The Halfway Mark

What's going on? It's been a strange week.  I find myself really missing Columbus and the family I created there. Missing Pride was hard. Not being physically there for a friend who had a miscarriage was (is) very hard. Feeling between places is strange, and (you got it) hard. I'm not unhappy, just unsettled and unsure of myself right now.

How pregnant are you? 20 weeks. Halfway to 40 weeks. Reeling.

Relate this pregnancy to objects we tend to eat or other daily stuff. Bugbear is now around 6.5" crown to rump, and 9-10" if measured full length. That's the size of a cantaloupe, or, if you're the pregnancy for men site that I like, a "nice sized boob." As with "the size of your fist," I'm not entirely sure who decides these things, but the men I've polled have immediately gone "oooohhhhh" when I use this description, making me think that there is in fact a standard measurement of Nice Sized Boob that is close to universal. The things we learn...

Tell me some random stuff about the Bugbear. Bugbear's main activity from now until s/he is born is growth. Systems are pretty much developed, though some weeks will be important for particular systems. Bugbear now has both dermal and epidermal skin layers, meaning that fingerprints and pads of toes and feet are not only started, but really present now. If Bugbear is a girl, her uterus is fully formed, and external genitals are forming, and if Bugbear is a boy, his testes are starting their descent. Regardless of sex, s/he has probably discovered a favorite sleeping position that s/he will likely continue once born, and is also sleeping about as much (and possibly on the same schedule) as s/he will when s/he is a newborn. That's freaking weird to me. On the upside, s/he seems most active between 8:30am and 10am, for an hour or two in the afternoon, and then for a few hours mid-late evening, so to me that's a much better hope than a tiny morning person.

What are you doing with/for Bugbear that's new?  I'm still waiting, anxiously, for Michael to be able to feel kicks/punches/headbutts. Especially since he's open about wishing he could be pregnant and experiencing all this, it feels strangely selfish to be the only one knowing what Bugbear is doing and where within my womb s/he is. (Sidenote: even for the sake of alliteration, I cannot use the word "womb" without snickering. It's just not my style. But at least I've tried.) Depending on whether activity means that s/he loves or hates something, s/he has strong reactions to 7Up, bubble baths, extended meditation, bacon, and having a computer resting on my stomach. We're still "playing" the if I poke him/her, s/he moves, and then kicks, so I poke back, but it's not so much new.

We also met with a doula yesterday, and she was fabulous. We won't make any decisions until we've met two other women who might be the ones to help us through our birthing experience, but we feel really good about having so many options for who and what we want for birth.





Tell me how you feel physically. Still bigger. I'm guessing this will be a theme for a while, especially since the next 4 months are all about growth. I need to take a picture. I don't want to wind up with nothing because of vanity...but I feel like a truck (yes, already).  Maybe I'll make taking that picture, even if I don't post it, my goal for the day.

I've only had a few baby migraines this week, which is truly lovely. I've also had frequent sciatic pain, which is the opposite of lovely. Nothing at all is pleasant about this, and though I hope acupuncture will continue to help, I'm also hoping that it will help noticeably, soon, and NOW.
 
What are you craving? Nothing in particular, and everything. Water and juice are delicious, but that seems to have more to do with my constant thirst than actual taste. Bugbear's amniotic fluid gets completely replaced every three hours from here on out, so I get the feeling I'm going to continue loving the fluids for quite a while.

Are you crazy emotional?  Yes and no. I think I'm more tired than emotional this week. Second tri energy seems to be something that comes and goes at random, if not a complete myth. I'm both frustrated that I'm not working outside the home because it makes me feel so ineffectual and draining, and also grateful that I'm not working outside the home because I am so randomly exhausted that I don't know that I could function.

Tell me how you feel otherwise. Okay. Unremarkable. Torn between elated and terrified. Completely overwhelmed. Happy. Sad. Frightened out of my frigging mind. In another 4 weeks, we'll hit viability day, when Bugbear could be born into a high-level NICU and survive to be a healthy child. That's huge. It's also terrifying. According to my pregnancy journal, Bugbear is likely to be born 135-159 days after I first felt him/her move, which means 38-8 days early (though I know that I felt movement REALLY early for a first time pregnancy, and I wonder how that impacts this sort of prediction). While I have no desire to go past term and have to look at induction options, I also find myself strangely sad at the thought of Bugbear being "an outside baby," one who demands things in completely different ways than s/he currently does, whose needs and abilities and existence is radically different than what I now know. And yet that's inevitable. It's what this whole thing is leading up to, and that's both comforting and terrifying at the same time.

