notageek

And until I am a parent, I hope that I will never have cause to be so pleased again over bowel movements. That bout the BH was having? It wasn’t him being stupid and eating something that made his GI tract unhappy. It was him having a virus that makes everyone’s GI tracts unhappy. According to the professor of the elective I dropped due to the confluence of Homeland Security and gastroenteritis, it’s sent more than a few [older, less resilient and possibly less supplied with Gatorade] persons to the ER this season.

But it’s almost gone. Soon, I will be slamming back the acidophilus and hopefully my almost infalliable gut rhythm will re-establish itself, or else I will be reduced to the status of all the miserable peons who actually have to buy things on the “laxative and antacids” aisle. Nevertheless, for now I’m revelling in solid food, non-electrolyte-replacing beverages, and the underappreciated joy that is fully opaque poop.

How little we realise the importance of having standards.

I was planning a large, well-reasoned post examining the issue of pharmacists declining to personally fill prescriptions from several angles and generally of an allegedly-Voltairian bent (disagree, defend to the death, etc). Then my boyfriend^Whusband threw up, and I have since been fulfilling the “sickness’ portion of “in sickness and in health”, although that wasn’t actually in the wording of our vows. What can I say? He gets all kinds of fringe benefits.

The high points of this last week:

1. fluticasone propionate nasal spray (Flonase) is out in generic now, so we’re hemorrhaging slightly less money.
2. my medchem test went fine.
3. my biostats test also went fine.
4. Kavita Ramdas of the Global Fund for Women is an excellent speaker and makes a strong case that investing in women in developing counties is a relatively sure way to get results.
5. the Department of Homeland Security is inhomogenously evil; we got a nice guy at our interview, and it looks as though once we get the rest of our documentation in the BH will be clear for residency.

The lower points:

1. My throat started swelling up in the pre-strep type symptoms. Eating black sesame porridge every day helped; however,
2. I am now clean out of black sesame.
3. husband threw up last night, repeatedly.
4. the other end, too. Repeatedly.

   I am thinking of it as practice for having kids. Huge, whiny, stinky kids who sleep in my bed.

A series of strategies empirically tested by my father, my partner, and me.

1. If possible, eat everything proffered. If not possible, training may be in order. If necessary, choose one item and eat it to the exclusion of all others; it will be chalked up to your idiosyncracy as a non-$ethnic.
2. Conversely, bring food. Sweets and baked goods are, in general, safe. Arthropods and organ meats are iffy, even the candied ones.
3. Anoint yourself a keeper of your in-laws’ oral genaeological records; this will allow you to participate in conversations concerning who is related to whom, and how. That is, it will allow you to participate in conversations at family gatherings.
4. Mimic your in-laws’ speaking and drinking habits not quite to to the point of parody, so that you will be lauded as “a real $ethnic at heart”.
5. Discuss at greath length any items you have recently purchased at scandalously low prices.
6. As family members prepare to leave your abode, present arbitrary items and ask if they want them. Deflect questions as to why you have them by noting how inexpensive they were. Press further instances upon them next time they visit, as a show of your affection.

“Simmy’s noticing babies!” my dad squealed over dim sum. I have been noticing (and cooing over) babies since my late teens; I suspect the difference is that my dad is finally of an age where he notices me noticing babies, and approves. He is the only member of a six-sibling group who is not a grandparent; out of the sixteen first cousins on his side of the family, five of us have not had children yet. The ones who have not are mostly younger than me, although some of the ones who have are as well.

There are several magic numbers for women of reproductive age. Eighteen, of course, is one. Thirty-five is another. Twenty-seven is looming large right now, as the putative age when fertility starts a precipitous decline. My own family history indicates relative ease of conception well through the thirties, but I am suspicious. It is difficult to hedge these sorts of bets.

Two months ago I went to see a nurse in the Women’s clinic at the school health center. My IUD was out of position, so she grabbed some forceps and, with my permission, yanked it on out. It hurt, though not nearly as much as it did going in, and I found myself in the historically typical but personally unusual position of being fertile again. When I called next month for another insertion, the nurse apologised for not having the device on hand. “We’ve kind of had a…run on them this month,” she explained.

This month I finally made it into clinic. The nice doc assured me that no, I am not infertile, and yes, perfectly fine, good choice. Then he numbed my insides, measured my uterus, and positioned a small plastic device that will prevent me from concieving for the next five years, or until removal. This is the right choice; the five-year plans the BH and I have batted around include children, but the 2-year plans emphatically do not. Choosing an option, though, always means giving up others, and no matter how ill-timed and inconvenient it would have been

in a minute there is time
for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

To tomorrow, eh?

The I-5 express lanes are open, and my parents have gone back San-José-wards on them. Between here and there are my brother the engineering student, his girlfriend the cheerleader, our old hometown of Eugene, and my mom’s family in San Fran; my brother and the dog wait for them at home.

This is an echo of that pang, perhaps, that parents describe when viscerally realising that their children are changing and growing older, that what is precious cannot stay. My parents gave me the gift of a loving childhood, and with it I carry the knowledge that my life continues with the memory of that gift, the constant awareness of separation, and the responsibility of transmitting that love to others.

Love makes my world go round, oh yes it does, for the alternative is a life broken and lost. I am sparing and gruff with my liking, but my love—my love is endless and bountiful, untamed and unbroken. My parents have come and left, and someday they will leave me forever. They brought me into who I am, and now they have left me to the task of being that person.