Travel, pain, Palin and babies

     Wow -- that was some trip. Eight hours in the car with a five-year-old who is *hopped up* on the prospect of changing a newborn's diaper, starting kindergarten, and eating Swedish fish. I worked on my first poetry submission for workshop, but scrapped the whole thing by the time we pulled into town. It was about a guy who is struggling to say something to his friends, who are gathered and partying in his kitchen. In other words, crap. Guess what I wrote about instead.

     The baby rocks the projects, of course, and A was a good little cousin, for the most part. Neither the new mama nor I had any clue that a big spankin' lump can form under a baby's chest when he's processing all those birth hormones; we found out by calling the emergency pediatrician. Man, the tales Old Wives never got around to telling... Anyway, he's perfect and beautiful and damn near edible.

     On Palin: call me predestined to hate her pious guts, but that pride she feels that her daughter "decided to have her baby" followed by the unmistakable nudge of a double-barrel to the ribs the boy must have felt when the world was informed his girlfriend intended to make a child-groom of him -- well, they're all smiling just a bit too hard. They say she's a feminist who would strike Roe v. Wade from existence in a sweep so broad even rape and incest victims would be forced to carry pregnancies to term. A feminist, you say? I'm supposed to like her because she has a million children? A job? A vagina? What the fuck? I pray (yes, Ms. Palin, I do) that voters will see this for what it is: the most cynical VP nomination imaginable. 

     In other news, the coverage of and response to Gustaf was breathtaking. Everybody pat everybody on the back. Over and over. In fact, let's raise money for all the victims of the relatively victimless non-event. We're all Americans today. Tomorrow we can go back to forgetting what a great job Brownie did. Today's a day for prayer and overreaction. Houma needs some help, for sure. So do the gazillion families who remain displaced, struggling, perhaps nearly destitute after the bumbling three years ago. But yeah, you boys were Johnny on the spot with this little gust called Gustaf. Unfurl the flags! Revise the McCain Web site! (Maybe if they can figure out how to raise money online for hurricane relief, they'll be able to translate this new concept into campaign fundraising... and change the face of politics in the twenty-first century!) Last thing about Palin: John McCain, when asked why he chose her, said she would "change America." How's that?

     M and I, impersonating a family of pack-mules, got A off to Kindergarten this morning. I cried, just like I did on the first day of preschool last year. I felt then like I might be on the upswing; skinny, hairless, gasping but glowing with promise that I felt better, was getting stronger. Today I'm thirty pounds heavier, can walk three miles, and know I have this thing inside me that sooner or later we're going to have to address. I'm a bit uncomfortable, physically, and I did eat some hydrocodone on the trip to take the edge off. I slept a lot. Now I have to go write a novel.