pregnancy notes

I am very tired of Braxton-Hicks contractions. (For the unfamiliar, these are not real, labor contractions, which in me at least feel like Godzilla menstrual cramps, but a form of pre-labor that is very common and doesn't indicate that labor is coming anytime imminently or even in the next six weeks, though they do help pave the way. They feel like the uterus tightening up and very solid, like you could bounce bullets off it a la Superman. It's not painful, just uncomfortable, and makes walking kind of creakier than usual).

Dehydrated? Braxton-Hicks.
Have to pee? Braxton-Hicks.
Turn over in bed? Braxton-Hicks.
Bump belly against door frame? Braxton-Hicks.
Stand up too fast? Braxton-Hicks.
It's the solution to all your contraction needs!

Also, I dropped a paring knife yesterday and scratched my naked belly with it. Duh. However, my friend fell down the stairs holding her two month old last week, and two days later a clock radio spontaneously fell off the shelf onto the baby's head, so I don't yet win in the "danger to myself and others" contest. (The baby appears to be very durable - no ill effects.)

books read

Bill McKibben, The End of Nature (1989).
This now 17-year old book got me thinking about news cycles and what are the hot environmental topics. He talks about global warming, acid rain, and CFCs/ozone hole. Obviously we still hear a lot about global warming, but when was the last time you heard much about acid rain? I asked mr. flea, who as an environmental engineer is a little more clued into this stuff beyond what hits the news, whether acid rain and ozone layer problems had been solved or just fallen out of fashion. He noted that acid rain as a result of pollution originating in this country was much better, due to smokestack scrubbers and the switch to different forms of coal for electricity production, but acid rain resulting from, for example, Chinese coal-powered electric plants is an increasing problem in the Pacific region. The ozone layer has seen a lot of progress, too, as there were switches away from CFC propellants and coolants, although the slow (100 year) decay of CFCs in the atmosphere means the problem still exists, it just isn't getting worse. mr. flea pointed out that both problems are fairly single-source problems, and relatively easily solved - as opposed to the global warming problem.

In addiion to practical scientific thinking about the environment, the book provoked an irritated reaction in me, however - something that books I have a general agreement with sometimes do. The author gets all poetic and nostalgic about "the end of nature," suggesting that although we have polluted and altered the environment before, global warming and worldwide climate change are on a completely different scale, and thus we have truly ended (or are ending) nature in our lifetimes. And at this, I start to get all "but! but!". He does a lot of quotation of Muir and his ilk - but really, I would estimate that 99% of people who have lived in the past 100 years have never been in a truly natural place, one basically unaffected by humans. I know I never have. And, for example, in Greece the landscape was permanently altered by agricultural practices starting in the Early Bronze Age, ca. 3000 BC. There was large-scale soil erosion, which tends to mean changes in vegetation, which has knock-on effects for local climate. Even in the most remote parts of Greece today, the entire environment has been affected by humans for thousands of years. Futhermore, who defines what nature is? Is nature defined in opposition to humans? So, was North America in a state of nature when Europeans arrived, or not? There were certainly people living here, who did have effects on their environment.

Like that. I kind of got pissy with poor old Bill and his worry that all the trees around his Adirondack house will be dying soon. It didn't help that I didn't much like his writing style either.

Loretta Chase, The English Witch (1988?).
This hooked me from the get-go, because it starts in Albania, and I've been to Albania, and it's not a place a lot of people have been to or set romance novels in, and Chase got all the historical and cultural details I knew anything about right. (Actually, her real name is Chekani, which could well be Albanian; Albanian being a mysterious language that I know very little of, but Chekani has the right sound.) The parts at home in England got a little overly elaborate, plot-wise, but still a good read.