G'day all,

slightly late due to me being for 1 week without internet access holidaying in Whangaroa Harbour, here's the sixth edition of the podcast. As usual the assembled nodes are absolutely stunning, with some great reading performances.

Cheers,

H


Direct download at http://e2podcast.spunkotronic.com/e2pod7.mp3

Bones like girders,
Erected in the dark.
Drafted within coil
Perfect and true.
This is the house that will shelter,
The vessel that will sail.
This is the manifestation through
Which I will give my love to you.
O how I love
Your perfect form.
But who, tell me who
Is this yet unknown to me,
The real form and substance
Of this new reality?
I leave it to you,
what you yet do not know.
And the art you create,
I await you to show. - me

The doctor's office isn't very often a good place to be. Today Jen and I had our first really good look at the little baby growing inside her. This is one of those times you can say are very good.

For some reason I had this compulsion to make sure all the parts were there. (Oh, good, so we know there's at least one eye now...) They were, and of course we confirmed what we already knew. This kid is damned healthy, and strong too!

The technician was very competent and professional. I appreciate that. We were very comfortable and relaxed through the whole thing. It doesn't occur to a lot of people how essential good staff are to an experience like this.

So the little one is female. No question about that. The equipment was plenty visible and unambiguous in the picture. I'm not surprised at my general lack of emotional response to the discovery. Honestly, my paradigm shift of the last few years is not just a show. Without illusions, I know that our child's sex bears little relevance to anything that matters.

I noticed something interesting upon the revelation, though. My sister-in-law, who was in the room with us, seems to be more at ease in talking about the baby now that she knows what it "is." Her first words: "She sure is beautiful!" The pronouns "she" and "her" have immediately sprung into usage.

This is when I lament the woeful inadequacy of the English language. Gender segregation is institutionalized in language. There is no escaping that in the near future. I am tired of people scoffing at the search for neutral grammar as useless and futile. I vow to be conscious and judicious while limited by our conventions of speech.

The immensity of a life in its beginnings is not lost on me. I am a forward guard, setting up a perimeter to defend the vulnerable child that will have to fight...fight to stay unique, aware and open. I am truly lucky.

I have had E2 Experiences of the Third Kind.

Like taking for granted, on one of my first days on the site, that I could ask anything I like of my peers on my message in-box, like I was on some crappy blog chat site. Finding out very quickly how very wrong I was, and going back to read the E2 FAQ.

Like making assumptions based on no facts whatsoever. Making comments about a peer claiming to have read all his writeups, (what a lie I was telling,) and coming up with probably the most opposite assumption you could ever come up with. And, completely pissing my peer, off, to the point that I feared he would never ever talk to me again, and Oh! How I would have missed his advice! He has (I assume), forgiven me.

Like doing my very first writeup thinking to myself "This is a good story," only to have it end up in the trash bin, making me want to scream. Making me want to send nasty text messages, but not doing it, having finally read the E2 FAQ a number of times. Finally, I sat down at my keyboard, and got down the HTML tags, the notion of what was expected in a writeup on E2, etc, and then began to appreciate what this site was all about. I began to learn how to spell, use proper punctuation, and how to use the HTML tags, even. Then came the links. A fantastic learning experience. I had lots of help from very kind and understanding editors; it's a real pleasure working with such people. My second writeup got a "C!" I was, by then, hooked...hook, line, and sinker, to E2. Writing has been in my blood, for a long time, but now I was getting somewhere.

Like waking up at all hours of the morning, hours I would normally sleep through. Just to check and see how my writeup was doing, did I get the big "C." To read what my peers were writing, to have a good laugh, or a good cry, and all feelings in between. It's sometimes heartwrenching. it's sometimes hilarious. Or, like waking from a dream and running straight to my scratch pad to insert an item in my planned writeup because something in the dream made me remember something which ought to have be included.

These are what I have coined E2 Experiences of the Third Kind. Experiences you will never forget, experiences that will aid you all through your writing career. This is a small part ot the unforgetable E2 Experience.

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