intense pregnancy dreams

I've written here (perhaps too much) about the various annoyance I've faced with my first pregnancy. Lately, however, I've had a new experience that's pregnancy-related but quite pleasant.

About every third or fourth night, I have the most intense yet surreal dream. They're not nightmares or are they unpleasant, but they are unusual and seem utterly real when they're happening. They are so intense that, when I wake up, it takes a minute or two for me to realize fully that the dream was entirely fiction.

In the most recent one, I visited a vast underwater futuristic city that seemed to be set in a parallel universe. In another, I was some kind of charitable worker in Japan not long after the atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima. The one before that, I was a street vendor somewhere in Europe in the eighteenth century.

None of these dreams was precipitated by anything I read or saw in a movie. The husband, not entirely injest, questioned whether I was experiencing some kind of past life regression. I don't know if I believe that. Besides, how could I have a past life in a futuristic city?

Vivid dreams during pregnancy are quite common. Sometimes women dream their child has died or that something horrible has happened to their husband. I'm glad I'm not having any of those.

not too brite

I'll allow the contents of this sign to speak for themselves. I ran into this the other day on the internet and it made me laugh here Down Under for reasons that might not be obvious to everyone. If you're not from the Chicago area, the subtext of this sign will probably go by unnoticed.

Hands down, Crestwood has to be one of the most corrupt towns in all of America. It's wrapped up in an absolutely mammoth legal mess involving toxic drinking water that has dragged on for years. After serving nearly fifty years, Mayor Chester was replaced by his son. Members of their family hold most of the important municipal government jobs.

In short, the town fathers secretly allowed chemically contaminated water to mix with public water supplies for decades. Many people have been tangled up in this scandal, including the likes of Rod Blagojevich, who looked the other way for years rather than deal with the crisis.

Some days, American politicians make the Borgias look wholesome by comparison. Some days I miss Chicago, but then I see things like this and I realize I don't miss it all that much any more.

hypersexual geek girl

The husband's nearly new desktop computer developed a strange problem last night I've never seen before. He's typing along, surfing the web, and all of a sudden the screen goes black. The only way to get back the visual is to turn the monitor off then back on again. It happened repeatedly, every two or three minutes.

The power option was set for "high performance" with the screen saver set to kick in after the machine was idle for fifteen minutes, so that was not the problem. So he turned to me for help, given he's not the most computer facile person.

I completely powered down the computer, let it sit for a few minutes, then fired it up again. The problem persisted. I tried clearing all the caches on every browser. The problem persisted. I tried like twenty other ideas. The problem persisted.

During the last two times the screen went black, I noticed it did it just as the theme's background image changed. So I changed the background to an "aero" theme with a single image. That did the trick (knock wood). No more black screen.

I'm assuming, because of a Windows update, the theme function is causing some kind of conflict with something else that's running in the background. The conflict causes the screen to go black.

I have zero formal computer training. So when I figure out little fixes like this, I always feel like, "well, maybe I'm not so stupid after all."

(Unrelated: lots of times when I post little filler images, like the one below, they can be seen in a much larger full size if you right click them.)

too much or too little

This is part of an art photo series, but my inner philistine can't help but notice the pubic extremes here. The one on the left obviously has razored everything off while the one on the right hasn't touched hers.

In my humble opinion, the one on the left went overboard whereas the one on the right needs to tidy up. Some pussies look great completely hairless and some untouched, but I don't think either one here found the right look. Your snatch is like your head -- what looks good on another girl might not look good on you.

superhero wedding

So was this a wedding or a birthday party for a nine-year-old? It's their event, so if that's what they wanted, good for them. I'm sure they could care less that a complete stranger like me thinks a superhero wedding is a tad moronic.

