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  1. (Bed) Rest for the weary…

    April 20, 2012 by admin

    I’ve spent the last week on bed rest/home rest/hospital rest. I’m fine, the baby is fine, but my normally awesome blood pressure decided to turn not awesome at my last checkup and when it does that in pregnant women, the bells and whistles go off and people start to get really concerned about you.

    Which is great. I know I’m really lucky to have health insurance and a team of doctors who are on top of things. The baby is safe and that’s what counts.

    But all the worry and the resting and the constant contact with my two new BFFs — Systolic and Diastolic — equals a right pain in the ass.

    It is literally exhausting staying in bed all day. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. Your muscles and bones need to move to feel right. Sluggishness exponentiates upon itself. Things ache. Which is unfortunate because when your BP is high, it doesn’t feel like anything. It’s not like the flu where you feel like you’re sick. Your body is hiding its sick on the inside.

    Then there’s this — you feel like you’re not doing enough around the house. It adds to the load Daniel is already carrying. As much as he says not to worry and as much as he does to make things right and good, I still hate feeling like I’m not contributing. I mean I get that I’m not supposed to be doing chores, but I can’t unload the dishwasher? I FEEL FINE, DAMMIT. Let me do something. (Cue the Doctor: “NO.”)

    Yesterday I went into my checkup hoping they’d relax some of my restrictions, but then admitted me into the hospital for closer monitoring instead. That was an exercise in fear and patience. Also, I learned that no matter how hungry you are, never ever let yourself think that the hospital-grade tuna fish sandwich is a good option for lunch.

    Never again.

    So I’m home now. I’ll be here making sure my BP is low and not doing very much of anything. Except playing Scramble. A lot.

    On the bright side, this will all clear up once I give birth to the little guy and that’s only 27 days away.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

  2. 25 minutes off the record books

    April 10, 2012 by admin

    I miss improv. I really, really do.

    It’s depressing, not being in classes, not practicing for shows, not having the energy to go out and SEE shows. After more than a year of immersion, I feel like I’ve got my club pass revoked. (I just removed “… and feel like I’m on the outside looking in” because the ridiculousness emo of that made me laugh out loud.) I MISS IT, DAMMIT.

    My friends are putting deposits down on the summer intensive at IO and I’m so massively jealous it hurts. I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since the heaviness of last summer’s heat. There’s still so much restlessness shaking about in the crevasses of my brain directly tied to it.

    Hot asphalt. That’s a troupe name if I ever heard one.

    Rarr. I know it’s temporary. I also know I have other things I need to be thinking about and preparing for right now (although if one more person gets on me about why I haven’t packed my hospital bag yet, they’re getting punched in the throat).

    Today is Tom’s One Day Without Shoes at work and I’m grossed out about it. Bare feet and company bathrooms and kitchens do not mix, y’all. No, no, no.

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  3. Three Years

    March 30, 2012 by admin

    Today is a lucky day for me. Three years ago, in a state of acceptance and fear, I was rolled into an OR at Brackenridge to have my head cut open, my brains moved apart and a wide-necked, ornery, deadly, little bilobed aneurysm clipped.

    I woke up from the surgery with all my faculties in place. Well, for the most part. I had some aphasia to work through, (literally) head-splitting headaches and some specific memory loss. But I could see. The aneurysm was nestled against my opthalmic artery, so I was particularly nervous about that. I could talk. I could walk. I would heal quickly and without complication. The recovery would be hard, it’s still ongoing, but the worst of it was better than manageable.

    It was the perfect outcome for an impossibly lucky find to what could have been a horribly awful, devastating situation.

    That was three years ago today. Every single day since, I’ve been grateful for another opportunity to count my blessings.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 5 Comments

  4. Timely

    March 14, 2012 by admin

    Between that last “I sad.” post and today so much has happened.

    “Oh really, Terry? Soooo much that you couldn’t find the words or the time to post? Really?”

    Um… yeah. I always say that I really need to get better at that, but I never seem to. I need to set a blogging alarm.

