HitchDied

January 27, 2012
by Robin
12 Comments

Hi, I’m robin. Will You Be my Friend?

I’m going to New York this weekend, in no small part so I can be at the Brooklyn stop on the A Practical Wedding book tour. I’ve had to miss several other chances to meet all the intensely cool people who have come into my internet circle of friends, so I’m really hoping that the mid-Atlantic contingent of the Nosy Bitches make a strong showing at Meg’s Brooklyn Book Talk.

I’m also hoping that I recognize any of you. As Liz pointed out, it can be hard to connect a tiny little Twitter avatar to a real live human face.

So in the interest of helping all of YOU recognize ME, here’s my first-ever video blog, or vlog, as they were known in 2009. It is cleverly titled “This is what I look like.”

Please leave me a comment if you’re going to be at the Brooklyn book talk, so I know to look out for you! Can’t wait!

January 25, 2012
by Robin
6 Comments

Missed Weddings

Everyone goes through a phase in life where they go to a wedding every other weekend. Or at least what feels like every other weekend. It usually hits around your late twenties.

I’ll be spending a nice big chunk of my late twenties in South Africa.

I’m going to miss A LOT of weddings. Off the top of my head, I can think of six close friends and one family member already engaged to be married after we leave for Cape Town. And I’m probably forgetting someone. If I were not feeling so lazy I’d walk over to my fridge and observe the gallery of Save the Dates for weddings we won’t be able to attend.

It’s a sad feeling. In case you haven’t gathered from the thousands of words I’ve written about weddings here and in other fora, I really, really like weddings. And I really, really like my friends and family, and I hate that for a lot of those people I’ll be missing one of the happiest days of their lives.

We’ve already had to miss a few weddings (one a week before ours, one a week after), and that was sad and disappointing. When we miss weddings because we’re 24 hours on a plane and $2,000 in airfare away, I think it will be not only sad and disappointing, but very isolating.

I hope my dear ones who get married when I’m gone know how much I wish I could be there, and somehow manage to have adequate weddings without being graced by my presence. And as cheesy as this sounds, I hope that Collin and I can serve as a good example of the power of marriage as I follow him to the opposite side of the globe.

January 20, 2012
by Robin
14 Comments

Honeymoon Photos Are All Terrible

I was a little nervous about our honeymoon, because Collin and I have very different vacationing styles. I was raised with the vacation ethic of “go somewhere beautiful and just sit there relaxing,” whereas Collin is a Jam-Packed Itinerary of Adventure and Discovery-type vacationer.

But Collin managed to plan a vacation that struck a nice balance. We toured the Southwest United States, starting in Sedona, Arizona, heading to the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, the Four Corners, and finally driving through Southern Utah to Las Vegas for a couple of days of distinctly less nature-loving fun.

The pre-Vegas portion of our trip followed a predictable pattern: Wake up, take a hike or do something similarly outdoorsy and active, be exhausted by 1PM, so spend the rest of the day in bed, in both the honeymoon bow chicka wow wow sense and in the vacation snooze chicka zzzzzz zzzzzz sense.

Heading to Vegas was an abrupt change of pace, but after a week of natural wonder a totally welcome one. I had never been to Vegas and I liked it more than I thought I would. The pure excess of everything in Vegas is perfect for a honeymoon, where you’re probably the most blasé about money and extravagance as you’ve ever been in your life, because you just dropped so much more on your wedding. Like, marble entryway to a standard hotel room in the Bellagio? Well, of course. $30 chili cheese fries where the chili has kobe beef chunks and the cheese is truffle-infused? Bring it! I also liked gambling way more than I expected to, especially when we were winning money on the slots. [Fortunately I didn't have good luck last weekend in Vegas, and quickly lost interest in playing slots, which will hopefully nip in the bud what could be a burgeoning gambling addiction (and not even the cool kind of gambling addiction where you allegedly have the skills to justify your risk or at least can look like the Mack Daddy at a table instead of a chump in an aisle of bleep blopping slot machines)]

So, big picture, our honeymoon was great. I won’t get into more detail, because it’s either boring or not fit for print. So to be save this post from being a total waste of everyone’s time, I offer an observation that I started planning a post around 18 hours into our honeymoon:

All honeymoon photos are terrible.

I suppose there are super rich people out there who hire a photographer to document their honeymoon, but for the most part, it’s just you, your partner, and a point and shoot. Coming on the heels of an excessively photodocumented wedding, this set up feels hopelessly inadequate. You end up with a lot of photos that all look the same (kind of terrible) and fit into one of a few distinct types:

Mediocre attempts at capturing natural beauty.