An Open Letter to Bugbear

Dearest Bugbear,

We're getting excited for your existence. We met with a fabulous doula today, and we're having fun trying to figure out what you look like and what you're working on in there.

But when you punch me in the ute while I'm balancing on one leg, nobody wins. It's right up there with waking me up an hour before I need to be awake.

I know we've talked about how very excited I am to have Michael finally feel you move, but it only works if he's home and you give us more to work with than one sneaky little ninja kick before going back to whatever it is that you do most of the day.

With love,
Your Host (who can't yet refer to herself as "mom" without feeling weird)

Slow yoga and slowing down

I tried a new yoga dvd today (blessed be netflix).

It was...insightful.

I'm usually a vinyasa kinda girl.
I like the movement, the connection. It calms me because it forces me to be calm. I can either stay in warrior iii, or I can start thinking and fall over milliseconds after my brain starts yelping. I can either keep up, go with the in-out flow of the poses, or I can let my mind get the better of me and then wind up going "wait, what? Crap, I missed something." There's a challenge to not only being in the moment, but keeping up with the moment I'm supposed to be in, and not only being in that moment, but being my body in that moment, not just thinking about downward dog, but what my body is doing in downward dog and what I can do to improve it.

Bugbear has changed that. No more full locks, no more ab work, no more laying on my stomach or back, no arm balances or working toward standing on my head. No more lots of things. Lots of cat/cow, lots of warrior ii, lots of modified push ups, and lots and lots and lots of child's pose.

I had a party in my head when I found Jennifer Wolfe's Prenatal Vinyasa yoga. I loved it. I still love it. But I have trouble committing to things. I like options, to see what else is out there. So my netflix queue still has various "huh, I should try that" prenatal yoga dvds on it. Yoga for Pregnancy, Labor, and Birth showed up in the mail today.  When the warnings included "watch this dvd in its entirety once before working along with it" I went "oooooh!!" because I thought that meant "challenge." It did, but not the sort of challenge I expected.

This one is slow. Three full breaths here, five full breaths there. Child's pose in between. S.l.o.w. And that means more time in my head. In non-threatening, can't fall over, not horribly challenging, poses. I got twitchy. Drop your spine, tuck your tail, freak out about whether your dissertation adviser dropped you and you somehow never got the email, and hold for three full counts. Widen your knees, trust your breath, wonder exactly how you're going to pay the bills for Bugbear's birth, and hold.

Probably not what the instructor had in mind. But I realized it. I worked to change it. And somewhere in the middle of the 746th breath in child's pose, things shifted in my head, too. I was just there. And only there. And it was lovely. I had a dream last night that transferred from frenetic, nearly quest-like into a moment of sheer rapture, caught up in simply being in the moment, one of those rare times of complete community and utter praise. The sort of thing I imagine that fundamentalists might feel during hand-raising worship, or entranced mystics experienced and managed to write about. So hard to put into words, but it's stuck with me all day as a reminder that I am not in this alone, that there has to be some sort of reason for all this, and that I need to change the way I go about my days. And the slow yoga dvd was a moment where I realized exactly how much I need to change.

Not working outside the home has been really difficult on me. I struggle to value myself as an individual and a partner. I fill my time with to-do lists, phone calls, chores and activities. I make myself busy so that I have to stay with the flow lest I miss something, so that I don't have time to think. And in that process, I've lost my ability to center myself in the storm and work through the many difficult questions that still remain. And I need to regain that. I need to re-learn how to be myself in downward dog in that moment and not drift away. I need to be able to slow down in a more complete way so that I have the energy I need to do things and think about things without a heartbeat that sounds like a hummingbird. I need to take from all this the ability to just be.

So as much as I want to put it in its pretty red envelope and send it on its way, Yoga for Pregnancy...is hanging around for the week. I have things I need to learn from it, even if they are lessons I've been fighting for the better part of 3 decades and don't like very much.

How do you slow down? What would you recommend?

Almost Halfway There...

What's going on? A whole lot of nothing. This is one of those weeks that seems forever long, but not because of any particular thing. It's just a lot of day-to-day stuff. On the upside, we have plans to meet up with friends and their new baby on Friday, so that's something to look forward to!

