April 30

Bright Beautiful New Life

I just became an aunt again! My sister-in-law, Amy, just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Tori. We visited them in the hospital today, and I got to hold the baby for an hour while it slept peacefully in my arms. I don't want to spend too much time gushing, but there's something awe-inspiring about holding something so tiny, yet so full of potential.

In amidst all that joy, though, I had to admit that I was really, really jealous. All my friends are having babies, too. Why can't I?

Amy and Jackie (my mother-in-law) both asked me delicately if there had been any progress on our attempts to conceive. There hasn't, but I admit that I'm a little scared of succeeding. My problem so far has not been getting pregnant, but keeping the baby once I do. After my last two miscarriages, I wonder if I will ever carry a baby to term. When I look at Amy and her beautiful baby, I think that maybe all the risk is worth it. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to get pregnant again.

Maybe I should wait a few months, though. It would be bad timing to get pregnant right before Clarion.

Creepy Lowlife

Working in a downtown urban library, I see more than my share of strange people. One of them has started taking an unhealthy interest in me. He stares at me all the time, and apparently has been tracking my schedule. A sample of some comments he has made this past week:

• "I like it when you wear tight clothes."
• "You had lunch later than you normally do."
• "In an hour and fifteen minutes, you'll take the 35 bus."
• "You're my favorite librarian."

Perhaps I'm overreacting, but can you blame me for feeling like I'm being stalked? I've talked with my co-workers and security. We've started an incident report file on him, but I still feel freaked out by all this.

Prodding from My Spouse to "Get a Life" (aka Boring Web Stuff)

Opened the Ultimate Clarion Web Resource Guide to outside viewers, and have already started getting good comments back. And I joined SFF Net. Alas, Andy also reminded me that all this time that I spent playing with HTML has been time spent away from my real writing. He's right, of course. My muse, Ganpati-Baba, has been haunting me again. Time to return to my novel.

Hmm