    Things that happened:

    1) I graduated from Coldtowne! I’m bonafide now. It’s kind of surreal. It’s a feeling reminiscent of graduating from college where I’m all, “What now?” Pairing the timing up with taking a break from for maternity leave means I’ll have a longer than usual break, but hopefully I’ll be able to jump back in before I forget everything I’ve learned from the past 15 months. Daniel is really supportive of me getting back into it as soon as I’m healed and the brand! new! baby! craziness has settled into a nice routine.

    The last show with Sixty Second to Sweatpants was awesome. For those of you who haven’t seen us (pretty much everyone), it’s Morgan and I, Brad and Alex. Morgan and I are both pregnant. So part of the hilarity (in my mind) is the stage picture of two pregnant women and two guys on stage. For the last show the guys came out with pillows under their shirts. Our Ouija conjured up person was Marilyn Monroe, portrayed by Brad. Hilarity.

    I'm bonafide.

    It’s a tradition at CT that one of your instructors says something about you before you get your diploma. Mine was from Ratliff and instead of being funny and taking the piss, it was really sincere and genuine. That really meant a lot. I don’t know that I would have stuck with the program if it wasn’t for him and the inspiration he imbued.

    This pic is from the official Coldtowne Flickr page.

    CTGrad Ratliff

    2. SXSWi. Holy shit that was EXHAUSTING. For real. I’ve taken part in SXSW for almost as long as I’ve been living in Austin and this was the first year I felt unprepared physically to handle it. I really took for granted the toll that being seven months pregnant would have on the experience. All the walking, standing, walking, standing was way too much for me. Sad face, man. Sad face.

    But I performed in this and it was awesome:

    3. RADIOHEAD! We were maybe 15 people back from the stage. It was glorious and amazing and exhausting. The baby kicked enough for me to know he was into it, too.

    I’m 30 weeks along now. When I told my doctor that I exchanged my first-trimester worry that I’d lose the baby with my third-trimester worry that I’m going to go into labor early, she said I only have four more weeks to worry about that. After 34 weeks they don’t stop pre-term labor b/c the risks of the medicine outweigh the risks of the labor that that point. So, yay only four more weeks of worry?

    After SXSWi, I have bigger plans for this blog. You know, like I have every year? But this year I’m going to make the changes I’m always talking about. You’ll see.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 2 Comments

  5. womp

    February 23, 2012 by admin

    I’m having good days and bad days, more bad than good lately. (And by lately, I mostly mean this week.) In my head mentally, more than physically, which is weird and not something I’m accustomed to.

    I’m accustomed to physical pain and discomfort. The brain surgery and the recovery made me and physical pain close, close friends. I know how to handle pain. The headaches are worse, but I expected them to be. Being pregnant makes it more difficult to manage without pain pills, but I’m managing it.

    I’m slower now. Moving around is more deliberate in all the usual ways pregnancy makes moving deliberate, and in some bonus ways I didn’t expect. Pregnancy carpel tunnel in my wrists and ridiculous foot/leg pain makes typing and walking difficult sometimes.

    So that’s that, body-wise. Mentally, I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve always been, what’s the word… plucky? Happy is my default. Seriously. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. I’ve had things come up (as we all do in life) to make me sad, but I’ve rarely been in so deep that my toes couldn’t touch the bottom. Lately I’m finding myself crying for no reason, staying in bed under a cloud of funk I can’t see through and pretending to be happy when I’m very clearly not. It’s not 24/7. Which is good. It’s not something I don’t think I can handle. It’s just very present right now. Today.

    It’s probably hormones. It’s probably one of those things I haven’t gotten to in all the pregnancy books I still need to read. But it sucks.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 7 Comments

  6. FWIW

    February 17, 2012 by admin

    For what it’s worth, I do miss vodka. But not nearly as much as I miss champagne.

    * * * Obviously (sadly) not taken in real time. * * *

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  7. Desktop

    February 8, 2012 by admin

    Corrin over at Oh Hey, What’s Up? just wrote a post about what our desks look like. Since mine at home is currently being used as a catch-all for Christmas presents, random baby things and quite possibly a winning lottery ticket, you get to see what I stare at every day at work.

