No, I don’t want an open marriage.

 I can’t integrate all this I feel sick. I feel like I’m drowning. No matter how much I talk about with S I don’t know that I’m ever really going to feel okay. No apologies. No let’s do this together. Painful.

Flat

Comfort films, 90s edition: George of the Jungle, Crocodile Dundee, A River Runs Through It, Free Willy, Shipwrecked. ...none of these pass the Bechdel test, I'm pretty sure. Upon further examination, the first two do, but the second two do not. The last one hasn’t been listed yet. Guess I’ll have to watch it.

The sass is the same as it ever was from Clarissa Explains It All to any YouTube vlogger ever.

Titrating down the pain meds. Took my last ibuprofen today.

Powders everywhere; 'tis the orthorexia, I fear. Our countertops are covered in protein powders and baby formula. There is much talk of “gains” and measuring of biceps. Blah.

Thrush feels like fiberglass. Cute name for a not-so-cute problem.

L unexpectedly got the opportunity to go to music camp next week because we ran into B and her dad at the park recently. This is the man S decided was a threat of some sort. Well, he’s been doing better (ish) with that lately, so I decided to act normal (ish) because I want L to have a friend in the neighborhood consarnit. Long story short, L’s going to camp and hopefully playdates will ensue and also hopefully S can take her to those playdates and get off my case about it.

Renaissance Faire tomorrow with an emphasis on pirates.

The trapeze act was wonderful

Good things to watch at 2:00 AM when you're sleeping in 1.5-3 hour chunks on the couch with your newborn, an incomplete list: The Decameron, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast and Jeopardy (needs no introduction), and I now suspect that I only like media incorporating Saoirse-Monica Jackson in some capacity. For that reason, Derry Girls is next on my list.

The last few days have been rife with playdates and sunshine. Two playdates yesterday both of which involved lots of splashing in creeks but somehow zero leech encounters. It's been climbing to the 80s which is pretty hot for Alaska, and I've been hanging out with awesome people this week. It is helping me feel better. I do feel better. It's still hard for me to identify how I feel, what I think, and how to communicate that to brand new people, especially when tired with a newborn strapped on trying to halfway supervise my 8-year-old. 

I've been studying as much as I can, but it's tricky. To get enough sleep for bare-minimum focusing and still do what needs to be done (dishes, shopping, socialization, going outside). I hope beyond hope I can pull this off.

In June You Change Your Tune

 Today is better. I’ve only had 3 hours of sleep in the last 24 hours. But today is better.

Now That the Last Month's Rent Is Scheming With the Damage Deposit

- Time means nothing. There is only sleep in 2-3 hour chunks, tracking feedings over 2-3 hour periods, and up to 800 mg of pain meds (combination Tylenol and ibuprofen) every 6 hours-ish. And studying in there somewhere. The OT Miri youtube channel is GOATed for a reason!

- Did you know that body chills are somewhat normal when breastfeeding? I guess they're some sort of cue to feed the baby now. Bit of a carrot and stick situation with that. The body chills being the stick, and the carrot being oxytocin released when breastfeeding (see below). The...pain when breastfeeding being some sort of injury sustained by the mule, perhaps? Will have to workshop that.

- There have been moments in which I have had glimpses of why I thought it could work with S in the first place. Nothing specific or solid, though. And I must remind myself that, due to breastfeeding and being postpartum, I have more oxytocin in my system than normal, which may be a factor.

- Marijuana is proving to be not-so-different than alcohol in some ways. There's just the more-ish ness of it. It permeates every waking moment. It's...not recreational, it seems. Just the water in which S swims.

- This water has resulted in some interesting situations. For instance, S walked over to my parents' house with H to show off the baby I suppose, and L and I stayed at home because: tired, and not necessarily feeling it. I have certainly gone to his parents house without him many times, it only seems fair that the emotional labor cut both ways sometimes. He left altered and returned altered having committed to going to church with my parents on June 7th. But I do not have to come! (he says) But it would be cool if I did - that's what Unitarians do! And we're Unitarian - aren't we? (he adds) I'm fairly certain that I didn't hear jack shit about evangelizing or going to other peoples' churches; "ministering" to those of other sects is largely a Christian Classic Flavor thing. I am very much not going to go, but have said I will probably judge it on the vibes the day of. Why? Because I'm relatively certain I will either have to deal with the fallout of some sort of spat involving one of the following: "You're not/never supportive of X/me/your parents/your family!" or "Why did you even come if you're going to have such a shitty attitude about it?" or "If you really felt this strongly about not going, why didn't you tell me?" Choose my poison, I guess.

- The night before last J, one of S's newish friends, came over to hang because they'd just been through a breakup and S is hyper-focused on being there for his friends. I like J, we seem to have a fair amount in common, they are very kind, and warm and I'm glad S is connecting with new people. However, I noticed when S was chatting with J about...us...that we just have very different narratives. I am glad that S believes that communication is in a good place and that he feels comfortable talking to me about most things and that we accept each others' neurodiversity. I didn't feel like I could really participate in that conversation, though, because I just...don't feel the same? And that's not a conversation I was about to have on a Saturday night before trying to take my pre-night shift nap with a newish friend in the house in front of our daughter. So I just didn't say anything.