The back of your partner while he does something interesting.

A sneak attack snap of your partner making a goofy face.

Misguided use of the notorious MySpace Angle.

And, of course, pictures taken by kind strangers who have apparently never operated a camera before.

[To exacerbate the problem, I somehow forget everything I know about posing for the camera when it is wielded by a Kind Stranger]

You know I’m right. You know you have these same photos from your honeymoon (or your last two-person vacation of any kind). You know they are terrible. We take them anyway, because we somehow worry we won’t remember the fun we had without photos to prove it. Which is fine, because photos can function as proof of fun even when they are spectacularly lame to look at. Just don’t waste too much time on your honeymoon trying to take Actually Good pictures, because you can’t, and it might impede your ability to enjoy your time while you have it.

January 19, 2012
by Robin
8 Comments

What Happens in Vegas Gets Blogged About

Last weekend, which feels like it ended eight seconds ago even though it is already freakin’ Thursday, I visited my friend Lexi in Las Vegas along with fellow BFFs Abby and Liz. It was almost exactly six months after my honeymoon, which ended in Vegas. And I hate to say it (but obviously not that much, because I already tweeted about this), but this trip would beat up the Vegas leg of my honeymoon in a fight. [Sorry Collin. I loved our honeymoon. I'll write about that tomorrow.]

Here’s why it ruled:

Leaving Pittsburgh in January almost always means heading toward much more favorable weather. It was actually an unusually cold weekend in Vegas, with actual ice spotted in a parking lot during the daytime, but it wasn’t a snowy chill-you-to-the-bone nightmare like Pittsburgh was. I got more sun in four days than I think I got all of last month. And we’re having an exceptionally easy Pittsburgh winter.
Even though I was too stupid to know I wanted to go to the Hoover Dam, my friends took me to the Hoover Dam and I had a historgasm while basking in the human ingenuity and American achievement. There’s a map of the stars emblazoned on the ground by one of the monuments at the Hoover Dam so that if an alien society finds Earth after humanity has died out they will still know when it was completed.
Being a group of young attractive women is sort of like walking around holding up a sign that says, “ATTEND TO MY NEEDS, SERVICE INDUSTRY!” Being ushered past a line to get into a dance club can now be crossed off my bucket list.
As can dancing on a platform in said dance club.
I finally had an excuse to wear the curve-hugging purple dress I keep wanting to wear out and deciding is too slutty.
I also wore statement earrings! It was maybe the first time since 1999 I didn’t regret having pierced ears. I’m making tiny baby steps into this mysterious world that people call “accessorizing.”
We met Holly Madison at the Peppermill, which was God telling Louis he should have come on this trip with us.
I found out that Las Vegas, with its total lack of hills and humidity, is the best place in the world to run. My planned 5K turned into 5 miles that I ran in under 50 minutes, which is much, much faster than my usual pace for that distance.
We went to the pawn shop that is on Pawn Stars. Vegas is one of the best places in the world to be a shameless tourist. I was captivated by the case of discarded engagement rings, which I called “a box of broken hearts,” but Rocco the very nice and knowledgeable salesman behind the counter insisted they are mostly “upgrades.” Then he showed us a cane with a sword in it.
We got to meet up with another Pittsburgh friend who happened to be in town and his amazing girlfriend, who’s in publishing, so I got to hear about “the industry” while eating amazing thai food.
Then we went to an improv show, which was very funny and entertaining in its own right, but we were really there to meet an old friend of the elder statesmen in our social circle who is brought up any time Vegas is mentioned. I thought this guy would be like, “Oh, great. Say hi to Ben and Lou for me!” But instead he was like, “OMG HI HI HI! LET’S TALK ABOUT PITTSBURGH FOR FIVE HOURS.” And we did. And it was a DELIGHT.
I got to do all this with my best friends. And then come home to my best husband.

And man, did I miss Collin. Being away for four days and wanting to constantly call and text him made me laugh at whatever part of myself ever imagined that maybe I’d let him go to Cape Town alone. I guess the great thing about marriage is that it gives codependency a sheen of legitimacy!

