My mom described the feeling as “butterflies in your stomach; little flutters.” This brings to mind a whole rash of warm fuzzy things: bright happy colors, snuggly feelings, yellow sunshiny joy… When I finally recognized the feeling as actually coming from the baby, it was not little flutters, it was weird gut lurching and muscle twitchy feelings. As much as I try, I just can’t reconcile the feeling with butterflies. I associate the feeling with the movie Alien.

Turns out I am nowhere near alone in this, Alien, it seems, has affected an entire generation of pregnant women. (Much in the same way that Psycho affected the generation of women before us—well, a little different maybe…) From what I can tell, most women seem to describe the feeling as both “creepy” or “pod-like,” and “pretty cool.” I guess that’s about where I stand on it. It’s a fascinating and reassuring feeling, like, “yup: baby in there!” Then, somewhere off to the right of my belly button, a part of my belly pokes out visibly and makes a beeline for my ribcage; and then I think about Kane.

Specifically, that part just before Kane loses it at the dinner table; he stops talking and gets this glazed far-off expression. It occurred to me that perhaps right before the baby alien started violently tearing through his abdominal cavity, it squirmed around a little, maybe poked one of his internal organs with a cute little baby alien foot. That look on Kane’s face though… Anyway, I can relate because I get that look a lot these days.

[Rio Chagres, Panama; March 2007]

The Time machine is GONE! Bought sight-unseen. Joshua’s dad Jeff was in town (here in Portland) visiting the past couple of days and when he left Texas, arrangements were in the works to have John Dzerk, who runs the local boatyard, come with a crew and disassemble the boat, install in on a flatbed, and prepare it for the journey across the US to Canada (the new owner is from the vicinity of Georgian Bay, Ontario). We, of course, wanted complete photo documentation of the event. So Jeff flew back yesterday and we got the call a few hours later: there is now a big gaping hole in his yard where it used to stand. The boat’s already gone.

We were all totally shocked: that was FAST. And incredulous: it’s… just… GONE? “Like, what do you mean, ‘gone?’” We hoped maybe Dennis got pictures of the loading action. Jeff called back a second time: they forgot the motor!!! (We knew for a fact that the new owner would be wanting that.) Then we got another call: Jeff had hopped in his truck and drove the motor to the boatyard; the boat was there, sitting quietly in three pieces on the flatbed. Jeff took lots of pictures. Jeff’s assessment: boat looked good—ready for the road.

The buyer was a guy who found the boat through our website; he had been searching for a Brown 31 specifically and had looked at a number of them. However, he was in Canada and not able to fly off every time he saw a new Searunner to view it personally; instead, he arranged to have a surveyor come look the boat over and send him a complete survey.

Out of ten billion surveyors in the Rockport area, the buyer chose, at random, the one surveyor who for some reason had a poor reputation among the multihull crowd. Oh well, what can you do? We were a little nervous though because we didn’t really know what that meant. Did he consider them inherently poor vessels and created hugely biased reports? This was, after all, a home-built boat (albeit a damn well home-built boat); was it that he did not “appreciate” the fine aesthetic that is the backyard boat? The surveyor did the survey and sent it off to the buyer and the buyer was nice enough to forward us a copy. And, it was a great survey! The guy did a very good job from what we could see—thorough, very detailed, totally professional (and unbiased if it was in fact true that he did not favor multihulls), and best of all, very positive. All the problems he found and noted were things we knew of and he didn’t find any surprises. We were happy. The buyer was happy and emailed to let us know it was a go. Dennis, the broker in Texas we had managing the affair, emailed us shortly thereafter with the paperwork.

It is funny too because the night before we got the official “sold” emails, Joshua and I were taking a walk and talking about it as if it was still ours, as if we were just on our way back to it for the evening. We were talking about how easy it was to have such a little boat, how you needed merely three knots of wind to move, and how well the boat put up with an insane variety of conditions with nary a peep. It pointed awesomely (multihulls are not known to point very well). And it is a fast boat for one of its era—a cruising design from the 70s? And it routinely goes 7-8 knots like nobody’s business. We used the boat hard for over two years and had amazingly few problems—a busted traveler here, a sprung cheek block there, oh, and the rudder thing. But still, I think that is pretty good—nothing that we were never able to fix ourselves, certainly. The boat was really designed and built well. I’m happy someone will be able to enjoy it in our stead.

Portland, Oregon

Eugene, Oregon

The baby kicks now. Or *something* is going on in there, kicking being just one of many different ways to antagonize my bladder. Lately I have been picturing one of those toy tanks with treads that you set in motion on the floor and when it hits a wall or obstacle, it rides up the wall until it flips over and diverts to a new direction. It never occurred to me before, but being poked at from inside your own body is an incredibly odd experience indeed. And I’m only just over halfway there; presumably she hasn’t even begun to truly raise hell yet. I hope my vital organs are up to the fight because I fear I’m running out of room.

Aside from the large bulge just south of the two other large bulges that are my newfangled boobs, you would really never know I was pregnant at all. I think it’s still a secret from my apartment neighbors, mostly because I’ve taken great pains to avoid visual contact with them. Basically the first time they do see me it’ll be because I have a nine-month belly and can’t run fast enough. I fear this might be traumatic to all involved.

I really am anxious about the whole baby crying/trendy Portland hipster neighbors lynching the bothersome breeders upstairs issue. Next to dying in childbirth, it’s probably the only other big thing on my List of Concerns. There are a few other things I should be adding to this list, I’m sure, but I just can’t think of them.

I always thought being pregnant would be harder to deal with, or more concisely, Joshua thought a pregnant me would be much more difficult. But honestly, I forget half the time I’m even pregnant at all. Until I have to actually button my pants or something. I feel almost entirely asymptomatic: not unusually emotional, not overly tired, etc. Joshua has noted (and I am forced to agree) that I am severely low on patience these days, which usually manifests itself into small blowouts over minor electrical projects or computer issues. Happily, Joshua is very good at all things electrical and computing so I usually don’t have to snort and fume for very long before a miracle occurs and my problem disappears. I did, however, make him get up and jiggle the toilet handle in the middle of the night last night because I was already irritated at having to get up to go to the bathroom, again, and had it in my head that a third trip might actually kill me. Here’s hoping this is a symptom of pregnancy and will go away once a patience-demanding, screaming toothless blob of flailing rubber is placed under my care.

I’ve been doing a bit of internet research as to what sort of things are necessary when faced with a newborn. Like car seats and onesies (heee) and things disturbingly referred to as “butt cream,” which I’m afraid to even google for a definition. Some things, such as “maternity underwear,” make no sense to me; I’m no obstetrician but I’m fairly certain there is no growing baby stored anywhere in my ass. While I admit some searches have been vaguely informative, altogether they have remained fruitless because I get overwhelmed easily when faced with too many choices, particularly where shopping is involved. And Amazon has been pissing me off lately when I log on and find announcements such as, “Hello Cheyenne! We have recommendations for you based on your recent searches!” (Oh shit.) And of course to my horror is listed, Graco ‘Little Miss Plush Pinktastic’ carseat/pram/diaper genie folding combo; Battlestar Galactica Season II The-Making-Of DVD; Kidoppotomus Swaddleme Fleecy Restraints; Patrick Hughes’ “Diary of Indignities;” and Tonka ‘Roll ‘Em Somersaults’ battery-operated tank.