Deep (random) thoughts... by Maxine Dangerous

I'm extraordinarily proud of Ricky Martin for coming out. Proud-like-I-know-him proud. Maybe it's because I know what a difficult process it is, how much courage it takes, how freeing it is. Maybe just because the world is scaring me with all the gun-toting people screaming about overthrowing the government and imprisoning and/or killing gays, which makes coming out that much more revolutionary. I know the NRA-loving, homophobic nutjobs represent a small portion of the world but still... UGH.

I've been on a music-before-bed kick lately and have to stop myself from bursting forth in song when The Sundays sing "Summertime" into my headphones. Actually, I don't always stop myself. I sing into my pillow. Just because my neighbor is an inconsiderate wackadoodle with her chainsmoking and the storing of rocks -- big, geode-looking motherfuckers -- in a milk crate at the base of the stairs (SRSLY) doesn't mean I need to retaliate with 3:00 AM singalongs. She also has gallons of water lining her stairs and bangs on the neighbors' wall EVERY. NIGHT. It's a quick banging (That's what she said!) and she usually only does it once (though she's done it several times tonight) but I still wonder what the hell she's doing. Is it a code? Are the neighbors making a noise only she can hear? Does she keep finding art to display in the hallway? It a code to her home planet that she's put on her tinfoil helmet and is ready to receive her nightly instructions? Curious minds want to know... and writers want to remain clueless so, ahem, they can just make shit up.

I like that I originally thought the lyrics to The Sundays' (Woot woot! Theme train!) "Here's Where the Story Ends" were People I know, places I go, make me feel tactile instead of ...tongue-tied. I don't know why.

Last week, I was working on a word jumble (in the hopes that it will stave off the possibility of all things dementia when I'm old; also, words are fun!) and I could NOT figure out one of the clues. PHTUMIR. I stared. And stared. Finally, I started sounding out possibilities. First came "phritum" which was VERY quickly followed by the word TRIUMPH! being shouted across my living room. Oh, children. There were many irony-related LOLs after that one.

I've become pretty diligent about applying for jobs. I currently have 10 apps out, I think, for everything from cashiering to communications. I answered two Craigslist ads tonight for writing jobs. I hope neither one was spam because that would seriously blow. I've been averaging two apps a day, roughly. I don't want to find out if there's a fourth 'tier' of unemployment benefits for which I qualify. I want to go back to work for every reason a person can come up with from "I like wearing dress clothes" to "I want to go to Spain and they like it when you bring money." The senators who claim that receiving unemployment benefits makes people not want to look for work? Can go fuck themselves on a cement slab in Minnesota in January. With no lube.

I hit a real streak of productivity last weekend and reclaimed one of my kitchen counters and the stove top from yuckiness. And then I surfed into some hormonal territory that's got me feeling blah about it all. I'm waiting to get my streak back. I was jumping up at every commercial -- because turning off the TV to clean is apparently too big a leap for me -- and was feeling proud of myself for not just sitting like a lump in front of the glowing box of avoidance. I'm just kind of... eh. Again. Hormonal and temporary. Just like my...

...desire to have a kid. It came back in a big way this past week. In a scary, looking-at-boys-what-the-HELL kind of way. See also: hormones. See also also: Apparently unavoidable biological urges. I went to Vox to fill out my paperwork (I got that freelance writing gig; did I mention that? I think I mentioned that.) and the lady who hired me was holding a coworker's super-squishy three-month-old baby. I used to want kids pretty desperately. I wanted three, I was going to pop them out, I was going to be all mommy and primary-colored plastic shit covering my house. And then the number dropped to two. And then I had visions of me and my daughter having adventures as we drove cross-country. And then in the past couple years, the idea just kind of bottomed out. Maybe it was too many squealing weekends from my neighbors' kids next door. Maybe I hit 35 and suddenly felt old. Like womb-drying-up-10-years-from perimenopause old. (*10* years. I know, right??) Maybe there was just too much to think about -- donors and legality and choices of fathers and was I going to do it alone and oh yeah, I don't have a job and depression and I can barely take care of myself and two cats, how am I going to take care of another human? And it all just kind of fizzled in this big lump of This Shouldn't Be So Difficult and Yet It Is.

And then I held the squishy baby. And I said, to the top of his head, "You make my uterus hurt." And he wrapped this tiny, incredibly strong hand around one of my fingers -- this wee, doll-sized hand -- and I just sat there, staring at it. Staring at the pale skin and feeling him wiggle these jerky I-am-new-to-sitting-up kind of movements and instinctively reaching up to hold his head when he started to lurch backwards... and it was just... it was... awesome in that I-am-but-a-speck-in-the-Universe kind of way. The must-breed-now! feeling hasn't entirely gone away but I clearly am on the tail-end of my hormonegasm. I want my folks to be grandparents and they want it so desperately that's it's palpable. They want it so bad that it makes me uncomfortable. In a way, it's good that I can't just get knocked up because, again, I'm only partially employed (the writing gig only covers half my rent) and I have no finances to cover onesies and diapers and car seats... and in another way, it makes me so sad that I can't just 'fall' into being a parent. It upsets me that if/when I go forward with having a kid, there will be catalogs of donors, choices to make, legal obligations to consider, especially if a partner has entered the picture. I guess I just want the process to be organic and spontaneous. That's not to say that straight parents don't struggle with the kinds of questions that have been doing through my mind -- What if she has special needs? What if she wants to go on a diet when she's nine? What if he becomes an addict? What if he ends up being transgender? -- and whoa! with the questions, right? Way to think WAY too far into the future. I guess that's how my mind works when a pregnancy or adoption would be so rigidly planned that it allows time for the mind to spin out of control. The answer to all my questions, I have repeatedly been telling myself, is that I would love the child and deal with whatever came up when it came up. What if she won the Nobel Prize? What if he discovered a vaccine that would prevent some heinous disease? Why don't I consider the wonderful things that could happen instead of just the difficult?