January 11, 2012
by Robin
21 Comments

Hair Goop Roundup

One of the myths about cutting off all your hair is that you’ll save money on product. Sure, the increased mileage I get out of a bottle of conditioner is like switching from a 1970 Chevy Impala to a Prius, but when it came to styling product I used to get by with a couple of anti-frizz serums and a plain old bottle of hairspray. But now that I have a pixie, I have a whole stack of hair goops to tame it. It’s still easier to style (I love getting back the time I used to spend curling my hair, and I don’t miss the burns, either) but in exchange for that saved time I need to use more product.

I’m still searching for the perfect hair goop that does everything I need (when I had short hair in college, my aunt worked for Unilever and I got enough free boxes of the now-defunct Salon Selective Control D Substance Molding Putty to get me through two years of short hair and a year of growing it out. I wish they still made it.)

Here’s the roundup of everything I have tried since chopping off all my hair the day after my wedding:

Garnier Fructis Style Pure Clean Finishing Paste
Price:About $5
Consistency: It feels a lot like face cream.
Smell: Lemon Pine-sol
Good news: The “clean” part of the name of this product is very appropriate, unlike a lot of these goops, it does not make your hair feel like you haven’t washed it in a week. It makes hair look less fuzzy, which is especially helpful when you need a trim.
Bad news: It offers zero hold and styling assistance.
Best use: Giving it to your Jew-fro’d husband, who has switched over to it after years of exclusive use of Garnier Fructis Style Curl Construct Mousse.

Tigi Bed Head Manipulator
Price: $15–$20
Consistency: Aileen’s Tacky Glue
Smell: Somewhere between coconuts and candy necklaces
Good news: Nothing else I’ve tried, not even my beloved departed Salon Selectives goop, will correct the position of a wonky chunk of hair as quickly and easily as this stuff.
Bad news: It’s far too sticky and powerful to use all over your head. It’s pretty pricey, too, but it goes on 2 for 1 sales a lot at Ulta and Target, and so far I’ve managed to only buy it at those times.
Best use: Taming cowlicks and getting those little wispy hairs on your forehead out of the way.
Additional note: I tried some knock off version of this that I can’t even remember the name of, and it worked ALMOST but not quite as well, but the smell was so terrible (sort of like almonds and cough syrup) that I couldn’t stand to use it.

Sexy Short Sexy Hair Quick Change Shaping Balm
Price: $13-$18
Smell: Lemonade
Consistency: Sort of like a creamy rubber cement, if you can imagine that.
Good news: This has nearly as much shaping power as Bed Head, but is thinner so you can use it on your whole head. Like with the Garnier Clean Paste, the name of the product is truth in advertising, because it is a super fast way to completely switch up your hair style.
Bad news: I compared it to rubber cement because it sticks to itself and stretches out in long strands of hair goop. This means using it is a huge fucking mess. The outside of my jar is disgustingly sticky. You absolutely must wash your hands after using this stuff. Also, it makes your hair feel completely grody and kind of makes me want to run for the shampoo.
Best use: When you have to be somewhere ten minutes after waking up/working out and your hair is all over the place and you’d need to make it look neat enough to go out in public, NOW.

Sexy Hair Short Sexy Hair Rough & Ready Styling Gunk
Price: $11-$16
Smell: I honestly can’t remember.
Consistency: Sugar wax for hair removal.
Bad news: I’m starting with bad news because I hated this product. I bought it to help me with fauxhawks and similar wacky looks, and sure, it’ll get your hair there. The problem is it starts to flake off almost immediately, which is not only gross but means your wacky style won’t actually hold for very long.
Good news: Ulta takes returns within 60 days!
Best use: Maybe you are making a shot-for-shot remake of The Breakfast Club and the actor you have playing Ally Sheedy’s character doesn’t have dandruff? You can use this stuff for the scene where she makes dandruff snow on her sketch. You’re welcome.

MOP Glisten High Shine Pomade
Price: About $15
Smell: Vaguely lemony.
Consistency: Melted petroleum jelly.
Good news: This is a fantastic finishing product, smoothing down any stray bits and making your hair really awesomely shiny. It makes your hair feel soft instead of waxy.
Bad news: You have to use it VERY sparingly or your hair will look hella greasy. Also, the shinyness can have a “My gray hairs, let me show you them!” effect.
Best use: Making your short hair look extra fancy when you are really dressed up.

If you have or have had short hair, I’d LOVE to hear what you use on it. Maybe you can lead me to short hair product Nirvana!

January 9, 2012
by Robin
18 Comments

How YOU doin’?

