Ten minutes before the funeral, I received a phone call from the university offering me my choice of jobs that I interviewed for. I took the one I wanted and I am grateful for my job. I’ve just had my three month probationary interview and I think that I passed it. I love my job. It’s difficult and challenging and interesting and the days and hours go by quickly. It’s taken a really long time to become comfortable in my job so that’s one of the reasons that I’ve been completely absent from the internet and all of the conversations. I have called anyone or read anyone’s blog or been involved in anything other than my own life in a really long time. Now that I’m comfortable in my job, I fully intended to start blogging again and beefing up mu “interweb presense” as it were. However….

Last Friday, I took a pregancy test in the morning because I was five days late for my period. Two pink line. After I got home from work, I took another pregnancy test (just to be really sure) and there was a crossed line. I was pregant. As you will notice from my use of the past tense, I am no longer pregnant.

Apparently, 50% percent of all conceptions end in miscarriage. That, to me, seems extraordinarily high. Never did I think that I’d end up on the lame side of 50%. Well I did. Lame. As the days go by and the fact of the miscarriage sets end, I don’t seem to be feeling any less sad. It doesn’t matter that this happens to many people, it happened to me and I’m sad. I was barely pregnant but I was just getting to point that I was really excited about the baby and the pregnancy and then it was “expelled from my uterus” as the charming elderly doctor from the clinic phrased it.

No one tells you before you get pregnant that the first thing that you feel upon learning that you are pregnant is that you feel scared. The second thing that you feel is special. That’s right. You feel special. Things are happening to your body that are new and right and different. Your tits ache and your nipples change and you can smell everything. Your nails grow and you feel…special. As hippy-dippy that it sounds, you feel like no one else has felt this wonderful and you know that you are growing something inside of you and its wonderful.

Then I started to spot. Then bleed. Then I cried. I barely had enough time to feel excited about my pregnancy (five weeks) and then it was taken away from me. And I know that it is normal. Many women miscarry. I didn’t want to be one of them. And as much as you want to feel okay about everything and the baby, I was obsessed about losing the baby. Once I started to bleed, I thought that maybe I’d jinked the pregnancy with my bad thoughts and even though I know that I should feel this way, I feel like I am broken.

“Imcompetent uterus” it’s called. Isn’t that awesome. As far as the women’s movement has come, it still hasn’t helped medical terminology become less offensive or hurtful. The doctor at the clinic asked me if I was cramping and when I said yes, a bit, he told my that the cramping was my uterus “expelling the foetus”. Great.

So now my husband and I are sad but are going to try to get pregnant again. We’re disappointed that now we have to try to get pregnany instead of the happy accident that we has before.

I’d like to hear if anyone else has any miscarriage stories. For some reason, other women’s pain makes me feel less alone…

• Crank by Ellen Hopkins – 4
• Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris – 5
• Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison – 5
• Smoke & Ashes by Tanya Huff – 4 (surprisingly – I expected to hate this.)
• Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern – 4
• Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes – 3 (not as good as This Charming Man but she’s still excellent.)
• Angel by Marian Keyes – 4 (this is a re-read and I’m really enjoying it)

There is something infinitely odd about working in a bookstore for such a long time and having options of things to read. Now I’m at the mercy of the library and of my friends and family. As a result, I have read the weirdest things. I’ve read Temple Grandin, a Danielle Steel, Anne McCaffery, wierd library off-sales including some of the worst fiction I’ve ever read, and an assorted collection of wretchedness.

Sometimes I’m this close to reading a Maeve Binchy. I’m finishing Angel by Marian Keyes today at lunch and I’m thinking I need to not read as much as to lower my expectations. Then maybe I’ll be happy reading Dan Brown and Bryce Courtenay.

In other news, my effing camera won’t download my pictures from my camera. Unknown error my ass! Grrr.

What is the world coming to??? Who am I?