I never regret our absolutely minimalist wedding -- just the celebrant, James and me. A few minutes and it was all done. I guess I'm just too frugal. Spending a whole lot of money on a wedding would've freaked me out. And I have an aversion to overly cute weddings where the theme gets more attention than the couple.

push to add drama

This has nearly 34 million hits on YouTube, but it's the first I've seen it and maybe for you, too. My first thought was that this could never happen in the US because people would start suing five minutes after it happened. If not sooner.

possessive versus plural

This is one of my biggest pet peeves -- professionally made signs that confuse the possessive and the plural. If you're in the business of making signs, you should know the difference. I'm a high school dropout and I know, for crying out loud.

The first one is a mystery, because one is right and the other is wrong. The second one has an additional error, too. Maybe they both had them made at the place seen in the last picture.

good citizen

An American girlfriend here, who is also married to an Australian, asked me recently why I have made no effort to obtain dual citizenship. I would not have to renounce my American citizenship to become an Australian citizen.

I've thought about it from time to time, but I can't think of a compelling reason to do it. For all I know, I may live here the rest of my life. Because my husband is Australian, I can stay and work here indefinitely. If anything should happen to him, God forbid, I could continue staying here as long as I wanted.

I see myself as an American living in Australia, not as an Australian. Even if I'm here for decades, I will always be an American. The US is still the center of my universe. I see no reason to swear allegiance to another country, notwithstanding that would't affect my American citizenship status.

Maybe I see becoming a citizen of a second country as somehow diminishing my American citizenship, even though legally that's a fiction. I guess I just like the idea of being 100 percent American.

knowing versus not knowing

It's too soon yet for my twentieth-week ultrasound -- that's when parents can be told their baby's gender if they wish.

Without a doubt I want to know and I was pretty sure the husband would want to know in advance, too. But I didn't want to color his decision if he knew what my preference was in advance.

So I wrote my answer down and asked him to do the same. He did, we looked, and my prediction was correct.

We both are hoping for a boy, but if it's a girl, I think knowing in advance will help us get used to the idea before it happens. I know some people like the "old-fashioned surprise" method but that's just not for me. I'm a plan-ahead kind of person as is James.

We also talked about what we would've done if one of us wanted to know in advance but the other didn't. I'm glad that didn't happen, because I think it would be a difficult secret to keep.

Of course this all might be an exercise in futility. While the gender can usually be determined during the second-trimester ultrasound, it's not foolproof.

good lord I have tits

The husband was goofing around with the camera recently and shot this by accident. Because I was leaning toward him, the distortion makes my tits look bigger than they are, but I'm not complaining.

James says I have more cleavage now than usual, thanks to the little tenant in my abdomen. I have a tiny paunch but you really can't see that in this picture -- not anywhere near a certifiable baby bump yet. I always wanted bigger tits, but getting knocked up is one heck of a way to achieve that. Maybe I'll nurse the kid until he's nine just so I stay boobier.

Given there is flesh showing and I'm somewhat naked, this possibly qualifies as a Half-Nekkid Thursday, albeit it is Tuesday.

dirty underwear party

Salon has an interesting new article up on their website about pheromone parties, where single men and women sniff each other's dirty T-shirts in numbered plastic bags. When you find an odor you like, you have a chance to meet whomever it belongs to.

The idea is that if you're attracted to someone else's scent, you could be more compatable sexually and/or emotionally. Some scientific studies have shown that certain human scents, like underarm odor, can have a positive influence on select members of the opposite sex. So while Marie may think your pits stink, Emma might think they smell divine.

If I was still single and someone invited me to a party like this, I think I'd pass. The idea of smelling strangers' dirty laundry does not appeal to me. While I really like the way some men smell, particularly that morning after bedroom scent, I'm also very turned off by other men's odors. And, like many, bad male hygene grosses me out.