- The day before yesterday, as riffing about not having had to take oxycodone even once as recovering from this C-section, even though they gave me five just in case. S said that he'd taken two without telling me for various body pain issues and that he would understand if I hid it because he should have asked me before taking it. I don't care about him taking them. I do care about him not asking/telling me. I don't feel the need to hide them, because if I needed to take them I probably would have taken them by now, no? Plus the meds transfer to milk and newborns don't really need opioids in their systems. They just don't. But I do feel icky about it, because that's alarming behavior generally. I thought about just taking it to a med disposal box at a pharmacy. I might just leave it out. I don't know. We'll see how the spirit moves me on Monday*.

*Update: the above was written on Sunday and Monday morning I found another missing with no notice. So I guess I'm one hundred percent just taking it to the med disposal box at the pharmacy. It sorted itself out! And now I feel much worse. Blerg.

- Recently (since Omaha-gate) I've felt the need to pretend to S that I will think about certain things for a period of time before making a decision about said things with the innate knowledge that I’m not really going to change my mind. Is this lying? Yes, I think so. It is also a bit of a choice between the "You're not even going to consider an alternative way/thing/perspective?" fight and the "You're disrespecting me by not choosing what I want you to choose!" fight. And it is, in a sense, hitting snooze on all that. Ahem. What’s the appropriate period of time to do this? A day? A week? Unclear. Does this make me a bad person? Probably! And there is so much evidence to substantiate that that I don't really feel that much shame about heaping one more thing onto the pile.

- Conversely, there are things I don’t seem to be able to make up my mind about and no amount of time seems to resolve this. Typically this involves things like where to eat, whether L can spend the night at her grandparents' house (I...guess?), and what to watch on the telly. But sometimes high stakes things like answering the question, "What setting do you want to work in?" Um...I like it all, bestie, just not all simultaneously.

- How infuriating must it be to have had When Your Mind's Made Up written about you? I would be livid. Just because I know what I want, Swell Season. High key negging energy.

- Sometimes one does a Kagi search to see if The Weakerthans are touring (they aren't) and discover that The Mountain Goats are, and that they're playing a show in Portland the month of your birthday for less than one million dollars and also that they're co-headlining with The Hold Steady (pretty decent band) and you think to yourself: I'm turning 40. Why not? Because money is tight is why not. But...just maybe? I will. 

Enough With the Ganging Agley, Bob.

L officially finished the school year as of yesterday. It culminated in a massive picnic and kids running amok in a small wooded area adjacent to the school garden and outdoor amphitheater. It also culminated in her (sort of) doing a research project, kicking and screaming the whole time. Hyperbole? Maybe. But were there tears? Definitely. Mostly hers. Some takeaways from the whole star-crossed affair:

1. Thank the goddess we do not homeschool. I would be losing it on the daily.
2. My MIL does not understand how research projects work. The one assignment she either...took on or S asked her to take one (I'm unclear on those details) were allegedly her making broad statements about the research topic (monkeys) and having L write this without regard for spacing, capitalization or punctuation. I chose to frame this as an interview. She's too young to worry about citations, so that's good.
3. S may have offloaded that one assignment on MIL without communicating things like: the syllabus and how/where to upload the assignment.
4. I very much do not relate to my kid about all this in the sense that I vividly remember wanting to write essays and things like that as a kid because I wanted to be a reporter, largely because April O'Neill from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was goals. My godfather had me write an article on something or other at age 6 because he got wind of me wanting to be a reporter, and he revised it with a red pen and had me rewrite and resubmit it. Which I did. And was grateful for the opportunity. Or something.

Anyway. Since we've been back, H has failed to regain back to her birthweight which has been the cause of some anxiety. I'm not against supplementing with formula (so we have been) it's more of a dammit I guess we should have been doing that all along and tick tock on the clock motherfucker development is developing and now we have to play catchup. 

The longer I'm alive the more astonishing I find it that humans survived at all. Wasn't FASD just...rampant? Didn't people die in childbirth like...almost all the time? How the hell were kids getting all the nutrients they need (they probably weren't tbh)? Plus all the evil true crime and billionaire cabal shit that was and is happening. Christ. <thousand yard stare>

Okay, bye!

Written: 5.14.2026

I looked like hot trash, but I did it. I hadn't had proper sleep in probably 2 weeks, and forgot to bring the one makeup item that could have made me look half-alive, but I did it. H was as jet lagged as an infant can be, but she did amazing during the ceremony and flights and ig infant headphones really do help for equalizing ear pressure on flights. Plus: nursing helps.

My parents got a bunch of congratulations from family members (I guess that’s how this whole thing works?).

We had dinner at Tupelo Honey; I tried shakshouka for the first time. 10/10: love.

Inasmuch as I’m even in this dimension considering jet lag and sleep deprivation, I do love Omaha. People are…Midwest nice? They’re having an actual Spring? It’s green not muddy and eldritch - which, I DO love muddy and eldritch, but it’s nice to have a change of pace every once in a while. Turn of the century houses? Got ‘em. Every other house looks like the pink palace in Coraline (the movie). I mean, not in the suburbs obviously. YOU know.

The Airbnb I’m currently staying at is tonally the same as staying at my Grandma’s house in the 90s up to and including this one poem.

Otherwise, it’s been both nice and not so having my parents chauffeur me around. They are proud and help how they can.  But they are not kid people and babies are not intuitive for them. They are more likely to stand and stare while I wrangle the baby and the equipment than the average bear, although this is getting better with repetition and over time. Almost every statement spoken is bookended by a derisive laugh. Is it because of discomfort? Actual disdain? 

It makes me self-conscious. I don't particularly like who I am at times; I am so very scared that I come off like they do. This is nothing new.