Bootcamp finished up on Wednesday and yesterday to celebrate not getting up at 5:30am, I got up at 7:10am. I showered, walked the dog, made my lunch and then went to work. Do you know what I missed yesterday? That’s right people, feeling smug. There was no sitting at my desk thinking “I already exercised today. I am awesome. Look at how awesome I am. I think I’ll have a cookie.”

My goal for doing 5 days a week bootcamp was to not hate running. Goal made. Even though on Wednesday I stayed up late finishing my excellent gift for my cousin (photos to come) and I drank beer last night, I set my alarm for 5:45am and got up to run. And my mom and my dad and my dog came with me. It was a family outing of really slow running.

Now this is what my legs look like:

Well, maybe not yet. But hopefully one day.

In the meantime, I’m going to try and make my home computer slightly faster and download the photos from my camera.

Now I’m off to have a great weekend. Maybe get some things done, even.

The hazy over the city makes me think my glasses are dirty.

I hope it rains.

What a waste of an evening. I must have been tired. I guess there’s always tomorrow (or tonight, I guess) to get something, anything done.

One bag was missing.

I thought to myself, “oh my god, my mom totally pigged out and she ate all of the good muffins.”

Earlier in the evening, my mom thought to herself, “Megan ate all of the muffins or she brought them over to Surene’s. That bitch.”

In the morning, I find the large, tightly sealed Ziploc bag on the living room floor with a very dainty hole bitten out of the center of the bag. The bag was licked clean with only three small coconut flakes betraying the original contents. Kylie ate close to a dozen muffins. Luckily, there was still one more bag left.

Kylie is a very bad dog.

This morning, I found the other bag on the living room floor, ripped open and cleaned out. Grr. At least we only lost two muffins this time.

Now I’m hungry.

I am so stiff!! My hamstrings feel like little elves came in bed at night and shortened them for me. Not awesome. At all. Paired with my run yesterday and kickboxing today, I feel like I’ve been hit by a cement truck. Luckily, my overwhelming exercise smugness is making up for the soreness.

Oh happy little endorphins, you make me want to clean and finish projects.

On the agenda tonight: Photo Wall, see if I can use some fabric from a friend so I can make a lovely new duvet cover, maybe go for a walk and watch a movie with my mom. Husband is out on a date tonight to play music with a pretty and young lady. He’s also working with The World’s Most Beautiful Russian Lab Tech. It’s a good thing I love my husband and I know that he loves me. I’m actually searching for the jealousy I should be feeling and I can’t find it. Benevolence, thy name is Megan.

I arrive at my very first intermediate level yoga class after many years of doing yoga, and enjoying it, at the beginner level. I wanted to learn some new poses and to challenge myself in new ways. I was getting stronger and wanted to work harder from different teachers. Maybe I even wanted Yoga to be a larger part of my life. Maybe. Keep in mind that this story takes place in Victoria, home of the “serious yoga practitioner.” Anyway, I went to class and was feeling intimidated. Why was everyone at least 5’8″ tall and where did all of the men come from. Beginner’s Yoga usually only has women and generally it’s mostly older women. There was flirty chitchat before class: “How often do you do yoga?” “Oh at least a half hour to an hour everyday and then 3 hours on the weekend when I can really get into it.” Yikes! At this point I still wanted to practice more everyday and now I would never be good enough.

On to the class: we were doing partner work and I was the new girl so I got to be partnered with two men. Yep. Me, early twenties: them, mid-to-late thirties. Me, un-shaven legs: Them, hairy calfs. Me, cankles: them, muscley, muscley bodies. Great.

So the end of the story is that I had a really garlicy supper and was supper concerned about bad breath and unpleasant smelly second-hand supper B.O. I also really hurt myself by trying to impress the manly men that I wasn’t a pussy girl. Not very yogic of me, at all.

So there is still a part of me that loves yoga more than anything I’ve ever done, including bellydance. However, there is a part of yoga that will be forever stained by this:
And this:
And finally, this:

However, after all of my griping, I’m really excited about doing yoga and teaching it to my friends. I’ve even started to develop a lesson plan… I hope I don’t hurt them or myself or have Bikram sue me for copyright infringement or something.

