First non-sequitor: I have resolved to make it through this pregnancy with no stretch marks. An ambitious goal, to be sure, but so far so good. Considering that I've gained 5 lbs in the last 17 weeks, I think it's something that could very well be within reason to consider. Besides, I ran a 9-mile race through chest-high freezing water and giant pits of mud just before getting pregnant. I'm hardcore.
I'm not looking forward to taking the driving test over here. I have to, because otherwise I'll soon become an illegal driver, and once I get a full UK licence our insurance will go down, but I've never been fond of driving tests. I'm not bad at them - theory or practical - but it's just never been an experience I can be relaxed about.
To continue in the schizophrenic topic-hopping of this blog post: I've recently staved off boredom by watching a few episodes of a show called Supersize vs Superskinny. Trashy reality TV of the most pedestrian kind. Okay, it's not as trashy as it could be for a reality show about people's crappy eating habits, but the assumptions and stereotypes it plays to are ridiculous. Like how every obese person gets a pep-talk from someone even more grotesquely rotund in the US. I know we may be the fattest nation (whether that's most obese people per capita, highest average BMI, or highest average weight - or some combination of the above - they never specify) but let's not pretend there aren't monstrously huge people in the UK or Australia or Canada or anywhere else. Surely taking a train to Scotland to meet someone frighteningly obese would be much cheaper, and reduce the show's budget compared to constant trans-Atlantic flights. And also, there's WAY more stigma attached to the overweight people than to these stick-skinny borderline anorexic counterparts they get paired up with. Personally, I think both extremes are equally disgusting - though I sympathise more with the overweight people. I think it's easier to get to where they are without having a nearly debilitating complex about being afraid to gain weight or hating yourself or being a picky eater. Plus, I know I don't have a model diet by any means, but sweet Lord, these people have never heard of fruits and vegetables! I've seen starving children in Africa on Christian charity commercials who must have had more nutritious diets than the people on this show.
Speaking of nutritious eating, I give the skeptical side-eye to anyone who insists that gluten is bad for you (unless you have a legit allergy or intolerance) or that our bodies weren't meant to handle cooked and processed food, so raw and vegan is best. Also, purge diets: absolute crap. If you body couldn't flush out all the food from your digestive tract on its own, you'd have a blockage, which would mean surgery. I can't believe I'm backing this up with Grey's Anatomy, but as Chandra Wilson's character said: "blocked bowels become necrotic bowels." If all that crap was really inside of you, you'd have been hospitalised long before now.
The last stop on my hyperactive rant is pretending to be a grown-up. I fully acknowledge and embrace being an adult, but not a grown-up. I'm an adult simply because I'm too old to be a teenager (and I'm more than ready to dissociate with the negative connotations of being a teenager!). But being a grown-up! When does it stop sounding odd (though it feels normal) to be someone's wife? When does it stop feeling weird to be a momma? To say that you have a child (even if that child hasn't been born yet)? When am I too old for birthday money? And how creepy does it feel to think that, in the scheme of things, the days are not far distant when I could have kids who shake their heads at my idea of what is cool? And how vain is it, really, to hope that when I'm 35 I still turn heads when I get all gussied up?
Also, I'm ridiculously pleased with myself that at 17 weeks pregnant I can still lift my foot over my head while standing. Something I couldn't do until I took ballet my senior year of college. That needs to be a skill that I keep up for a long time to come.
My daily assortment of thoughts must seem so strange to anyone who doesn't know me!
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