porter was born in July. Toward the end of our pregnancies the three of us waddled into the Cheesecake Factory together one night looking very much like a line of very fat ducks wearing unfortunate jeans. Heads turned. We ordered and ate heaping platters of Thai Chicken Pasta and still had room for dessert. Now they are coincidentally both pregnant again, Christine a little over 6 months, Erin 8 weeks behind her. Last night we stood in the lobby of the movie theater talking, two full-bellied mama ducks and one relatively skinny scruffy pigeon (that would be me). One of these kids is doing her own thing, except I’m beginning to wonder. It’s like I’m starring in my very own annoying laugh-track sitcom with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, only this time there is a fetus on one shoulder and, well, what really is on my other shoulder? More free time? More sleep? More money? More freedom? A summer in Barcelona where I can make love to both Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz? It’s hard to personify those things to sit on your shoulder but if you look hard enough you can see them, fighting with a mythical fetus for what is not even there.

No baby was always a deal-breaker. And I won’t pretend it wasn’t a bit of a struggle. There was always another surf trip, another country that Bryan wanted to travel. But we did it and Bryan loves Zoey and the countries are miraculously still there, the waves still rolling in, the moon still full, the earth still round. But Bryan thinks that one baby is enough, that with one baby we can still one day move to Costa Rica and eat arroz con pollo for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One baby travels light. But two babies? Two babies are heavy. Two babies would weigh down the edges, two babies renders the world flat. I love Zoey and cannot imagine my heart any bigger. Two babies or no is not a deal-breaker.

And yet this weekend. This weekend we were cleaning out our garage. I love to throw shit away and had created a mountain of crap to recycle and toss: plastic growers pots, moldy blankets, worn flip flops. But as much as I love to throw things away is how much Bryan loves to horde and so he combed through my pile, a vulture with a wetsuit rash. This? We can’t throw this away! He would say, holding up a rake, the metal teeth arthritic and bent. And then he came across Zoey’s baby high chair and it was as if I had thrown our own screaming child on top of the heaping pile. We can’t throw this away! What if we need it again? And my heart. It stopped, and the horizon did not look curved at all.

Erin Christine Tiburon. Like Woody Allen I am kvetching and unsure. This past weekend Zoey told me she had a baby in her tummy and I have no idea where she got that from. Mama NO! She held out the flat palm of her hand. DON’T TICKLE MY BABY!, a two year old Bristol Palin. And I sat there in my Buster Browns wondering when the world starting moving so quickly. Who is Kelly Taylor’s Baby Daddy? Tonight we will know for sure. Chupa Chup. Let's just pretend.