Babies

Today I was determined to take the amount of zen I have been able to muster from sunny days, white beaches, and plenty of vacation self-help reading and make it last all day.

This was successful until the point where a man carrying a baby who obviously has lost the artful skill of actually looking both ways before crossing the street stepped right in front of my car, forcing me to slam on the brakes and swerve, which then caused the car in the incoming lane to have to slam on the brakes and swerve to avoid hitting me.

Needless to say, we were both pissed but ready to move on our way.

But no, the dad, a white dude dressed up in duds from Peru, had to yell at us something like "I've got a BABY here!".

Oh dear lord. While we both shot him the bird in unison for almost killing us because he lacks basic street-crossing skills, I leaned out the window and said "Fuck your stupid baby, and fuck you, asshole!" And then sped off to see him also flipping me off in front of his kid. Obviously, everyone was at their classiest.

But seriously, fuck parents who think that babies get them a free pass for forgetting the rest of us need to get about our daily lives. From taking up entire grocery aisles to being the first to get on a plane, I've had enough of the "baby pass" for just covering the fact that you are an idiot.

In the old days they used to sterilize retarded people because even they could figure out how to procreate. Babies do not make you smart or better.

Anyway, it reminded me of a post I blogged a long time ago when I had another blog, which was the product of receiving one too many baby mass e-mails from people I had not spoken to in years, who cared nothing about my life, and generally just irritated me to no end.

Here's my little rerun. Enjoy!

Babies

I realized recently that I don't really like babies.

I think part of this is that everyone (my friends, my family, society in general) keeps telling me that I have to like them, which is a disastrous formula for me because I never like being told that I have to do or like anything. In fact, it really makes me hate the thing I'm supposed to like. Sort of like people pushing Obama on me. Yes, I'm going to vote for him eventually, but I'm not going to do it because you told me to. Sheesh. And please stop handing your babies to me. Law school has atrohied my arm muscles and babies are friggin' heacy. I only feel like I'm going to drop them, and one day out of resentment I might actually do it.

I think another part of it is I just don't see the big deal. So, you had sex. It takes no great talent to do that (unless you're talking about doing it well, which in my case the talent borders on phenomenal). People have sex all the time. Most of it is meaningless. Ergo, babies are often the product of meaningless transactions which is not really a great start for any living creature. Abortions are more meaningful and premeditated on the transactional scale and I think we should have more of them.

Then you have those people who "plan." I actually like this sort better. People who "plan" tend to have things better organized so they aren't surprised by babies doing things like giggling, picking their noses, making undecipherable sounds, and all the other nonsense that largely comprises mass emails to every person who was unlucky enough to give you their email address about eight years ago and in whose life you only take only enough interest to be able to justify foistering your baby news upon them -- without of course taking into account that they've been getting about a dozen other emails like this every year and they are going straight into the "spam" box.

Planners have already spent so much time discussing every detail of their baby's life (from when the baby should start feeding itself solid food to its class rank in medical school) that they're frankly too worn out to really discuss it with strangers. Of course, the mental anguish suffered by planned children whose parents have (often unrealistic) expectations can at times be overwhelming, but I'm willing to risk that just to spare me the annoyance of baby talk.

And what is this about reporting every single thing your baby does? Besides, all your baby's physical and speech prove is that they're not handicapped. Actually, it doesn't even prove that. But if it does, I guess I should say "congratulations." Or maybe not, because that just makes the handicapped babies feel bad.

Frankly, I think dogs are a better investment for several reasons.

1. Dogs are fairly easy to toilet train. Babies on the other hand (who supposedly have brains that are five times bigger and as complex as a dolphin) continue shitting themselves on a regular basis for quite some time. Sometimes (according to Freud) just for the pure gratification of doing so. There is obviously something wrong with that.

2. Dogs are smarter than babies. Proof: when a dog sleeps with you in your bed and you roll around, the dog knows how to get out of the way in order to avoid being smothered.

3. Dogs die kind of early. You don't have to deal with all the teenage years. And you don't have to expect other people to deal with your teenagers. Nota bene, we don't like them.

4. Dogs love you unconditionally. Babies only really like them if you feed them. Take the food away and the baby is pissed. Where's the gratitude for all that pain it took to bring them into the world?

Speaking of which, I'm sick of hearing about that as well. American (and most of the Western world for that matter) birthing is a relatively painless, convenient, and efficient process. You go in the hospital, get a load of painkillers that would make a terminal cancer patient envious, and your doctor -- who doesn't bother to make you push because he's got a golf game to get to --simply slices, dices, and then the nurses apply several instruments (resembling the electroshock therapy popularized in asylums in the 1950s) to make sure your baby survives regardless of how bad your were eating, how much liquour you consumed, and how much crack you were smoking while that thing was growing inside you. I mean, why take responsibility for your baby's health when everyone else can just do it for you?

People have babies in fields, in huts, and without even the benefit of boiled water. Get over your martyrization already.

That brings me to my final point. Breast-pumping. I think "breast-pumping" is really just an excuse to make all of your co-workers work that much harder while you take 3 fifty minute breaks in addition to your lunch. Listen up, we did not decide to have a baby, you did. And frankly after having to hear about your baby about a thousand times a day, it's expecting a bit too much for us to do your work for you as well.