As I’ve inelegantly noted before, I hardly ever get hit on anymore. This really shouldn’t matter to me, because the ostensible purpose of hitting or being hit on is to find a new sexual or romantic partner, and part of me and Collin’s marriage deal is that we’re not going to have any of those. But what can I say, the patriarchy has thoroughly warped me, and I enjoy external validation in the form of strangers expressing interest in banging me.

I tell myself it’s about me not sending out those “come and get me” vibes, because I’m spoken for. I tell myself it’s because they see I’m wearing a wedding ring. I tell myself it’s because I cut off my hair, but screw them, my hair is super cute and so much easier now.

But then I get dark and tell myself it’s just because I’m not 22 anymore, and I’m not a size 2 anymore, and I cut my hair off and now I look like an old boring lesbian, not even a cute lesbian because chicks aren’t hitting on me either. And again, I SHOULDN’T CARE, because really, all I’m missing is the opportunity to reject someone, and that isn’t ever fun, but god. I do. I know it’s lame.

This weekend I went dancing at a hipster bar in a suit and tie. With my makeup photoshoot-ready and my hair in a fauxhawk. On the way over I told my friend Liz, “If I don’t get hit on by any lesbians tonight, I just give up.”

[Photo by Lou Stein]

And then I did get hit on by the same chick twice (I think she was drunk enough that she forgot me in between), and I was like, “YEAH! STILL GOT IT!” And then I got hit on by a series of dudes, one of whom GAVE ME A ROSE (after saying, “I thought you were someone else, so I got you this, but you should have it anyway”). [So yeah, um, I was apparently getting hit on at least half the time out of confusion, but I'm not going to let that bring me down too much. This is my pointless point of pride, I make the rules!]

So, the lesson is, if you would like to get hit on at a bar, wear a necktie. It gets people’s attention and gives them an icebreaker.

And now I offer this subject up to the forum. Do you married/relationshipped people get hit on less now, and if so do you miss it? Do you single people want to get hit on more, less, or just less creepily? I ask not only out of curiosity, but as a resource for some of my single friends who are genuinely perplexed as to how to appropriately approach an attractive stranger in a bar. Tell me your best stories of being hit on and hitting on others! Anonymously, if you wish!

Has anyone told you lately that you’re beautiful?

January 5, 2012
by Robin
5 Comments

My Love/Hate Relationship With SSRIs

I’m quite reluctant to write about what I don’t like about my depression medication, because the last thing I want is to dissuade anyone who could benefit from antidepressants from taking them. So let me say, right off the bat, that I think SSRIs have saved my life many times over. I both mean saved my life in the really scary “I might be dead right now” way, and in the way that my life if I hadn’t been on medication these past few years would be a Pottersville-esque nightmare. I was scared to go on medication, for reasons both unreasonable and reasonable, and I wish I hadn’t let them stop me for so long. If you need help, get it!

Successfully disclaimed? Ok then. I will now expound upon the HATE portion of my love/hate relationship with SSRIs.

Something I think is poorly understood about antidepressants is that they don’t make you happy. They don’t even really make you not depressed. They make you LESS depressed. Your rock bottom gets a little higher, and you spend less time there. If you’re starting out where I was, at “hella bummed” (I think the medical term is “in a major depressive episode”), this is still going to leave a couple notches short of “normal.” And that’s when you are on the right medicine/dosage.

How do you find the right medicine and dosage? Lots of trial and error, where “error” can mean “suicide.” And no one really understand why these drugs work, or why sometimes they don’t work, or why sometimes they stop working but switching to another drug that theoretically does the exact same thing will fix you, and other times you need to go on old fashioned brain-blasters or untested, “atypical” wallet-blasters. It’s pin the tail on the neurotransmitter with the blind leading the fucking blind.

So when you find a drug that is “good enough,” it can be hard to try something new, even when you’re unsatisfied with the results. I’ve been on Prozac for almost a year, and I’ve been thinking about switching for about as long. It’s effective, but not as effective as I want it to be (it’s not like the “Holy crap! Everything is better!” feeling I had a few months into my Celexa regime, which happened to be right around the same time I met Collin, so there goes any scientific usefulness of that memory). So me and my doc have been steadily increasing my dosage.

Which in turn, steadily increases the side effects. Which are a bummer. Every time I add more Prozac, I gain five pounds almost as quickly as taking that first pill. My weight adjusts back (or I force it back with amped-up exercise), but it’s still annoying to need Prozac Jeans alongside my Period Bras, and probably not all that healthy. The pills give me heartburn. There’s sexual side effects, troubling enough that they really deserve their own post (to be written when I’m feeling less uncharacteristically bashful). Since my latest dosage hike I’ve had two new side effects to manage. I have less energy and I sleep a lot more. You know what waking up on your couch when it’s dark out and the last thing you remember is lunch feels like? It feels like being majorly depressed.

