aversion to pregnancy

ive never liked the concept of pregnancy. its just kind of alien and gross. sperm fertilizing the egg. the creature lives in a sack, feeding off its host. the hosts body gets all distorted and fat and has a variety of ailments and weirdness that takes place. afterwards the hosts body is often forever changed for the worse. morning sickness. vomitting because the creature is inside of you. then the creature comes out with much pain, torture, blood and screaming.

theres a number of disgusting words and phrases heard regarding this grotesque process...

"im (blank) centimeters dialated"

"my mucus plugs came out" (gag)

"the baby looked like it was covered in cheesecloth when it came out"

"placenta"

"my water broke"

"im spotting blood"


oh my God! i feel ill just typing this stuff up. ugg .


despite all this that i feel, i cant deny that people love it. they love it! they love the whole thing. the attention of walking around with a big belly. feeling the baby kick about inside them. feeling cravings spawned by the baby. people describe this time in their life with joy in their eyes and seem to genuinely enjoy being pregnant.

amazingly, many cant wait to do it all again after having already gone through the process once.

this is the miracle: despite the grossness and pain of it all, God inspires more joy in the parents during this period than perhaps any other period of their life. so much so, they dont see the grossness, dont see the pain, just the blinding love He intends.

hurts like brand-new shoes

Sade sings this tune about poverty, suffering and the human spirit called pearls.the poor woman in the song is doing all she can to survive, and in the end Sade likens this pain to the pain of brand-new shoes...(scroll past song for further drivel)

There is a woman in somalia
Scraping for pearls on the roadside
There's a force stronger than nature
Keeps her will alive
That's how she's dying
She's dying to survive
Don't know what she's made of
I would like to be that brave
She cries to the heaven above
There is a stone in my heart
She lives a life she didn't choose
And it hurts like brand-new shoes

Hurts like brand-new shoes

There is a woman in somalia
The sun gives her no mercy
The same sky we lay under
Burns her to the bone
Long as afternoon shaddows
It's gonna take her to get home
Each grain carefully wrapped up
Pearls for her little girl

Hallelujah
Hallelujah

She cries to the heaven above
There is a stone in my heart
She lives a life she didn't choose
And it hurts like brand-new shoes

sad song. i can relate to the pain of brand new shoes (though more literally than the tune). you see every 50 years or so i go out and purchase a brand-new pair of doc martins. i love them, but i use to hate them. when i bought my first pair they hurt like the dickens. dug into my heel, rubbed my foot all wrong. my achilles would blister and bleed. they were expensive too which only compounded my dashed expectations. i remember swearing (silently) to my haberdasher, "i'll never buy a pair of these again!".

but as time moved on, they grew on me. my feet callused in the appropriate places and they became bearable, even comfortable. before long they were my favorite shoes. i wore them all the time, much to my wifes chagrin. one might say that the pain that the docs and i shared, bonded us.

i have a new pair. but i still wear the old ones as much as i can. when i dont need to impress anyone. and when its not raining (water leaks up through a crack in the sole). i guess i couldnt bear to toss them. theyre like an old friend.

interesting. is there an inherent benefit in pain and suffering?
sure people say it can make us stronger (calluses) but i think
it can also draw us closer.

new and old doc martin's:

prayer warrior

ive never liked the term "prayer warrior". its often used by people who need an urgent miracle. like, "i need some prayer warriors to help me with such and such". i dont mean to minimize the efficacy of having people pray for you in a time of need, i just feel it should be viewed through a different lens.

besides sounding kind of corny, the term "prayer warrior" seems to be framed all wrong. it implies a conflict and hardship where there should be none. talking to God should not be an arduous task. it should be, in my book, good conversation. it should be a cathartic opening of ones soul to their maker. praying can be reverant, like praying with candles in a catholic church, or earthy like when you talk to God like you would your dad, but it should not be a battle or a fight or a struggle. im not fighting with God. im not trying to twist his arm behind his back to gain a favor.

i know some will point to jacobs wrestling with God as a counter to my logic (ric google jacob wrestles God). i think this was idiosyncratic though. God wanted to see that jacob was serious and God wanted to allow some redemptive insight for jacob. this was not intended as a model of how interactions with God should go.

i also dont like the term because it brings in a hierarchy, or system of rank. if i am a prayer warrior, one would assume that i am better at prayer than the typical prayer grunt, if you will. one can envision all sorts of rankings from prayer private to prayer general. man always wants to apply such hierarchies to compete to thrust oneself above their neighbor. i dont deny that some may be better at praying than others, but i dont think God intended us to label it such.

the prayer of a child or of a criminal takes the same path to God as the prayer of the pope.

stifled peeve

when i run, i get sweaty and this means sweaty clothes. my wife doesnt like me putting these wet sweaty clothes in the hamper. shes concerned about mildew, or mold or something. for some reason i often forget this and do it anyway. maybe after a run, im feeling like a warrior and im like "screw that rule" or maybe my minds on survival mode and i just forget. shell say something like, "theres wet clothes in the hamper". not yelling just a statement that lets me know she knows.

however, she does something that peeves me too.

she over-dips. let me explain. we go to carrabas and the waiter brings our fancy bread and fancy dish o' spices and oil. so we commence dipping and eating. the thing is she over dips. i mean 4 or 5 swipes with one small piece of bread is not uncommon. she doesnt double dip after eating but she dips and dips and swipes the one piece of bread prior to cosuming it. i dont infer gluttony; shes very conscious of what she eats and doesnt over indulge. no, its more her lack of planning that perturbs. at the rate she dips we will have tons of bread left over and no spicy oil. i use carrabas as an example but it occurs with chips and salsa or pita bread and hummus as well. inevitably we are left with more bread or chip product and no sauce.


heres the thing. while it peeves me, i dont complain. she likely has no idea it even bothers me. i figure its just too small and petty. the harm such a complaint would do would far outweigh the benefit of having a perfect chip/salsa correlation. plus i no doubt peeve her in numerous similar ways that she stiffles as well.

stifling peeves:
evidence of an over-controlled id or just love.