march 17

I could get behind a plan (and a lot of baby stuff)

I may not be built for birthing babies. Or gestating them at least.

I'm short. 5'3". But my torso is really short; I'm really all legs. My ribs are only one inch from my hip bones.

Take a little test. Measure the space between *your* ribs and hips. I bet there's about 3-6 inches.

I am a mutant.

Because of this lack of belly space, I am showing. Even my mother, who is usually blasé about everything, said, "I can't believe you're this big already."

I'm not having twins. We've seen the ultrasound. I suppose there is a small chance that there was one other baby "hiding," but that's unlikely.

I just have no room for this kid.

My stomach is already squished. I take 4 bites of food and I'm so stuffed I feel like I'm going to hurl. I'm trying to drink enough water, but that's the most filling of all and I'm in a constant state of near-gag. It's a lovely state.

I'm nearly 12 weeks, not even out of the first trimester. These are symptoms I hear from people 8 and 9 months along.

I'm getting very scared.

I know our bodies are amazing and incredibly adaptable and that, most likely, no harm will come to the baby. For that, I am very grateful. But I think I'm going to be one bitchy chick for the next 6 months.

****

Now for some good news.

We heard the heartbeat last week. I was so relieved I couldn't do anything but cry. Of course, since I wasn't puking like I had been, I'd convinced myself that the baby had died. And, of course, the following day I wretched two bowls of corn flakes into the kitchen sink. The smile on A*'s face when we heard that woosh woosh woosh (at 150 beats a minute) was absolutely priceless.

Then! I've been feeling the flutters. Not all day, and they're really faint, like a mild muscle spasm. But they're there. Saturday morning, while we were laying in bed, I could fill the little pokes. I grabbed A*'s hand and pressed it to my belly. He could feel it, too. It was an amazing moment.

****

Soon, my office will move. Hopefully. I've paid my lawyer ridiculous amounts of money to point out the stupid mistakes in the lease contract but these people don't seem capable of understanding the term "contradiction." When you say one thing in one clause and then a totally different thing five pages later, that's not right. It needs to be fixed. They seemed to think you can fix these things by putting the words in bold.

Whatever.

***

So. War.

For the record, I am not totally against removing Saddam Hussein by force. He is a murderous, terrorizing, horrendous man, the stuff that your worst nightmares are made of.

What I'm against is going it virtually alone and then claim that we can rebuild this country on our own. There's no guarantee any other country is going to help out. Especially since we've just sent them all a big Fuck You.

I don't believe that a US controlled Iraq will work, for the Iraqi people, for their neighbors, for the US allies. I believe this is both a personal/religious crusade on GW's part, and a business opprotunity for Cheney's corporate buddies. No matter how "peaceful" our president claims we are, we are hated there and they will not likely willingly comply with our ideas of how they should live. Even if just on principle. Can you blame them?

And, no matter what we promise, we will fail them. Just like we've failed Afghanistan. Did you know child hunger has *increased* since we "liberated" that country from the Taliban? (See the Sunday NYT, about two weeks ago.) There is no liberated Afghanistan. We only have a weak handle on Kabul and the rest of the country is controlled by warlords. Not much has really changed.

I have no problem getting rid of Saddam. And I accept that in order to remove a dictator like him that innocents will die. What I object to is the innocents that will die because we've completely ripped apart their country and it's thrown into chaos and we don't have a real plan for putting it back together.

Really, Iraq has been in this wretched state for 12 years, thanks to sanctions. We'll just accelerate the death toll.

I was a student anti-war organizer during the Gulf War. I orchestrated an all city high school walkout. I mc'd weekly demonstrations in our downtown square. Looking back, I'm not sure I would do the same today. The reasons to attack Iraq then were clearer and more justifiable; they'd invaded Kuwait. Now, looking back, I think it actually made sense. In the short run.

But what I've never agreed with are the sanctions. Did anyone really believe that the Iraqi people would rise up against Saddam? Please. Did the Cubans?

I haven't marched this time around because, like I said, I'm not totally opposed to the war. I hate the thought of the violence, but I'm not such a naive ninny to think that peace and love will solve all the world's problems.

If I did march, my sign would say "WHERE'S THE PLAN??" I need a plan that's based in reality, not ego, not greed, not force. I can always get behind a fair, well-reasoned plan.

I hope Saddam is swiftly overthrown with as little bloodshed as possible. I pray that we can find a way, with an international coalition, to rebuild Iraq and care for the people who have suffered so much. But I don't have a lot of hope for this.

And that's what I think of this war.

- march 17