And then there’s my favorite, the side effect that lead me to briefly believe I was pregnant: the night sweats. I’ll wake up drenched in sweat and shivering, like I’m menopausal or breaking out of a fever. It’s gross, it makes me have to do too much laundry and have to take extra showers which are terrible for my skin. Gosh, Collin regularly wakes up screaming and I regularly wake up in a cold sweat. We really are some pair.

I used to say, “I’ll get off Prozac when I’m on Collin’s insurance,” but as soon as that happened we’d decided to move to South Africa, where Prozac is readily available, and other less common antidepressants are not necessarily. So I guess I’m saying I’m going to be taking a drug that doesn’t REALLY work and DOES have significant unpleasant side effects for the next two years? That, my friends, is a depressing prospect.

January 2, 2012
by Robin
10 Comments

Resolutions to Save 2012 From Itself

It’s a new year, which means I can change all the things I don’t like about myself through the willpower that comes with a new Calendar, right? Except I don’t have a new calendar, because who uses paper calendars these days? People who get Christmas presents from people who don’t know them very well, that’s who. And I was spared from that this year. Good thing I didn’t get married toward the end of the year or I’d be flush with copies of Famous Women of New Jersey 2012 and Makeup on Pizza: An 18-Month Journey.

And everyone knows that resolutions don’t work, anyway, they just make the gyms really crowded in January, which is a pain in the butt because I’ve been jonesing for some Bikram and I know if I go now I’ll have no space for my mat and I’ll end up with stranger sweat on me by Arda-Chandrasana and yes I just used the Sanskrit because one of my NYRs is to be as pretentious as humanly possible [see below].

But despite all of that, I’m making some resolutions this year:

1. Sort my fucking life out.

2. Stop losing things like my keys so often.

3. Stop losing my mind every time I lose something like my keys.

4. Be as pretentious as humanly possible, so as to seem less obnoxious when I return from Africa all, “MY EYES HAVE BEEN OPENED” in a few years. That’s a long con resolution that won’t pay off until 2014. I roll deep like that.

5. Never, ever say “Two-thousand twelve.” You’ll only get “Twenty Twelve” or “The One Two” from me.

5.5. Make “The One Two” a thing.

6. Do not waste any more than ten seconds worrying about the world ending in December.

7. Be less messy [read: less divorce-able].

8. Either stop drinking so much or stop telling myself to stop drinking so much, because if I’m going to fail at moderation I might as well not further burden my liver with all that guilt. Don’t tell me that doesn’t make sense.

9. Blog more regularly.

10. And stop putting up bullshit jokey posts like this when I set out to write about how I’m depressed and terrified about what the new year has in store for me.

Happy new year, everybody. Got any resolutions you care to share?

December 14, 2011
by Robin
7 Comments

The Gift of the Rage-I

Nobody’s perfect, which means every married person has flaws. But what you hope for as a married couple is that your shortcomings will be complemented by one of your partner’s strengths and vis versa, so that you can balance each other out and be stronger as a whole than you are separately.

Sometimes that happens. Sometimes, you end up with the gift giving misadventures of the HitchDieds.

Collin is notoriously terrible at receiving gifts: he shuts down and squares off into an awkward automoton attempting to reproduce the human gestures associated with gratitude. I blame his extremely enthusiastic mother and sister, for whom every present is an opportunity to squeak, cheer, hyperbolate, wave victory arms, and hug. Growing up with a twin sister who acted like the war had just ended every time she got a piece on Chanukah gelt would give anyone a complex, right?

The best example I can give of Collin’s horrific gift-receiving habits is from our second Christmas together. I bought him a big fluffy robe, the warmest I could find, because we keep our house very cold. He had acted jealous of my big fluffy robe (which was also a Christmas gift, thanks Ab!). It was something that he needed, wanted, and it’s a classic gift. How could this go wrong?

Well, Collin opened up his gift and once he figured out what it was (probably because I said, “It’s a robe!”) he turned to me and said, “Oh. I can see why you would buy this for me.”

“But?” I asked. I was sure that he had just bought himself a robe or that this was made out of a fiber he was allergic to or something.

“But nothing. Thanks cuun. It’s nice.”

“Then what’s with the subjunctive tense!?”

“The subjunctawhaa? You know I hate words.”

