So, I’m realizing some of the advantages of being pregnant. Number one, people at my work are a lot nicer to me. In a way, this pisses me off. I alone was not interesting or deserving enough of niceness? But me + baby…well, now that’s something they can appreciate! The cynic in me (and that’s about 90%) says they think I’m playing out my “natural role” as wife and mother (most here are pretty conservative), and therefore I receive their acceptance. The less paranoid part of me wants to believe that they now feel like they have common ground to relate to me and are more comfortable having a conversation. There is one person particularly at my work who has been mean to me for years and is now asking me how I am. All I can think of “What kind of sick game is this guy playing”? Is he just trying to lull me into a false sense of security before dealing his fatal blow?

The good thing about all this is that I actually do have a way to connect with members of my family and old friends that I have grown apart from due to lifestyle changes. I think it was hard for them to understand what it’s like to be in a band, tour, run a festival, participate politically (which is actually a good thing because they like Bush), write about music…I still plan on doing most of these things in my new life and blending creativity and activism with motherhood. But we’ll have motherhood in common and that’s pretty huge. I had a two hour conversation the other night with a friend I haven’t talked to very much in ten years. We met when we were 13 and fell out of touch when she had a baby at 19. She now has a husband and two kids that she’s very proud of. I’m happy that this baby will help us become friends again. Same with my cousins. They are wonderful and sweet people but our lives were so different. Now we can talk about kid crap! Literally!

Yes, the getting fat part really sucks. But the goodwill that a baby creates is pretty nice. People like babies. More so than puppies or kittens even!