Rachael is pregnant!

     Ladies and gentlemen, the rumors are true: my tackle works. I know everyone was sooooo worried, well, you can rest assured now.
     Oh yeah, Rachael's tackle works as well. Do you call that tackle? Tackled?
     How did this all come about, you ask? The technical aspects of the whole ordeal can be found here; for those with more experience and less time, suffice it to say, some monkey business occurred during the excellent honeymoon Grace and my dad sent us on.

...so blame them!

      Allow me now to dispel one of the myriad myths surrounding birth control: regardless of how long a woman has been on it, her reproductive system needs no time to cycle back up; once she ceases taking it, she is actually at her most fertile (assuming of course, she stops taking it before reaching menopause.) Rachael had been on hormonal birth control in one form or another for more than a decade. When I imagined her reproductive system, I envisioned an old abandoned factory, dusty from disuse, with rusted "WARNING: CONDEMNED" signs all over the place.

Foreplay was actually just a tetanus shot.

     It was this image that made me shrug and say, "yeah, sure," when Rachael suggested abstaining from birth control during the honeymoon, for reasons spelled out here. Besides, I reasoned, I could further lessen our chances of conception by employing the birth control method of "coitus interruptus."
     That didn't work out, for reasons spelled out here.
     And so Rachael is almost four months pregnant. Over the course of the last 17 weeks, she has conveyed the size of the fetus to me in terms of various spherical foods, starting with a blueberry, moving up to a raspberry, then a kiwi, a peach, this week it's apparently a navel orange. Throw a banana in her and she'd have a delicious smoothie center (Just add rum and voila: human daquiri!) Though I must admit, throwing a banana in her is pretty much what got us here in the first place.
     We're still waiting to find out the sex, although Rachael's sister Jonna guided us through two thoroughly scientific tests during our recent trip to Maine to visit her and Donovan.

     Accordingly, our next ultrasound appointment will reveal the baby's sex, and people have asked if we'll wait until birth to find out. Being the fan of instant gratification that I am, the answer is a resounding "HELL NO." I'm the guy who'll read a plot synopsis on Wikipedia for a movie if it looks like I won't get to see it as soon as I'd like. I do NOT have the will power to wait this one out. For that matter, why wait? I've yet to hear a convincing argument for it, other than to start a penis/vagina betting pool, and if your eyes lit up at the thought of that, click here.

     Every time Rachael and I sit down to think up names, we invariably descend to coming up with embarrassing or comical names for either gender. For instance, if we have a boy, I could name him Toby, and teach him to tell every stranger who asks him in my presence what his name is, "Kunta Kinte." Then I can look down at him and remind him condescendingly, "We've been over this a thousand times, your name is TOBY."

     Too obscure? My second choice was to name him Jesus Christ Hopkins, so that when people come to the door and ask "Have you heard the news about Jesus Christ?" I can say, "Aww dammit, what has that little turd done now?" Or for that matter, when people utter the phrase, "Jesus H. Christ," I can correct them, "Jesus Christ H."

     You HAVE to get THAT one...

     So what has pregnant Rachael been like? Mostly this:

For fuck's sake woman, who do you think you are, me?

     Not sure about the reading material in that picture (The Contortionists' Handbook, by Craig Clevenger;) my assumption is it's some natural birth stuff. She hasn't been any crazier than normal, other than referring to our unborn child in terms of food (over which I can't decide whether I should be alarmed or not. I guess she can't eat what's already inside of her.) She has been using the phrase "I don't know why I bother" a lot, and if I remember correctly, amnesia can be indicative of a neurological disorder. I'll keep an eye on it. Other than that, she's just had a tendency to nap. I assume that's something she's passed to the baby, as it's a quiet little sucker. Let's hope that persists.

     I took out a second mortgage on my man card and went to one of those horseshit "what will my baby look like?" websites, and though I was sorely tempted by their offer to splice my visage with that of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Snookie, I declined and uploaded some photos of Rachael and I. The first result was an abomination, which the internet mercifully deleted for me of its own accord. I guess it got mostly Rachael's genes. I had put in a call to the Kennedy's, and they informed me they were out of room in their basement, so let's hope that one was a fluke. I tried again with some more head-on shots, and got this:

I'll take it.