How pregnant are you? 19 weeks today. Nearly halfway there...and that's just weird.

Relate this pregnancy to objects we tend to eat or other daily stuff. Bugbear is now probably around 6" long and weighs 7-8oz. That's roughly the size of a softball or a mango, and is described by the oh-so-fabulous What to Expect as looking "like a mango dipped in cheese" (no word on whether we're talking scary orange cheese, brie, or stilton here). Talk about things that help you bond with it before birth...who doesn't want a mango dipped in cheese hanging out in her internal organs?

Tell me some random stuff about the Bugbear. In addition to looking like a cheese mango because of his/her thorough vernix covering, Bugbear is developing brown fat to help him/her keep warm. Being born in November in Chicago means that I hope s/he will have plenty of it! S/he's also working on coordination and practicing voluntary movement this week. The neurons and myelin that were getting developed last week now let him/her try coordinated action, since his/her nervous system is all set up. S/he has not only gums, but the tooth buds that will become baby teeth, and this week the tooth buds that will become adult teeth are developing.

What are you doing with/for Bugbear that's new?  We took out a Build-a-Bear this week and practiced putting diapers on it. And by that, I mean "Krista took out a Build-a-Bear this week to practice putting diapers on it, and Mike shook it at random and tried to steal it so that Krista could get accustomed to erratic movement and a lack of help and stillness from the naked wriggly thing." That lasted about 10 seconds. Then I decided I'd rather sleep.

I'm also feeling enough movement that I'm able to tell where Bugbear is, and differentiate between ripply rolling sensations and more punctuated jabs. Rolling is still far more common, but I do think I've been headbutted at least once. But if I figure out where Bugbear is, and push on that side of my torso, s/he will move to the other side and kick there. In all honesty, the whole movement thing still squicks me out. It's just plain weird to have a little thing moving around inside at random. I've never eaten a live goldfish, but I imagine that it would be a similar feeling, and that's just odd. I do look forward to Michael being able to feel movement from the outside, though. That's going to be fabulous.



Tell me how you feel physically. Bigger, more solid somehow. The Bump has moved up visibly, which makes me feel more pregnant. It also makes me feel huge, and so while I want a picture, I also don't. I learned that while Bugbear probably weighs 6-7 oz right now, I'm also schlepping 6 oz of placenta, 11 oz of amniotic fluid, 11 oz of uterus, and 13 oz of boob. And while I'm sure it's nothing compared to the watermelon's worth of baby I'll be lugging come November, it's still a lot more than I'm accustomed to having hang out in my front.


As a HUGE plus, acupuncture seems to have worked miracles on my first treatment. I've gone SEVEN days without a migraine. SEVEN! It's FABULOUS! I'm still getting some sciatic pain, but it's not as constant, and I don't lock up as often, both of which are very nice.



What are you craving? Nothing. I'm at a point where I'm just tired of eating all the time.

Are you crazy emotional?  Yes and no. How's that for a clear and helpful answer? I'm still crying all.the.time, which makes me concerned, but I'm also trying to weigh that against the tremendous amounts of stress and uncertainty that categorize my life right now. I'm also really struggling with not working outside the home, and feeling like dead weight in our partnership rather than a co-provider. Feminism meets capitalist valuing of self, ugliness ensues.

Tell me how you feel otherwise. Intimidated, honestly, by the fact that 19 weeks from now, we could take home a healthy baby. 21 weeks and s/he'd be full term. 23 weeks and s/he'll be evicted. This is so not at all what I thought I'd be doing, or dealing with, at this point in my life. I love the ways that Michael and I have grown closer as a couple and as a team, and the confidence and skill we've found in each other. But there's still something huge and uncertain and way bigger than I can even begin to wrap my head around about the thought that in four-ish months I'll be a parent.

BugBear mama

Greetings, earthlings,

I do not have a whole lot to add to today's discussion, other than to merely remark that BugBear's mama is hilarious. While I was apparently in the same room with her while we were watching Ghostbusters, I totally did not pick up on the fact that she was hardcore Jonesing for some s'mores.

In other news, the Michau and Colbert families are on vacation this week in way northern Wisconsin, so Krista and I are tending to their dog, Sophie, and watching their fancy pants cable TV from time to time. I realized this morning that I "still got it" (in terms of physical strength and energy) while mowing my family's lawn. I can't tell you how many times that I've cut the grass at that house. To paraphrase Steve Martin's character from the otherwise lackluster film, My Blue Heaven, it's good to know that one still has the ability to amaze one's self.