    I recently traded in my desk chair for a comfy chair with an ottoman (it’s the pregnancy chair, and it gets passed around from expectant mom to expectant mom) so I snapped a triage of what my workspace looks like from the comfort of it.

    Now, mind you, I JUST cleaned it up. I’m posting it here mostly so that Corrin shakes her head in my general direction.



    What does YOURS look like?

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: , | 4 Comments

  8. CRACKTASTIC.

    January 31, 2012 by admin

    So this week my plan is to write a three-part series on why the hell my head hurts so damn much (and why it seems to be getting worse). I’d like to get it all written and published this week, but I’m also not going to pretend like I have that kind of energy.

    But here’s a neat little list of things that I’m enjoying the hell out of lately:

      Pinterest. It’s a little crack-like in its ability to time suck.

      Cracked.com — This link here about combining In Rainbows and OK Computer to make the ultimate album that Radiohead meant to to be listened to together but made TEN YEARS APART. It’s kind of mind-blowing. (And lest you think I actually went through the trouble to make this happen in my earcans, you’re wrong. I’ve just been thinking about how cool it is.)

      W.E.L.D.E.R. — Which is a word-building game that, like everything else in this post, can only be described as crack-like in its awesomeness. Download! Play!

      Clementines. I CAN’T STOP EATING THESE. It’s not even a joke, y’all. If there’s a disease opposite scurvy, I’d have it.

    And finally, I saw this today on mashable.com and I can watch it forever and laugh all day. ALL DAY.


    What’s been cracklin’ in your life lately?

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  9. Right now…

    January 20, 2012 by admin

    My niece is in the delivery room. Her mother is holding one hand and her husband is holding the other. She’s in pain. So much so that my mother, her grandmother, left the room to catch her breath. Her voice was shaking on the phone. That feeling, that heart-in-your-throat feeling, passed through the phone and I know with absolute certainty she’d do anything to take that pain away. The first-born daughter of her first-born daughter, dealing with all of the anxiety and pain of bringing her own first-born love into this world.

    My heart right now is wrenched up so tight in my throat for my sister. She’s always been the strongest one of us three. And she has to take all of that strength and be a pillar for her daughter. Sitting next to her, listening to her little girl cry. She’s no doubt trying to channel all that pain from her daughter’s body from that little hand she’s holding into her big, strong heart. I remember when it was her, bringing Lisa into the world. I was a kid, too young to really get it, but I remember how beautiful and exhausted my big sister was when we were finally allowed in the room. And how thrilled my brother-in-law was. And how peaceful and tiny my niece looked, swaddled up in the nursery.

    It doesn’t seem like two and half decades. Not one bit.

    And then there’s her husband, Patrick. He’s fresh from Afghanistan, just in time to be a father. Thank god, all the gods, everywhere that he’s here today. His little boy gets born here in a matter of minutes and he gets to be here for it. In times like these, in a world like this, that’s such a blessing.

    I’m sending all of them all the strength and hope and love I can muster. I just got a text message from my mother that Lisa is still pushing. She’ll be done soon. Done and exhausted and thrilled and overwhelmed by the beautiful, amazing, newest member of our tribe.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: , | 6 Comments

  10. TEEE VEEE

    January 17, 2012 by admin

    Now that television is back from its winter hiatus, it’s sucking all of my time away again.

    Allegedly, this is time I could be spending reading, organizing, cleaning, cooking, doin’ mah nails or … I don’t know, updating this here blog. But I have to admit, lately all I want to do is take my jeans off, get comfy, sit back on my couch with my feet up, eat copious amounts of clementines and do absolutely nothing.

    People who have children are all, “DO EXACTLY THAT. You’ll never be able to do (insert pretty much anything here) again ever in your life.” Which I’m taking as a bit hyperbolic, but what do I know.

    This is what’s currently snagging all the memory on my DVR:
    (more…)

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: , | 8 Comments

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