So then I said to myself in defense: “Hey grumpypants. I work all day and I’ve been going to kickboxing and stupid bootcamp first thing in the morning (6:00am) every morning, and I’m tired. Even though I’ve lost exactly no weight, it’s still important to me to get my ass out of bed and exercise. I’m trying to better myself, Self.”

Retaliation: “Yeah? Well maybe to better yourself you should quit smoking and clean your house, yo? (My inner mean voice has had a hard life and is from the hood – thus the “yo” comment.) You need to clean your shit, b-yatch! You dirty. And, you get home at 4:30, ho. WTF do you do at night? Watch Glee, you freak. So you think you can dance? You shouldn’t like these shows dork.”

Final round: “Glee is a heartwarming comedy that manages to get the angsty ridiculousness of being a teenager. Plus the singing and the dancing are rad. So you think you can dance is a brilliant showcase of actual talented young dancers. Sometimes they dance so beautifully that I’ve cried. Stop being mean. I’m just in a wierd lack-of-energy phase and I’ll eventually set up a cleaning schedule that I’ll stick to.”

Last words: “You suck and you’re fat.”

So as a result of the internal mind-crazies, on Monday I set myself up a 1950s Housewife Cleaning Schedule, on an Excel Spreadsheet (yep I’m just that dorky). I even called it Megan’s 1950s Housewife Cleaning Schedule.

It goes like this (except at home it’s lovingly encased in precise little Excel boxes):

• Sunday – Baking
• Monday – Laundry (Craft Projects)
• Tuesday – Vacuuming; Dusting
• Wednesday – Bathrooms (Craft projects)
• Thursday – Sheets & Linens; Clean House (I guess I mean tidy and put shit away)
• Friday – Vacuuming; Meal planning (Craft Projects)
• Saturday – Gardening; Grocery shop

Pretty impressive hey? What I’ve actually done is this:

1. half of the laundry
2. I made muffins on Sunday – half of which tasted like poison
3. Falling under the Clean House header: cleaning up runny dog shit from Kylie’s upset dog tummy. That was this morning and I was super excited about it. Really excited.

I’d also like to bring your attention to my parenthetical “craft projects” which I haven’t done. I added this to the Fifties Housewife Schedule because there are a lot of unfinished projects on the Megan & Mom’s Pink Crafty Jobs Whiteboard. We’d both like to get this unfinished projects off of the Magic Pink Whiteboard but no dice so far.

On the list so far:

• Photo wall
• scrapbooks:
• two Mexican books (Mom)
• one family history scrapbook for my brother that I’ve done exactly one page of.

Projects that have been crossed out:

• sew quilt for Willie’s mom
• sew bellydance costume(it was chiffon – NEVER AGAIN!)
• re-organize mom’s filing system (I had a great time doing that one – I love that shit)
• crochet a plant cozy – don’t ask
• knit a case for my digital camera – see above

Though there are only four projects left to complete on the Magic Pink Whiteboard – that number is misleading. I’ve put a No New Stuff Until this Shit’s Done policy on the Magic Pink Whiteboard so we’ll actually finish our projects. The problem that’s arising is that these jobs are boring and not very satisfying. Apparently, both my mom and I like to not do jobs and feel guilty about it.

I’m going to revise my 1950s Housewife Schedule because I also didn’t take into consideration the fact that I’m not going to do anything on Fridays. Friday night is pub-night followed by Card Night at Surene’s. I love playing Canasta and I think that Rory and I may have finally ending our losing streak. Our eight month losing streak.

Off to new unfinished projects….

Anyway, I’m not going to read it again or any more in the series so my work here is done. It was okay but not good.

Next, I’m going to quit reading Keri Arthur’s Vampire/Werewolf novel Deadly Desire because it’s awful. Really. Really. Bad. This is the tagline which should have given me a clue: “She’s part werewolf. She’s part vampire. And she always says yes to Deadly Desire.”

Yuck.