Peace. Shalom. Baraka.

Oh Yum.

Do you remember Damn Yankees?

Well, right now, whatever Bugbear wants, Bugbear gets.

Tonight, after watching Ghostbusters and seeing a jar of Nutella in the cabinet, Bugbear wanted a smore. A smore made with Nutella and jumbo marshmallows.

Fortunately for this non-camper, we have a gas stove, and turning forks with heat-resistant handles, so I didn't have to find a stick and sharpen it or anything.

And oh did I give in.

And oh did Bugbear win.

But really, I won too.  Especially my mouth.

Weekly Update

What's going on? We found an apartment! Not only did we find an apartment, we found an apartment that will be great for us in terms of location, space, and affordability! The lease is signed and will be faxed tomorrow. This is a HUGE weight off our shoulders. Other than that, it's pretty much life as usual.

How pregnant are you? 18 weeks. I am beginning to really understand why people say that second tri is slooooooow. If you're a visual learner, I am this pregnant:

This is what seven pounds of weight gain looks like when it's because you're growing a Bugbear. It still sort of looks like a spare tire to me. But at least it's not all over fluff.

Relate this pregnancy to objects we tend to eat or other daily stuff. Bugbear is "the size of a small electric shaver," a sweet potato, or a deli pickle. My ute is the size of a cantaloupe, which explains my bulging belly. If you're a numbers person, s/he is between 5 and 5.5 inches long, and weighs between 5.25 and 6.5oz.

Tell me some random stuff about the Bugbear. While Bugbear's rapid growth is technically slowing down, s/he is still growing. This week, s/he's putting on more fat, developing myelin in his/her little brain, and practicing movement, yawning, and hiccuping. S/he is also beginning to store material in his/her colon for the first poopy diaper. I call 'not it' on changing that one! His/her bones are ossified enough that the little skeleton would be visible via ultrasound, and wee little ears are completely in place and sticking out from his/her head.

What are you doing with/for Bugbear that's new?  Michael and I are trying to take walks together in addition to my own workout schedule, so that's some motion that it supposedly likes. And Michael is reading to Bugbear at night as well, which is amazingly adorable. Sometimes the nighttime stories are cute; sometimes he bores us both to sleep with Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

Tell me how you feel physically. Right now, tired. My alarm woke me from a dream this morning, so I've had that odd grogginess going on for a while. Overall, not bad. Other than a relatively benign migraine last night, I've gone three days without one, and that's very nice. And I'm finding ways to heave myself into a standing position without locking up my left leg or getting those shooting evil tingles, which is a very useful skill.

What are you craving? Seafood. I want fish, eaten with some sort of pasta and sauce on a deck near a river with a glass of cold dry white wine. Or cold but not icy shrimp with spicy cocktail sauce. Or even a mouthful of seawater with an accidental minnow in it.

Okay, prolly not that last one. But tuna salad on crackers just is not cutting it.

I'd also settle for a steak topped with boursin cheese and a big spinach salad.

Are you crazy emotional?  Yes. I swing between tears and rage, but I'm getting better at controlling both of them.

Tell me how you feel otherwise. I feel like I'm in a fairly good place this week. We've done a lot of research into childbirth prep classes, doulas, and other fascinating things, and I like that we know more and are closer to decisions about them. I also like that there are some amazing complimentary medicine centers in Chicago, and I'm excited to have chosen one that I think best fits my needs. I even found one that had a really interesting explanation of migraine causes in non-Western medical terms, which was so accurate to my life and personality that all I could think was the good ole medieval "I can argue no further." So I look forward to hopefully finding some Bugbear-friendly treatments that also help me in the long run.

The Pink Diaper

I bought a pink diaper today. Okay, two. Both for Bugbear.

Not because we know the sex, and not because we’d be announcing it over the internet with gender-normative colors if we did.

But because they were both really good deals on Bububebes, diapers that I’ve heard great things about, but generally run around $30+ shipping if purchased new.  And while we certainly love Bugbear, paying $60 for two diapers that we’re not 100% sure about seemed unreasonable.

So I went to Spots Corner, got lucky, and bought one that’s in good condition with a small hole near the elastic that says it doesn’t impact functionality for $6, and another with bleach stains on the insert for $9.50. Two less than perfect but perfectly functional diapers for less than half the price of one new one? I like that.