Looking at pictures online of a pheromone party in LA, some of the guys look downright creepy. I wouldn't smell their dirty underwear if you paid me. Curiously, you have to pay $30 to attend the pheromone party.

fifty shades of gross

Is there anyone who does not find Gilbert Gottfried annoying? That aside, this video is very funny because of the expression on the women's faces. If the video won't play for you, click here to see it.

kibbles and tits

Bestiality porn makes me want to hurl but this photo set, fortunately, is quite safe. It's just a naked woman posing with a big floppy dog for apparently no reason. I just could not resist that big cute monster. If you'd like to see more photos from the set, you'll find them here.

mumsycise

My exercise-for-expectant-moms class has been meeting for several weeks now and seems to be a success. I finally settled on calling it Mumsycise. I should trademark that name because it turns up zero hits on Google.

On the whole, not many of the women turned out to be in that good of shape and about half the class was overweight when they became pregnant. So we spend a great deal of time in the beginning of each session just doing basic streching and relaxing. The rest of the class I'm just improvising simple dance moves combined with some aerobics and they follow along.

The women all say they like it and I've not had any dropouts as of yet. Several have also brought along a friend, so the class size has actually grown.

One of my ulterior motives in doing this was to increase my circle of pregnant acquaintenances. So I've had a good time getting to know some of the women.

Some of the babies' fathers wanted to watch the first class. I had to politely disinvite them. I don't know if they get off on seeing pregnant women jumping around. Or maybe, since I said in my promotional flyers that I was a former exotic dancer, they were expecting I would get naked.

Two or three of the women have remarked "I love your accent." That amused me. I don't have an accent. They all have accents. For them, I guess California seems like an exotic faraway land, while Australia is still an exotic land for me, notwithstanding I've been here several years now.

blimp lips

The first thing I noticed was not her oversized tits but her massive lips. This could've been caused by a poorly done collagen injection, but it could also be something she wanted. I've seen women on occasion with lips this ridiculous, notably in my Vegas days, and it wasn't accidental.

To me, this just screams fake. You might as well wear a T-shirt advertising you've had your lips all pumped up. Does any male actually find unnaturally large lips attractive? I would think kissing that would feel strange. Do women with blimp lips give better blowjobs?

sexy & I know it

Before you hit the play button, looking at the freeze-frame, you get a terrible feeling that this will be one of those wretchedly bad YouTube videos featuring a hopeless amateur.

I thought that and I was wrong. Judging by the comments on his page, I am not alone. This video has gone massively viral -- more than four million hits in only a few days.

This dude has The Voice. Wow.

building a better vibrator

The Atlantic has a lengthy and very interesting article up on their site (and possibly in their print edition) about a vibrator designer. The piece also includes information about the history of the vibrator and the female orgasm.

I did not know that electric vibrating devices for women have been sold since the early 20th century. While the devices could have been used to relieve tired muscles -- and likely what their makers would claim if anyone asked -- they also could've been used as sex toys.

Their ads seem to be hinting they're not just for aching shoulders. "Invented by a woman who knows a women's needs," says one ad from 1908, as "all nature pulsates and vibrates with life." Another one promises "the pleasures of youth will throb within you."

The most interesting little tidbit was the fact that electric vibrators were invented ten years before electric vacuum cleaners.

porn license required

Even casual news consumers likely know the United Kingdom is not the happiest place on earth right now. Their economy is wilting like lettuce spilled on a hot July street. Increasing unemployment rates raise the collective national blood pressure every day. The phone hacking scandal has a fresh casualty list each week and now even threatens to bring down the party in power.

So what's the British Prime Minister focusing his attention on these days?

Evil, dirty, naughty porn!

Yes, the PM is floating an idea that would mandate a defacto porn license by requiring people to "opt in" for porn on their internet connection. If you don't opt in, your IP will block everything considered insalubrious, e.g. people showing their naughty bits or getting their freak on.

Of course, as experience has shown here in Australia, content filtering tends somehow to miss naughty stuff but does block legitimate things like government websites. So a parent "opts out" of porn but can't reach the town council website, while Johnny is up in his room watching Fisting Lesbian Nymphos IV, which blythly flies through the flawed filter.

Filters that actually work can easily be subverted by a twelve-year-old, according to news reports here Down Under. Not surprisingly, once a few kids know how to do it, virtually everyone will know how.

