It’s mama’s birthday today. The first one without her here.

My emotions and focus are all over the map today. I want to cry, and I want to celebrate her, and I want to be grateful her suffering is over and her pain gone, but mostly — like always — I just want to talk to her.

I miss you mama. Happy birthday.

My mother-in-law forwarded this to me. I had to share it. Thanks, Mona.

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for “The Vagina Monologues,” wrote the following about Sarah Palin.

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it’s their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don’t like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists. But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story — connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God’s plan.

She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin’s view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, “It was a task from God.”

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist’s baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God’s name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and health care or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don’t move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, “Drill Drill Drill.” I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008

We are expecting baby #2!

Sprout is set to debut 2/20/09. It is a bittersweet blessing — mom passed away just days before my last cycle, and I wish I could share this with her. I consider this pregnancy a gift from her though, and I know she’s proud of us.

We’re trying to explain to JR that there is going to be another baby in the house, but I’m pretty certain that he doesn’t get it yet. He’ll make a great big brother though. John and I have thought of a few potential names. We’ve taken guesses about the gender, even though it will be at least 2 months before we find out for sure.

It’s been an interesting journey trying to establish prenatal care though. Ok, so I got DH on board to let me do a waterbirth in a birthing center. Woo! This is where I was looking at: http://www.akbirthcenter.org They won’t even consider me though because my first birth was a c-section.

Damn it.

Then the g*(*amn OB/GYN they referred me to is out too because she doesn’t keep office hours on Fridays. I can only go into Fairbanks on Fridays because of John’s work schedule. Then I got really upset because I’ve found out that I can’t labor in water at the hospital where I would be birthing. The hospital closest to me has a godawful uncomfortable bed, a shower stall, a dad’s chair, but that clinic-y sterile feel to it. Plus they didn’t want me to get up and walk around while I was laboring with JR. I felt required to lay prone on my back the whole time. I was not happy. (I think the pre-eclampsia may have contributed to the unhappiness though.)

I called one ob/gyn clinic after another, with more disappointment at every turn. I threatened to stay home and give birth on the bathroom floor. Then that got me thinking of how awesome it would be to have a homebirth. The idea totally and completely excites me, but it scares my husband. I got him to agree to at least let me look into it before he dismisses the notion out of hand. I was starting to look at birthing centers and hospitals further south from us, looking up midwives, looking at birthing tub rentals…

I’ve drawn up a birth plan, delineating the things I want, do not want, and will not allow for this labor and birth. I plan to make all medical staff aware of my hopes and expectations, and I’m really hoping that this next labor/birth goes more smoothly. The pre-eclampsia and 26+ hour labor and eventual c-section with JR are things I’m trying to not repeat. I’m looking into the Brewer Pregnancy Diet to prevent pre-eclampsia this time, since it is believed that it can be fully prevented with proper prenatal nutrition. Look it up.

I finally have an appointment set up with Dr. Peter Lawrason. I had a brief phone interview with him, outlining my hopes and expectations for this labor and birth, and he felt confident that he’d be able to accommodate me. So we’re going to give him a try. We also have our first prental ultrasound next Friday, and if we bring a blank vcr tape or dvd-r, they’ll record a portion of it for us!

I’m also going to interview a doula next week (hopefully, if our schedules work out) as I would love to have a professional labor coach there with me to help me, John, and JR make the transition from a family of three to a family of four. John thinks it would be a good idea too, so I’m hopeful that things work out for this.

I’ve been plagued with horrible morning sickness so far, and this eighth week has been brutal. I can barely keep anything down. However, I remember that this time last pregnancy the eighth and ninth weeks were awful, with some eventual relief around 12 or 13 weeks. So I’m crossing my fingers.

That’s the news! I imagine I’ll show you a picture of Sprout after next week’s ultrasound, so stay tuned!

Last Friday, we took a train ride from Fairbanks to Denali National Park with my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and nephews.

We stayed in a great hotel high up on the side of Sugarloaf Mountain.

Saturday, we took a bus shuttle 30 miles into the park. We got a rare cloudless view of McKinley, and saw some wildlife too. We saw a couple caribou, some moose, some dall sheep, and some bald eagles. I thought a saw a wolf, but couldn’t tell for sure. I had really wanted to see bears, but maybe it’s better we didn’t.