But they’re pink!

I thought that too.

But.

There’s nothing wrong with being female. Or femme. Or girly. Or perceived as these things. Regardless of biology. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a woman. Gloria Steinem is credited with saying that we’re beginning to raise our daughters more like sons, but few of us have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters. I think I like that. I think like that. No child should be raised to be meek, cower before authority, or assume s/he is inferior because of his/her body. But I also have to believe that if every child were raised in an atmosphere where caring for others, understanding the ways that different people have different experiences, and having to confront various sorts of questions about what makes people who they are, were all valued, we would have a more colorful, interesting, sensitive and fabulous world.

Who would have thought that would be radical? 

Blogger The Feminist Breeder writes about her family’s commitments to feminism and gender-neutral parenting here, here, here, and here, and you should read all of them.  She is amazing. I kind of idolize her. I’d like to email her and be like “I just moved to Chicago, will you be my friend?” but I blush just writing that here, and that’s one email that’s never getting sent. It’s also not the point.

The point is that until we, committed feminists, ambivalent feminists, feminists who have had to temper their calls for more women in politics because of Sarah Palin, women who don’t identify as feminist but hate inequality and want to change the world…whatever your label of choice, until we stop saying “Girls can wear blue but boys can’t wear pink, because that would be weird,” we are perpetuating the idea that there is something better, more acceptable, and more desirable about being male than there is about being female. 

So if Bugbear is a girl, she will have at least two pink diapers. And if Bugbear is a boy, he will have at least two pink diapers. Much like s/he will have trucks, and dolls, and aprons, and toy hammers, not because those things are “right” or preferable for a particularly sexed child, and not because we like the idea of screwing with people via what we register for, but because those are the things that we want him/her to have as options for play. What s/he chooses is not our choice. But we are committed to not only offering options,  but to reworking the system both from the inside our within our family and also by impacting those who see our choices and question them.

Even so, Bugbear still has way more diapers with blue than pink. I’ve spent my diaper budget for the month, or I would make it my next goal to fix that. Fortunately, we have time.

An open letter.

Dear sciatic nerve pain,

Screw you.

Love,
Krista, the left side of her back, and her ability to walk

Wild (or not) Wednesday Update

What's going on? Not much new, surprisingly.  We're still apartment hunting, still trying to figure out  what our lives will look like in the coming months, and all that. We'll probably never agree on whether Bugbear is a Red Sox fan or a Cubs fan, but if Chicago fever continues, s/he may wind up with a teeny Blackhawks jersey. Full disclosure: I don't actually know what such a thing would be called, but "jersey" seems like as good a guess as any, and better than "t-shirt" or "cute little mesh top."

How pregnant are you? 17 weeks. 3 weeks from halfway there. I feel like I've been pregnant forever, but by academic markers like semesters, I have been pregnant forever.

Relate this pregnancy to objects we tend to eat or other daily stuff. Bugbear is probably between 4.8 and 5.1 inches this week. That's equivalent to the size of a hockey puck. In woman-speak, s/he is the size of a baked potato, the size of your outstretched hand (and I am still unsure of whose hand we're talking about here), or an onion. S/he is also equal in size to his/her placenta, so I have the equivalent of two baked potatoes hanging out in my ute this week.
 
Tell me some random stuff about the Bugbear. Bugbear is working hard at getting ready to someday hang out with us out here. S/he is developing vernix (goo that protects his/her skin), gaining weight and fat, digesting amniotic fluid for that first diaper, continuing to harden his/her tiny skeleton from cartilage into bone, and is practicing all sorts of movement.  Fingerprints are showing up as the pads on his/her fingers develop, and toe pads are developing too.



What are you doing with/for Bugbear that's new? I bought him/her five books from a discard sale at a library, and I've read one of those out loud to him/her. I'm not totally convinced that it makes a difference, but I do hope that it helps me to bond with Bugbear and feel more connected to him/her. I've also burned a bunch of new CDs for driving. S/he may be doomed to come out singing show tunes, but this way s/he'll have some variety in his/her repertoire.  