Some day politicians will realize this fundamental rule: people who don't understand the internet aren't fit to pass legislation on it.

midget strippers against mcdonald's

I lived in Manhattan for a while but somehow midget strippers escaped my attention. I first learned about them when I stumbled on the photo below of midget strippers protesting McDonald's treatment of animals used to make Chicken McNuggets.

I personally always thought the idea of Chicken McNuggets was unapetizing. What are those things? Where on a chicken is the nugget? My grandfather kept a few chickens for their eggs, so I saw them up close and personal. To me, McNuggets look like breaded and fried chicken poop. They're about the same shape and size.

Over at Gizmodo, they have a picture of McNuggets before they're washed with ammonia, dyed with food coloring, cut down, breaded, and cooked. Be forewarned, the picture is not appetizing. It resembles a giant pink boa constrictor.

I've had some weird food cravings now that I'm pregnant, but I don't think McNuggets will ever be on the list. Brown sugar mixed in unflavored yogurt? Cheesecake with pickle relish? Raisins mixed with spaghetti? Count me in. As for McNuggets, I won't be able to get that pink goo picture out of my mind.

Soylent Green might look like pink McNugget goo before it's dyed.

significant sleep deprivation

I was experiencing insomina for a while, as I wrote before on the blog. Then that sort of faded away for a while, my sleep patterns returned to near normal.

But now it's back. And then some. I fall asleep for an hour after we go to bed, then I'm wide awake. I lay there for three or four hours, contemplating the universe, and finally I drift off to sleep. I wake up at the usual time and I'm exhausted.

I'm now into Day Four of this. I'm now finding myself easily confused over minor things and forgetting a whole lot of ordinary shit. The tiniest things make me cry. I'm having surreal dreams when I do sleep, but I did make a curious discovery -- if I dream about something painful, I do not feel pain in the dream.

I have also noticed an odd correlation. When I'm having insomnia, I don't have morning sickness. When I have morning sickness, I don't have insomnia.

Child of mine, after you're born and all grown up, you better win a Nobel Prize or something to pay me back for torturing me like this. Because you're making me phantasize about getting a Vera Drake DVD and taking some notes. (An obscure movie reference comes to mind like quicksilver -- why my malfunctioning brain remembers something like that I do not know, but could it instead remember something important like where I put the car keys?)

Signing off now from my own private sleep-deprived alternative reality.

meanwhile on armageddon street

I found this photo online but I don't know where it is. It appears to be in Europe somewhere.

This would be a great street to walk down, but I don't know about driving there. The painting is fascinating but could be very distracting. I wonder if many accidental fender benders happen on that street.

I don't heart maternity clothes

I did my first shopping yesterday for maternity clothes. I didn't much like what I saw.

Given I'm not yet really showing, I don't need anything right away, so I didn't buy anything. I was just looking to see what's available. I'm checking all the nicer resale shops because I want to spend as little as possible.

Some of the selections were heavy on attempts at cute. Some outfits look like they were designed for pregnant ten-year-old girls -- heavy on the frills and kitsch. Then there are things like the "Mum 2 B" T-shirts. Why does an obviously pregnant woman need to advertise that she's pregnant? She's afraid people might think she has a large abdominal tumor and is not bursting with child?

I've actually thought about making some maternity clothes for myself. My grandmother taught me to sew when I was a child, and the elderly lady we housesit for has a fairly new sewing machine. So I could make a few simple maternity shifts, then when the kid is born, I could take them in. I might try one and see how it goes.

I don't like the idea of spending money on clothes I'll only wear for six months. Yeah, we might try to have another kid down the road in a few years, but we'll be in no rush. I do not want to be one of those mothers with three kids still in diapers.

a frog that does oral

I almost peed my pants at this one. The page bills itself as "risqué jokes from a bygone era, delivered by a generation that loves to tell them."

evil subconscious

I've been having dreams-within-dreams almost every night now. I wake up and it seems I'm miscarrying. The sheets are bloody and my thighs are sticky. The husband is snoring away. Then I really wake up and everything is okay. No blood, no problems, nothing.

