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2011-10-09 -

I had dinner with one of my friends last night, and a lot has happened to her in the five months since I�ve last seen her. We were supposed to go to a spa together, but it�s an all nude (women�s) spa, and yesterday morning when I was hiking, a bee flew into my clothes and stung me on the leg. It looks like someone beat me a few times (with an encyclopedia), which led me to believe it was a wasp that actually stung me, because they seem a lot angrier than bees. I didn�t think the girls at the spa needed to see me naked and limping around, only to surmise that I'm being badly abused or something. It hurt so much it was all I could think about. I wouldn�t last 5 minutes even in a mild war. My friend said she was sure she looked much worse than that, and I would know what she meant when I saw her. I couldn�t think of anything that could look worse, aside from a car accident or an actual beating. On my way into the restaurant, I debated whether I should show her my wasp wounds, depending on the severity of her injury.

Turns out in the past 5 months she�s gotten pregnant and married (in that order) and they just had their honeymoon (in Detroit). So I didn�t get into my wasp thing.

She said that she didn�t tell her husband, but she decided to just stop taking the pill to �see what would happen�. I couldn't relate - I�ve never thought about immersing myself completely in liquid, for example, to see if I could breathe . As she talked about her pregnancy, she got me thinking a lot about my own (empty) womb. Children are, of course, incredible and amazing. However, she certainly made a case for avoiding the pain of carrying one around.

�No one tells you how uncomfortable it is! It really sucks being pregnant!�

She said that she�s really excited for the baby, but realizes that her entire life is already changing rapidly from the one she knew. She is also a very high-risk pregnancy, which means that the baby could just �fall out� at any time. So she�s not supposed to walk much. I was hoping that the baby didn�t fall out while we were eating, because I have no idea how to administer that brand of assistance. I told her about a girl I once knew, who wanted to punish her on-again, off-again cheating boyfriend, and when he asked her to have children with him, she went and had a full hysterectomy even though she didn�t need to.

�Even her ovaries?�

�Everything.�

Not sure if it was related somehow, but at the same time, that particular girl happened to be writing her Master�s thesis on the topic of male dominance and the objectification of women. Whenever we�d talk, I�d have to tone my relationship down; I didn�t want to set her off. Her answer to anything I said about him was always

�Right! And THAT�S how they keep us down!�

So instead of saying, �He�s great and we�re really happy� I�d say

�I�m not sick of him just yet.�

When he proposed I said

�I think we�ll probably be seeing a lot more of each other.�

At the end of the day, I had to discontinue that friendship. I was sure they had removed her heart along with everything else they took.

My pregnant friend asked me about my plans for children, and I realized that I didn�t really have any. I told her that I think I�d be happy either way. If you don�t know what you�re missing, then how would you know if you were missing anything? So I walked her to her car and said goodbye for now, really excited for her new life, not to mention a renewed contentment for mine.

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