Tell me how you feel physically. Somewhere between "fabulous!" and "eff you, pain!"  I'm still having some nasty back pain in my left side, and I have yet to go five days without a migraine, but overall I feel really good. Daily exercise has helped decrease the bloat I was dealing with, so I've even managed to somehow look less large than I was a few weeks ago. The bump is by no means going away, but the lack of fluff around it is much appreciated. If you're a yoga junkie totally uninspired by most prenatal yoga DVDs, then you need Jennifer Wolfe's prenatal vinyasa set. It is utterly fabulous at giving you an actual workout. It hasn't solved my lower back pain yet, but the rest of me is in love. I never thought I would be this excited to break a sweat, but I am.

What are you craving? Lobster (boiled) with butter and soy sauce for dipping, fresh corn on the cob, rolls, and a big green salad. Nothing like being pregnant to make you rational.

Are you crazy emotional?  Absolutely. Monday was the 11th anniversary of my dad's death, and that always makes for difficult times. Between that and a whole lot of outside stress, I have resorted to bananas and electrolyte supplements with loads of water to make up for all that I'm crying. I am 100% certain that hormones are not helping.

Tell me how you feel otherwise. The strawberry-rhubarb crumble I was thinking about last Wednesday did indeed help. It was delicious. I'm tired from so much emotional output, but I'm also increasingly grateful and in love with Michael and the faith and hope he has that "it will all be okay."

Cloth Diapering

Happy weekend!

Yesterday afternoon, Krista and I made a sojourn to a very special store in Orland Park, IL entitled Cutie Poops and Bottoms. It's OK -- I can wait while you finish laughing.... Is it out of your system yet?

While, to the minds of many, the idea of cloth diapering is retrogressive and messy, and that there are (mainly aesthetic) reasons against it, I have learned that cloth diapering is quite modern and -- dare I say it? -- revolutionary. We (and by "we" in this case I mean "I") learned that there are at least four different systems of cloth diapering, and that cloth diapering is environmentally responsible and minimizes the exposure to nasty chemicals that often exist in disposable diapers. As an infant, I was cloth diapered, and I turned out OK...right?

Anyhow, like many things in this "Expecting the Unexpected" journey, I am both excited and nervous about this dimension of parenting. Somewhat similar to our choice of purchasing and driving a Toyota Prius, the choice of cloth diapering is both something that we are doing for our own purposes, and a political statement about our values as parents. It is the latter that I am most proud of: this choice indicated (1) that we have values in common, and (2) we are unafraid of living them out in daily and public life.

While I continue to learn and play catch-up with some of these important life lessons, I am glad to be exploring this option. And I will endeavor to be the parent who potty-trains his child in record time. Look for us in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Woohoo, Wednesday!

What's going on? We're relatively settled in this month's house, and have the important things unpacked. I'm considering a quick run to my mom's this weekend or week, but I'm not entirely sure whether that's going to happen.

How pregnant are you? 16 weeks. AKA 4 months. W.T.F.?

Relate this pregnancy to objects we tend to eat or other daily stuff. Bugbear is around 4.5" this week, roughly the size of an avocado, a large pear, the length of a mascara tube, or a small stud finder.

Tell me some random stuff about the Bugbear. Bugbear is gaining the ability to straighten his/her back a little, and so keeps looking increasingly human. S/he is growing toenails this week, and s/he also has eyelashes. Bugbear is also practicing facial expressions, and if it's a girl, she is now carrying eggs in her minuscule ovaries. His/her eyes are officially at the front of the head and face, but still fused shut. There's the possibility that s/he can hear sounds from outside the womb now since the inner ear bones are formed, and is swimming around in about 7.5oz of amniotic fluid.

Tell me how you feel physically. I'm less tired than I was, though I'm also over the thunderstorms we've been having. Back pain is more common and frequent, though I'm figuring out which yoga poses are most helpful in getting rid of and preventing that.

What are you craving? Still nada. I'm beginning to worry that this will come back with a vengeance later.

Are you crazy emotional?  Yes. I cry. And I'm irritable as all heck; things that would usually bother me now just bug the crap out of me, and I don't seem to have the ability to not react. It's fabulous.

Tell me how you feel otherwise.  I'm feeling better than I was on Sunday. The irritability is distinctly unpleasant and I would like that to go away, but meddling neighbors and general uncertainty aren't going to do much to make that happen. A long bubble bath and a glass of wine might help, but my bath stuff is at my mom's and I can't even decide what sort of wine I want. I have rhubarb and strawberries from the farmer's market today, though, so maybe a crumble will help.