That's such a curious experience where my mind is my enemy, playing a trick on me. It seems like I have really awakened. There's no sense it's a dream. I fully believe I'm miscarrying. Then the thirty-second horror show is over, and I just lie there amazed at the cruelties of my evil bitch subconscious.

the neighbor's lover?

A married man in our neighborhood has long struck me as a potential philanderer. He's quite good looking and outgoing while his wife is rather average-looking and quiet. He's subtly flirtatious when he talks with women and sprinkles whatever the subject with some double entendres. He stands a little too close and his eyes wander all over your body. He struck me as the type who could step out without remorse and his wife wouldn't have a clue.

I was in a nearby store the other day and happened to notice the wife a few yards away. She was turned so she wouldn't see me. I started to go over to her and say hello when suddenly the manager of the store came up to speak with her. Needless to say, she seemed like an entirely different woman.

He clearly knew her well. They were standing rather close while speaking softly with tactile contact both ways -- his hand was on her arm, then she touched his chest when she laughed at someting he said. She really glowed when she spoke with him.

I immediately saw her in a different light. I now would not be at all surprised if she wasn't banging the store manager while her husband doesn't have a clue.

The two began walking away from me, so my neighbor never saw me. I ran into her a little later in the day and never mentioned having seen her in the store. She was back to quiet mouse mode.

I love knowing little secrets about people when they don't know I know. I would never say anything to anyone except my husband, so if she indeed is getting something on the side, her secret is safe with us.

porn websites safer than religious sites

According to Symantec, the largest maker of anti-virus and security software, religious websites are far more dangerous for computer users than porn websites.

In its most recent "Internet Security Threat Report," available for free here, "religious and ideological sites were found to have triple the average number of threats per infected site than adult/pornographic sites."

The report does not reveal whether religious websites tend to knowingly or unknowingly infect visitors computers. I do know some sites inadvertently infect users by hosting ads and images containing hidden malware.

So visiting AnalBimboHeaven.com is potentially much more wholesome for you than, say, surfing to the website for Reverend Billy Bob's Church of Holy Goodness. Something to think about when you're wandering around the internet.

bear versus texting man

One of the places I lived in LA is very close to where this happened. What the news report doesn't mention is the fact that the bear crossed through many blocks of inhabited city, across a busy six-lane street and, most amazing, crossed a very busy eight-lane freeway to end up where he was found. As for the texting idiot, he's lucky he didn't end up as lunch.

is porn art?

The Daily Beast has a new story up about a recent criminal trial in Los Angeles, where Ira Isaacs was on trial on obscenity charges for distributing a variety of movies with titles like Hollywood Scat Amateurs.

Testifying that the films should be considered art, Isaacs pointed to examples of artforms that are considered both socially acceptable and excretory based, like Marcel Duchamp urinal sculpture "Fountain" and Christopher Ofili's elephant dung paintings. Isaacs was nonetheless convicted and awaits sentencing, which could be as long as twenty years.

The Beast writer correctly points out that Isaacs's argument about art is a specious one, but his lawyer may have thought that was necessary to satisfy requirements in the law that something cannot be considered obscene if it has "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." I presume the law would define "serious" as meaning the creator was serious in thinking the work was art, not that serious as a synonym for "significant." If it's the latter, then an awful lot of clowns on velvet paintings would have to be considered obscene.

The article discusses the familiar "community standards" issue as it relates to the trial. The prosecutor asked, for example, what the jury members' neighbors might think about Hollywood Scat Amateurs.

That's the law as it stands now, whether or not something meets "community standards" or not. But what if one's neighbors might not think garden variety anal porn did not have "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value"? What about a poorly written and badly acted sitcom? Or a wretchedly bad romance novel?