Of course, I have friends whose babies are wonderful or cute and totally undeserving of this diatribe against babydom.

Or so they keep telling me.

Love

I do not fall in love like the ordinary person. It's taken me a long time to accept this. While my friends have found people that make them glow, or that they are gradually starting to resemble (I believe from the large exchange of DNA that love elicits), my approach has been like a swordfish -- fighting every step of the way while being reeled in, and then, when finally in the boat, feeling slowly suffocated and getting ready to either a) leap out of the boat again or b) stab my captor in the eye.

Thus, I've sat through many fairy tale weddings, looking on with some perplexity as my friends said the lines that were (in theory, anyway) supposed to give themselves to the other person forever. And vice versa. And I have to admit, although the thought of trying on wedding gowns amuses me, and a sparkle on my left hand might be nice, I must eventually face reality: that I would immediately spill wine all over the dress, and the ring would make me an even larger target for the mugging that will eventually take place to break me into being a New Orleanian.

There was a boy I thought that I once very much wanted to have those things with. But he wanted to have them in Canada, and thus I found a much more suitable boy who understands that it is ridiculous to want to live anywhere where it is under 50 degrees more than two months out of the year. And I love him instead.

But this love is different. I've fought it off, the best I could. I questioned, interrogated, accused, put his TV out on my porch overnight and a variety of other irrational behaviors that I can only explain by my lame swordfish metaphor. I was fighting for my life, I suppose.

But lately, the boat hasn't been so bad, and maybe I'll think about it long and hard should I ever consider jumping.

And for me, that's about as good as love gets.

Work

I'm sure work is going swimmingly. I can only to venture to guess since I seem to have checked out mentally and only come back to life at the end of the day to read over something that someone of incredible genius authored and then conveniently stuck my name at the top so I get to hand it in, and log my hours, and go home and molt the last of two pairs of pants I can manage to squeeze into and crawl under the covers of my bed.

Winter and I do not get along. Looking at me, you'd find yourself in the presence of a (slightly chubby version) of a Nordic princess, but I think all the cold-loving genes ended up getting lost in some Viking's mattress. I hate cold.

But back to work. One of the hardest parts about being a lawyer is that you tend to be very neurotic and paranoid. Which makes working with other lawyers difficult because you know that in the same way that you are overanalyzing (and occasionally silently mocking) them, they are doing the same thing to you. This makes social situations with lawyers incredibly uncomfortable for me. Plus, we all tend to talk over each, and it's just rude, and I don't know why I keep doing it.

I think my attitude toward work is that it involves money, and unfortunately what many bright-eyed law students don't understand is that it's not that you WANT the money, you actually do NEED it. Yes, I could live without a nice car or my own condo, and actually pay my student loans off faster, but I've done the calculations and considering all the consolidations and graduated repayment plans, it's very likely Citibank will be digging up my body in 2051 up in a last-ditch effort to find some jewelry on my person with which to satisfy the remaining interest.

That would be the euphemism of the century for a first date:

Girl: So what do you do?

Boy: Oh, um I rob graves for Citibank...er, collect student loan debts from estates.

My life insurance policy (again generously granted by my employer) has been securely lodged in my sister's name, but I admit that I occasionally have fantasies of faking my own death and finding some way to collect, perhaps paying sis with a generous wiring fee. The problem is, of course, escaping the Citibanks, the Chases, the Wells Fargos and those greedy people over at the Banana Republic who keep giving me points. There has got to be a rock solid way to keep those proceeds out of their undeserving hands, and goddammit, I refuse to leave a place with a very large law library until I find the answer.

Money. Oddly enough, in the last year I've had more than I've ever had, and yet it's all I think about. It is giving me numerous grey hairs that I am still to cheap to fix. Oh my. Money.

About five years ago I lived in a loft apartment in Staromestske, smack in the center of beautiful downtown Prague. The place was 350 square feet, counting our rooftop patio. If friends came over to watch a movie, we all had to pile into bed together, which was somewhat sordid, but acceptable to twenty-something behemians. I lived there with my boyfriend and a dog. It was on the top floor of a five story building. There was no elevator. Each night, the wall right next to my bed would throb with vibrations from the night club in the basement. I wore earplugs so much, that I stopped being able to stand even ordinary noises as being too loud.

Oh, and I was totally broke. But happy. I ate cabbage soup for a month straight. But I didn't owe any money to anyone AND I was skinny.

All that to point out that sometimes things don't fall out the way you thought they would when you have to live on the bank's dime. Because it starts getting too easy. Then you find that instead of enjoying your work for its many challenges, as you did in the past, you start simply to see it as the means to an end.

That is why I don't really know what goes on between 9 and 7pm when I finally leave. I've blanked out like Amanda Knox on haschisch, except I have better skin and haven't fingered my boss for murder (yet). I need to start enjoying my life again. All of it. Even the part that pays my bills, and be goddamn grateful that I can.

(last three sentences to be read to self in mirror each morning while straddling a heater in an effort to find a will to live, or at least go outside)