I have a two-day-old child in my womb right now. His Nana arrived on Saturday, and his daddy made the five-hour round-trip drive to Logan Airport without smoking a cigarette.

This is pretty much everything that's going on in our world.

Why am I just NOW reading about this? Why was this not in every newspaper in the country? Even if you are not a Salon subscriber, you can read the article by choosing to view a quick ad. It is worth your time. Oh, and Bill Frist is now in the running for Most Evil Republican.

Based upon this newfound knowledge, you can bet that I will be double-checking with baby's pediatrician to ensure that Thimerosal is not being used in any more Hepatitis B / Haemophilus Influenzae B / Diptheria-Tetanus-Pertussis vaccinations.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of “vaccines,” you do know that Donald Rumsfeld holds a stake in Gilead, the company that devloped Tamiflu, that is valued at between $5 million and $25 million, don't you? And that the fears of a pandemic of avian flu has caused Gilead's stock to rise nearly 33%, making Rumsfeld another million dollars richer. And that Tamiflu is what Bush is saying we're going to spend billions of dollars on, even though it does not actually vaccinate people against contracting avian flu, right? And of course, it's old news to you that way back in APRIL, Bush signed an executive order “authorizing the government to impose a quarantine to deal with any outbreak of a particularly lethal variation of influenza now found in Southeast Asia,” even though a flu expert at Atlanta's CDC said in 2003 that “traditional efforts like quarantine would not work to control bird flu.”

(above source article published by Associated Press on April 1, 2005, begins:

Associated Press Archive – April 1, 2005
Bush order gives government quarantine authority if needed for bird flu
President Bush signed an executive order Friday authorizing the government to impose a quarantine to deal with any outbreak of a particularly lethal variation of influenza now found in Southeast Asia. The order is intended to deal with a type of influenza commonly referred to as bird flu. Since January 2004, an estimated 69 people, primarily in Vietnam, have contracted the disease. But Dr. Keiji Fukuda, a flu expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said he suspects…

And you can buy it yourself by searching for April 1, 2005 and “bird flu executive order” here.)

This is why I am so unhappy with my previously much-beloved Republican party — they're all so maliciously insane that when I root to the bottom of their fetidness, their “putrescence” (thanks, honey, it is a word, and now I owe you a blow job), they make me look like I'M the crazy one.

And of course, that's how they mean it to go. The evil fucks.

My due date is tomorrow. You should've seen my lawyer's eyes widen as I told him that during our 1:00 meeting today. Tomorrow is November 5th. Guy Fawkes Day. It would be very cool for my son to arrive tomorrow, as “Guy” was my grandpa's name, and the name I'd be known by, had I been born a boy. Of course, had I been born a boy, my father's first words to my infant self would not have been “where's the penis?” So I'd be missing out on that little bit of family history.

Actually, it seems that very few children are actually due on one's due date, which is OK, too, because My Favorite Mother ™ is arriving tomorrow evening. I've been let off the hook from picking her up — four hours in the car is just a little more than I can physically handle right now — so it'll be Brian traveling solo to Logan Airport, unless I actually *do* go into labor, in which case my friend Emily will make the trip.

I think we're all set for a houseguest, and all set for a baby (the most permanent of houseguests 🙂 — the only thing I still need to buy are some drinking straws, as apparently it is nigh impossible to drink from a cup while nursing a baby.

While shopping for last-minute houseguest items (foam egg-crate thing to render the futon more comfortable, as well as an extra pillow) this afternoon, I totally bumped my backside into a nice old man at Target's book aisle today. I apologized for my girth, which he admired, saying “Looking for a novel to help you forget your troubles?” I smiled at him and said I wasn't sure whether my troubles were just ending, or just beginning.

Guess we'll see…

Not to toot my own horn, but yours truly has been deeply honored to be named “Miss Thing of the Month.”

I love you all!

Katie: Lynn, you should really be wearing a maternity shirt.

Lynn: Katie, this IS a maternity shirt

Me: This baby is never coming out.

Monstro: He's probably waiting until I get published.

The Sox won the World Series! The Sox won the World Series!

What's that?

The WHITE Sox?

Oh.

Nevermind…

I was originally going to call this “Dumbass of the Year,” but there's someone else who fits that description, so instead I'm amending it to Famous Dumbass of the Year.

And the winner is: DMX, the hardcore rapper who can't catch a clue!

The list of nominees was long and distinguished, and the committee had a challenging time deciding upon whom to confer this award. Here are the reasons why DMX came up on top:

Back in 2004, DMX “plowed his SUV through a security gate at JFK Airport while high on Valium and then claimed to be an undercover federal agent.”

So, OK, that could happen to anyone. And the judge was down with him, so when DMX pled guilty, the judge gave him a conditional sentence, telling him to keep his nose clean and, oh yeah, turn in his JFK-security-ramming Ford Expedition.

Two weeks later, DMX was cited for driving 104 mph in a 65 mph zone.

And then, in April of this year, DMX rammed his Dodge Magnum into a ladies “stationary car,” causing a chain reaction that, oops, also involved an unmarked police vehicle.

And then! Oh yeah! He missed a court date last month. Must've gotten it confused with the MTV Music Video Awards.

So hey, hey, he's going to jail, having just pled guilty to two counts of driving with a suspended sentence, punishible by two months in jail, perhaps on the lovely Riker's Island.

Sentencing will occur on Nov. 17.

Full story appears here.

I love the Internet because it is such an amazing tool for self-discovery. Hence googlism.com:

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Well, I did not even come close to winning The Manolo's Super Fantastic Essay contest, but after reading the things that did win, I'm not feeling too terrible about it. Anyway, here is my entry, which I think is definitely worth at least $1,000 worth of shoe merchandise.

Are there Shoes after Childbirth? Or, You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Until It Doesn’t Fit Anymore

My friend Roberta has, like, 300 pairs of shoes. Or rather, she has 300 pairs of shoes, gave birth, and now has 300 pairs of shoes that don’t fit.

It seems that in pregnancy, tummies and breasts aren’t the only things that expand.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, for fear of enabling her habit, but now that I myself am ready to give birth any day now (stress the word “ready”), I find myself mourning my few pair of fabulous footwear, the ones I rarely wore but knew were there, patiently awaiting my booty call.

My shoes were the first things I outgrew. No worry, then; I was managing an ice-cream shop and required to wear non-slip black industrials: the muumuus of the shoeniverse. But then I got fired for being pregnant, threw away my non-slips (no more food service!), and then sat in my closet, looking for something sexy to elongate my puffy tootsies.

No va, baby. Nothing fit. Not my anodized aluminum cut-out wedges with the mirrored cuff. Not my three-inch black stilettos I wore for a very important first date. Not my dancing pumps with the Lucite heel that I wore on my wedding day. And, worst of all, not my red lizard mules I bought one week before my positive pregnancy test and wore once.

So now I give new life to the cliché “barefoot and pregnant,” not only wondering what I’m going to wear to my discrimination lawsuit but also: if they warned us about this pregnancy by-product in Sex Ed, or on “Sex in the City,” would the world suffer a population decline? Roberta and I think it’s possible.