The article's writer correctly underscores the real issue here: do consenting adults have the right to watch what other consenting adults do, even if it might disgust some or many people? If you want to buy poo DVDs shipped to you in a plain wrapper, what does it matter if your neighbor or even a majority of people might not like them? I certainly don't want to watch scat movies, but if you do, why should I have the right to decide what you can't watch consenting adults do?

This was Isaacs's third trial. The first one ended with a mistrial after beastiality porn was found on the judge's personal website. The second ended with a hung jury. The prosecutors finally got lucky with the third one.

It's nice to know crime has dropped to such low levels that prosecutors are forced to spend their time on trivial issues like this one.

worries about sex

The husband laughs at me because I frequently engage in "what if" conversations. Sometimes I wonder "what if" about world events or history or fictional characters. Other times I wonder "what if" about our forthcoming child.

Recently I've been wondering "what if" I can't have sex at a certain point in my pregnancy for medical reasons. I've known several women who were told not to screw in the last X weeks or months.

The husband responds, "well I still have a tongue and some fingers so I think you'll be all right."

I then wondered aloud what if the doctor said I couldn't even have any kind of vaginal play or an orgasm. He said I should wait unless and until we have to cross that bridge.

I still worry a little, silently. The idea of not being allowed to have an orgasm for several weeks or months is pretty close to terrifying. If I don't miss it, I guess that's not so bad, but if I'm horny as an alley cat and can't have sex, well that's now getting too scary to think about.

Then, of course, once the little bundle of joy is evicted from my womb, there's a no-sex period. I already knew about that, but I've been reassured I won't want sex then anyway. That's when my tongue and fingers will be put to work on the husband, as needed.

I wonder sometimes if I would've saved myself a whole lot of grief by skipping the pregnancy and just grabbing a woman's baby out of her supermarket cart when she wasn't looking. Poof, instant family, and no vomiting, bloating, gas, painful tits, and all the other wonderful unpleasantries.

logic-impaired people

Although I've been in Australia for several years now, I still use one of my US credit cards because it's issued by an excellent organization. If I have any need for customer service, they have no problem when I call collect from Australia.

I check my account online regularly. Yesterday, I noticed an erroneous charge made for pay-per-view television service in Canada. The total amount was around $50 US. Coincidentally, I made a $400 charge here in Australia the day before and a $200 charge the day after. So it was pretty obvious I was in Australia.

I called the credit card issuer and happened to get one of the few idiots they employ, because usually their people are excellent. I explained the whole situation.

Mr. Moron, however, could not wrap his head around the idea that it was physically impossible for me to be in Australia one day, Canada the next to watch television, and back in Sydney the day after that. I didn't dispute the two larger Australian charges, so how could I possibly be pulling a scam?

Even if I had access to Air Force One, I don't think I could get the kind of turnaround. And what kind of idiot flies 20,000 to watch pay-for-view?

Fortunately, he turned the matter over to someone else who was able to handle it for me.

mouse in the house

My husband thinks it's amusing that, when we occasionally see a mouse has come in the house, I won't set out a trap to kill it. Instead I use a humane trap improvised from directions found on the web. Because some mouse species are dwindling or even endangered here in Australia, I don't want to take a chance.

Usually my humane trap does the trick. Once the critter is captured, I slide him in a box and then release him in the woods about a mile from the house.

We have a new intruder who is extremely shy. I've seen him run along the baseboard twice at night but that's it. He's not been seduced by my trap. I suspect he's not used to being inside buildings because he doesn't eat the little pieces of whole-grain breakfast cereal I've left out as a trail to the trap.

This one is darker and rougher coated than the other ones I've seen in the house before. Given some wild species will not eat human food and only grains found in nature, I'm wondering if he could possibly be one of the scarcer species.

He looks a lot like the Hastings River Mouse picture below I found on the web. They're native exclusively to Australia and considered a "vulnerable species," not as serious as "endangered" but on the way there if its population doesn't improve.

I hope I'm able to rescue him before he dies of starvation in the house.