Woe is Me, or Third Trimester Extreme Crankiness

It's not fair: being enormously pregnant, uncomfortable in any position, stressed out and nervous about impending parenthood, AND having a head cold. It's just so totally not fair. It's been a while--years perhaps--since I've whined to my mom, had her tell me, "Well, honey, life's not fair," and felt utterly outraged at her complete lack of sympathy/unhelpful statement of truth. You know that feeling, don't you? It sucks, especially when you're hearing it amid stuffed-up sniffles, watery eyes, and a huge, distended belly!

It's not fair!

2001: A Space Odyssey

I learned something very strange about my husband tonight. I'm not sure whether to be impressed or concerned. Flipping around the channels, he saw that 2001: A Space Odyssey was on and commented that his dad took him to see it when he was around 8 years old, and that it "blew his mind." I noted that I'd never been able to sit through the movie without falling asleep, but that I'd enjoyed the book. So here we are, watching the movie, which is just as slow, silent, and, yes, weird as I remember it being any of those many times I have tried to watch it. I mean, it has an intermission built into it, where the bloody screen goes black. ("But there's cool space music," my husband protests.) Then there's the weird psychedelic screensaver-style interlude near the end. ("I didn't like this part so much," he admits, "but it gets cool again pretty soon.") And then the weird baby in the closing scene?! ("It's a space baby!" says Nick, as if that just explains everything.)

All this time, what's going through my head is...

Your dad took you, a (from all accounts) intensely hyperactive child, to see this movie in a theater?

And you enjoyed it?

I mean, I always knew my husband was special. But I didn't know he was that kind of special.

P.S. I made it to the credits, which leads me to one conclusion. If you're having trouble sitting through this incredibly weird and dull movie, I've discovered the secret: liveblog it!

Perspiration

I haven't had that much to write about lately, and this is weird considering the massive changes that are about to take place in my life. I haven't felt inspired to write, so in honor of...was it...Benjamin Franklin? ("Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." Note to self: Fact check later--worrying about the proper source and exact verbiage of your quote is just a form of procrastination!)...I'm writing anyway.

I'm feeling totally attached to work lately, and I think this is because I'm going to be forced to take a couple months off soon. Whenever I used to imagine myself getting ready for maternity leave, I always thought I'd relish the societally- and governmentally-approved excuse for time off work. Now here I am a couple weeks away--technically, I could leave now but obviously I'm not quite psychologically prepared for that--and I'm feeling like the pregnant dr. on Grey's Anatomy who, as they're wheeling her out of work in a chair because of her pre-term labor, is giving orders and telling people she'll be back before they know it so they'd better behave.

It's a nice thing, to love one's job and have it feed a personal passion. Lately, especially, my job has completely felt right, and I've been getting all kinds of opportunities to express my creativity and do the things I'm really good at. I don't think it's just because I know it's short-term; rather, I think it's part of the ups and downs of life. Everything changes, and over the past year or 18 months, my job changed into something I really, really enjoy and feel passionate about (as opposed to before, when my job was something I could rationally understand as "great" but didn't always necessarily feel it). Lately, I've truly understood the meaning of doing something where your salary sorta just feels like a bonus.

And now, another change is on the horizon. When I stop to think about it, well, it just makes me sweat. But I'm going to take it from Ben Franklin that that's actually a good thing.

San Francisco politics can make you giggle...

(...if written about by the right person.)

I love SFist, and not just because they occasionally link to me... No, I love them because of stuff like this, which happens to be the funniest and most scarily-accurate-despite-its-apparent-tongue-in-cheek-tone assessment of this city's politics I've ever seen!

Cool dry cleaners

Nick's work has this dry cleaning service that picks up and delivers from the office, which is great for when he needs stuff laundered. Unfortunately, this means we have an excess of wire hangers that just pile up. Luckily, I found a dry cleaners in the Mission, Biltmore Laundry on Valencia Street, that reuses old hangers. I dropped a bunch off today. Pretty cool! I know dry cleaners have their own negative impact on the environment, but since so many people use them, it's nice that one of them is at least trying to reduce and reuse...

While I'm at it, though, I'll mention a few facts I found on the Environmental Protection Agency's web site about dry cleaners:

Dry cleaners are the single largest users of Perchloroethylene (PCE or perc). Perc is an organic solvent of known human toxicity and is a precursor to ground level ozone (smog). Exposure to perchloroethylene can occur in the workplace or in the environment following releases to air, water, land, or groundwater. PERC enters the body when breathed in with contaminated air or when consumed with contaminated food or water. PERC is less likely to be absorbed through skin contact. Once in the body PERC can remain, stored in fat tissue.

Perchloroethylene evaporates when exposed to air. It dissolves only slightly when mixed with water. Most direct releases of PERC to the environment are to air. It also evaporates from water and soil exposed to air. Once in air, PERC breaks down to other chemicals over several weeks. Because it is a liquid that does not bind well to soil, PERC that makes its way into the ground can move through the ground and enter groundwater. Plants and animals living in environments contaminated with PERC can store small amounts of the chemical. Although most dry cleaners use less than 140 gallons of perc a year, there are an estimated 25,000 to 35,000 dry cleaning facilities nationwide. Therefore, the cumulative environmental impact from these numerous facilities is significant.

Anyway, I'm not sure I can stop the world (or even my husband) from using dry cleaners, but at least I can bring my old wire hangers to a place where they'll be reused rather than ending up in some landfill somewhere...

BlogHer Highlights

I attended ground zero for women bloggers this weekend, where I met a ton of interesting ladies (and few guys) and learned a bunch of things about blogging and connecting with people online. The best part was probably the closing keynote in which Arianna Huffington spoke about "fearlessness," the theme from her upcoming book. I've only really heard her talk about politics before, so it was really cool and refreshing to learn more about her personal development. I also enjoyed meeting lots of people...unfortunately I've had hardly any time to read all the blogs on my list. (I think I have a list of about 30 URLs I want to check out!) But I'm really looking forward to updating my blogroll with all these sites written by very interesting and friendly people I met. I also enjoyed the panels, where I learned that many other bloggers have encountered similar challenges in their online writing. Plus, the Flickr meetup was cool! I'm inspired to write more, redesign my site, take more photos, leave more comments, link a lot more, and generally be more fearless, especially when it comes to my life online.