“Well I hate giving you presents.”

And there’s our real problem. I have never been a great gift-giver. I’ve never had that ability to zero in on that perfectly thoughtful thing, that fun-yet-useful gadget that you didn’t know you always needed, that sentimental and delightful reminder of a shared memory. S0 instead of giving Collin mediocre presents that he will receive with awkward non-enthusiasm, I’ve taken to giving him a list of things I could give him, with him getting to choose.

The problem is? He never chooses. So now Collin teases me that I get him an “IOU” for every holiday.

I would be perfectly happy to become one of those couples that don’t buy each other presents, especially with our forthcoming move to South Africa requiring a bit of a stuff purge. But Collin just won’t stop getting me awesome presents, making me feel even more inadequate. As much as Collin is terrible at getting presents, he’s great at giving them.

He’s pretty terrible at keeping his presents a secret, though. And I love surprises. Sigh. But if we have to be incompatible in some way, I guess it is fine that it is regarding gifts, because at least we’ll be distracted by the special occasions.

How do you and your partner fit on the gift giving/receiving enthusiasm scale, and how do you make your differences work?

December 12, 2011
by Robin
19 Comments

All My Imaginary Children

One of the cruelest ironies about life with ladyparts is that the same symptoms that you are about to get your period can be attributed to early pregnancy. [To be fair, based on my personal history of Googling every weird thing my body every does, pretty much any physical symptom can signal pregnancy, up to and including bleeding out your vagina, which, you know, is supposed to be the "all clear" when it comes to these matters. Totally unfair.]

I don’t get my period regularly because I have an IUD. This also means it is incredibly unlikely for me to get pregnant; it is more than 99% effective. So when I got tired and moody and my back ached and my boobs got so tender I couldn’t run even with two sports bras on, I figured it was PMS.

But then I didn’t get my period. And my body started to do other things that the internet in all its baby-obsessed wisdom insisted might be signs of pregnancy. Night sweats? Pregnant. Watery eyes? Pregnant. This Diet Coke doesn’t taste quite right? Pregnant.

And somehow, “there is a less than 1% chance that I am pregnant but my Google searches keep auto-completing with the word ‘pregnancy’” translates in the (hormone-addled, hysterical) ladybrain to “OMG I AM TOTES PREGTASTIC.”

So from the time that Imaginary Fetus is conceived until the time you get to the pharmacy to pick up a 3-pack of piss divining rods, you start to play out your Hypothetical Spawn’s entire life in your head, and more importantly, your own brand new Changed Forever Life. I’m sure I’m not the only person who does this [anybody see How I Met Your Mother last week? This all went down last Monday. My name is Robin. CREEPY, RIGHT?]

So my brain goes into a spiral of baby speculation. Will we still move to South Africa? What is pre-natal care like in Cape Town? Will our baby forever annoy everyone by being the white brat who calls himself “African?” OMG, do I conceivably have the time to convert before the baby is born? Oh god, will I have to appear before a South African bet din? I’m I going to have to pull of Afrikaans-accented Hebrew? I can’t do that! But I want Jewish babies! WHY DID I PUT THIS OFF!?

Wait, oh my god, I’m going to have an infant to care for 8,500 miles away from the nearest grandparent? I can’t do that. We can’t have this Imaginary Baby in South Africa!

Which means this poor kid is going to grow up thinking he crushed his father’s dreams. I can’t do that to my baby, to my new family. Maybe we need to be strong and let Collin go to South Africa alone, and I’ll stay here to raise the baby. It’ll be like he’s off at war. Collin’s grandfather didn’t meet his first kid until he was 14 months old because of Korea. God, remember that episode of M*A*S*H where B.J.’s baby calls Radar “Daddy”? I’m already crying. Oh man, I’m crying over the memory of a later-season episode of M*A*S*H. I am SO OBVIOUSLY PREGNANT.

Spoiler alert: I’m not really pregnant. Yay! Sushi for everybody!

I’m glad they only sell pregnancy tests in multi-packs, because the next time a patchwork quilt of random body quirks morphs into a hypothetical baby blanket, I won’t have nearly as much time to freak out over a baby that doesn’t exist yet.

Have you made Baby Contingency Plans during pregnancy scares and/or whatever-word-people-who-are-actually-trying to-procreate-use-for-when-they-think-they-might-be-pregnant (“pregnancy tease?”), or am I the only one with a whole brood of hypothetical accident babies living in my brain? Does that make me crazy? Or is it just a sign that I might be pregnant?