Then we hopped the train back to Fairbanks. It was such a beautiful trip!

JR & Daddy on the train to Denali

JR loved looking out the window on the train.

Mount McKinley

From the Teklanika platform

Male caribou

Twin baby moose

JR checking out the botany at Visitors’ Ctr

The hotel we stayed at

JR, worn out, waiting for our return train at the depot

Both of them, worn out on the train back home

My uncle died yesterday. My cousin’s wife died just days after mom’s funeral. John’s aunt died last week.

I feel surrounded by loss, and kind of like I’m unable to grieve.

I can’t break down in front of JR because it upsets and confuses the poor little guy. I can’t break down with John because he, well, doesn’t know what to do about it when I do which then upsets him. So I feel like I’m stuffing everything.

And I feel a little like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like there must surely be more badness coming, since there’s been so much already.

I was so close to my mama. I’ve talked to her almost every day for… years. Every time the phone rings, I half expect/hope it to be her, but I know better. And I have a thousand worries — did I make her happy? Do I make her proud? Was she scared? Was she in pain? Could I have made it better or easier for her if I had just stayed down there with her? Does she know how much I love her? How much I’ve always loved her?

And I’ll never have answers to these questions. And I’ll never see her laugh again, and how she loved to laugh.

I’ve had some crazy mood swings the last few days, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do about those. I have this sense of emptiness, this aching, this longing. I want my mommy.

And everyone means well. But no one knows what to do for me, even though I just want to be able to cry and rage and laugh and… grieve. Yet I feel this need to… contain… my emotions as much as I can for fear of over-emoting on those around me.

Which just means I feel like I’m close to breaking.

I miss my mama.

I wish I could sleep, like really restful deep sleep.

I’m so glad I never have to have anything to do with my sisters and their drama, ever again.

I’m glad my mama doesn’t have to see how they behave.

I wish my mama could talk to me one more time.

I wish the days ahead of me become easier to go through.

I miss you, mama.

The flu sucks. JR was sick for a while, high fevers included. Badness. John and I got sick too. John got off easier than I did. I’m still longing to breathe clearly. And I’m coughing up fun things that make me so very glad I quit smoking. I can’t wait until I’m completely better.

My first crop of dreads lasted three weeks. Then I desperately wanted to run my fingers through my hair, and was somewhat saddened to find out that my hair was still painfully straight and unbound for the most part. It was very simple to get the knots out, and after a single use of conditioner in the shower, they were gone. The husband was ecstatic. I woke up the next day and missed them terribly. I vowed they would come back. I gave John a weekend without them. I’m sure he was happy about that.

My in-laws came up to visit. They are technically still in state, though I think I may only see them one more afternoon before they fly back to Texas. They chose to stay in Fairbanks, 90 miles away, rather than at a motel in town. Thursday night we were graciously able to stay at their hotel. JR had such grand fun running the halls while MiMi chased him! Saturday, John drove them out to Paxson, and I got an afternoon alone. Yesterday we all had brunch/lunch at Buffalo Diner in town, where JR was having so much fun waving hello and goodbye to the toy train that circled the dining area.

Today, I have asked our landlord’s son to ask her if we can have a dog. And the dishwasher that was promised. I’m hoping for good news in both regards.

I dyed my hair today. Garnier Nutrisse, #43, Cocoa Bean (dark golden brown). It’s not a really noticeable difference from my original shade. And the dreads are back. Slightly bigger, and in need of more tightening/backcombing/waxing tomorrow, but back nonetheless.

JR is begging for hugs right now, so it seems this is all I can update right now.

Ok, so I actually started this ‘do a bit over two weeks ago, so not technically “new” but I’ll stop talking semantics.

I know that some of you will not like what I’ve done. And that some of you may have strong opinions about or against people with this style. However, I’ve wanted to do this since I was about 15. I wanted a personal expression. So I started dreads.

Go ahead, give me all the disparaging remarks you’ve got. You might as well. Because the hair is going to be like this for a while.

Here they are, on day 15!!!