     At least it looks more like a baby.

     That's probably adequate news for now, I'll keep updating as we get more information.

    

Short Story: Trilobite Terror

A good friend of mine, Gary gave me a pack of "Dinosaurs Attack! " cards, and I decided to write up what I think is going on in the card. So, without further ado, I give you #39: Trilobite Terror! 

"Awwwwewwww, it's putting its tentacle in my mouuuth," Gerald moaned to himself, as one of several prehistoric lobster creatures did exactly as he had described.
Gerald had seen enough Japanese porn to know where this was going, and he supposed this could be God's punishment for his viewing of said porn. The trilobite's other tentacle touched Gerald's ear lobe almost reassuringly, as if to say, "It's okay buddy, it'll all be over in a second, and then we'll take you out for some ice cream. That sound good champ?  Huh?  Ice cream?"
"Trilobite Terror" was a bit of an exaggeration; "Trilobite Tension" would be more apt, or to skip the alliteration and just lay it all out there, "Trilobite Annoyance" described it best. There was absolutely nothing even approaching terrifying about the creatures. They looked like horseshoe crabs, and had the same curious nature as a puppy, albeit a puppy whose curiousity extended to what it might be like inside a human body. The Mayor had described the tiny nuisances as "flesh-eating worms from the Devonian period," but the journalist, for the purposes of maintaining the sensation of dangerous monsters on a rampage, had left out the fact that the Mayor operated in a constant state of inebriation, and could hardly be considered a subject matter expert on anything further than the contents of a mini-bar.
Gerald was minding his own fucking business, having his lunch on a park bench when four of the little bastards had dropped out of the tree limbs above him like a seafood rainstorm, and he had shrieked hard enough to ruffle his perfectly combed Geraldo Rivera moustache. Having grown tired of fighting the obvious nickname,  Gerald had gone to lengths to actually invite the comparison, and he had certainly embarrassed himself in public in classic Geraldo style.
Trilobites, for fuck's sweet sake! They seemed harmless,  but other than the name, Gerald knew nothing about them. He had no idea if they were quick to startle, nor what kind of self-defense mechanisms they might have. Thus,  he opted for that old cautious standard, the Triple-D: Don't Do Dick. He was going to sit still and let them do their lobster thing; once they lost interest and departed, he would shake off the icky-hoo-has and call it an early day to go home and take a shower.
Currently however, the trilobites' curiousity did not alppear to be on the wane. The two on Gerald's chest gazed into his eyes with their green, button-candy orbs, a dumb intensity in their unblinking, unwavering stare. He could almost hear them thinking "what's this,  what's this?" in idiot sing-song.
The Nightmare Before Christ.
One of them finally went for broke and slipped a feeler into Gerald's mouth. It was slimy. It was cold. It tasted not unlike garlic.
"Mmmmmokaythat'sitI'mDONE!" Gerald spat out the feeler and stood up explosively, thrashing his limbs and shaking his head. The trilobites were tenacious little fuckers, though, and it was a full two minutes before he bucked them.  They hit the ground and skittered away, timid as cockroaches.  Gerald smacked himself in the forehead. He'd been so nervous about the bugs' defensive capabilities that he'd needlessly granted them free-reign for like, ten whole fucking minutes!  He'd been so focused on the situation, he'd failed to notice a small crowd had gathered around him. He looked at them, and great irritation formed in his chest.
He voiced it.
"Why the FUCK didn't anyone HELP me?!"
A young man piped up.
"You were just kind of sitting there, we weren't sure if you were digging it."
"DIGGING IT!?" Gerald screamed indignantly, and, overwhelmed by the situation, descended into a fit of body-brushing and head-shaking.
"Eeeeaaaauuuugh!" He said, through it all.
The freak show over, the crowd dispersed around Gerald, and he was left alone in the park, trilobite slime drying on his shirt.
He sobbed.
Later that afternoon in the shower, Gerald decided the most disturbing part of the whole affair was how innocent their intentions had been, and that when he'd thrown them from himself and their small forms had scurried away, the Trilobite Terror had been their own. He had actually felt sorry for them.
Fucking trilobites.