The Clareverse

There’s 100 days to go until my due date, so it’s a good time for a brief pregnancy recap.

The worst things that happened when I was pregnant:

• Weeks 9 - 13: Ravenous crazy hunger, combined with all food suddenly tasting terrible. It was like one of those ironic punishment afterlives from greek mythology. I subsisted on banana bread and oatmeal for weeks.
• Week 14: I throw up so violently that all the capillaries in my face burst and I have blood-red eyelids and red spots all over my face like a plague victim. It takes 3 days to fade.
• Week 17: My feet swell up like sausages with toes on the end. I have to buy men’s flipflops because I can’t get my own shoes on my already very large feet.

The best things about being pregnant:

• New big boobs! Cleavage is fun.
• Hormones + prenatal vitamins + no alcohol for months = thick hair, strong nails, and perfect skin. If it wasn’t for the belly I’d be totally hot.
• Having an excuse for everything. No one gets offended if I don’t want to go somewhere, refuse food someone’s made for me, or suddenly decide to take a nap. And I can’t lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk without straining an ab, so all manual labor is out. I can indulge all my latent princessy whims without guilt.

So far my pregnancy experience has been totally normal: first trimester a nightmare of discomfort and fatigue, second trimester comfortable and kind of fun. Now all I have to do is eat like a horse, gain 20 more pounds, and not let my giant belly tip me over.

I just finished Persuasion, and it made me want to re-read Post Captain, by Patrick O’Brian. Post Captain is a great companion for Persuasion: same setting, and the first few chapters of it read like an Austen novel told from the man’s point of view. Which is fun - it’s like chick lit, with all the interpersonal drama + drinking and fighting.

The two books have the same plot setup: It’s 1802 and peace has been temporarily declared between Napoleon & England, so all the officers in the royal navy are on extended shore leave looking for entertainment, and all the ladies are excited to have eligible young men move into the neighborhood. In Persuasion the story of the young ladies trying to hook up with the various officers is told from a respectable young virgin’s point of view.

Louisa … burst forth into raptures of admiration and delight on the character of the navy; their friendliness, their brotherliness, their openness, their uprightness; protesting that she was convinced of sailors having more worth and warmth than any other set of men in England; that they only knew how to live, and they only deserved to be respected and loved.

- Persuasion, Chapter 11.

In Post Captain, the men are onshore looking for fun and trying to get laid, and the male author and modern sensibility make the young women less prim and more entertaining than they are in Austen’s story of the situation. Only the first few chapters of Post Captain are about flirtation, balls, and hunting. After a while war breaks out again and the men spend the rest of the book sailing around Europe fighting the French and blowing things up. There’s also an interlude with a bear costume that borders on the surreal.

‘When one sea-officer is to be roasted, there is always another at hand to turn the spit,’ said the bear. ‘It is an old service proverb. I hope to God I have that fornicating young sod under my command one day. I’ll make him dance a hornpipe - oh, such a hornpipe.’

- Post Captain, Chapter 4.

Even if you don’t usually enjoy reading about the early 19th century or naval adventures, Patrick O’Brian is tremendously entertaining. Go read some.

I don’t think mine is very good - they didn’t have a scruffy enough hair choice or a freckly skin. Or a big pregnant belly for that matter. Or maybe I just don’t know what I look like.

I think the sidekick’s looks just like him, particularly the soap emblem and the air of mildly amused irritation.

You can make your own at the Simpsons movie site, if you haven’t already.

I go to a book club once a month; the other members all work at the high school where my sidekick teaches, and so have daily experience with current education legislation. This month we read Persuasion and a modern retelling of Persuasion: Jane Austen in Scarsdale: Or Love, Death, and the SATs. The modern book was an entertaining piece of chick lit in which the Anne Elliot character is a guidance counselor in a high school. I reread Persuasion for the 4th or 5th time and prepared for a nice discussion of antiromanticism, gender roles, and the class system. The main talking point of the discussion turned out to be the wrongheadedness of No Child Left Behind. See, the modern retelling is set in a high school, so there’s a connection.

This is a recurrent theme in my book club discussions. A few months ago we read Fahrenheit 451. I took lots of notes and had a nice “Ray Bradbury is a big ol’ misogynist” argument prepared. Bulk of discussion: how much the dystopia of Fahrenheit 451 reminded everyone about the wrongheadedness of No Child Left Behind.

I think we got all the way through A Walk in the Woods and Marley and Me without a detour into NCLB-sucks-landia. I skipped the Memory Keeper’s Daughter meeting because I hated the book so much, but I bet the subject of raising a child with Down Syndrome tied in nicely with NCLB. Faking a child’s death is bad, as is leaving one behind.

I think for the next meeting I’ll prepare some bullet points on how the book we’re reading ties in with NCLB, so I can join in the discussion. It’ll be easy: any bad, useless, or wasteful policy or decision is like No Child Left Behind. Which sucks, y’all.