June 22, 2001

I'm Pregnant!!!!

Yup...the blue line appeared in the square box. No doubt about it...I've got a bun in the oven, I'm in a delicate condition, I'm having a baby! Is this all good? Ha! When it is ever? But being pregnant is perhaps my favorite state of being. And I love being a mom, so this is a good thing.

I'm a bit worried though. I've had more miscarriages than succuessful pregnancies. I'm not very plagued with morning sickness yet, and that has meant a miscarriage in the past. All I can do is wait..and take care of myself in case this kid decides to tough it out.

Fetal development....This kid is about 6 weeks along right now. That means that what I'm calling a kid is actually about the size of a grain of rice. Arms and legs are developing, but no fingers or toes quite yet. The brain is developing, and there are nostrils, intestines, the beginnings of lungs, and some miscellaneous organs.

I'm feeling...hmmm....worried, happy, pissed off, excited. This was NOT a planned event. I have two kids already..they're 7 and 9. I was pretty glad to be out of the diaper changing/toddler phase. But damn it's cool to have a baby around. And being pregnant is such a blessed way to be. I always worry, however about if the baby will be ok. Somehow over the past few years, those worries have subsided. I don't fear having a child who is handicapped anymore.

Maybe that's because I've been in contact with my ex, who has a boy with Downs Syndrome. This guy is an incredible man. I'd read somewhere once that often parents who have kids who have Downs come to feel that their child is a gift, and that these kids are usually born to special people. Somehow I always knew he'd have a special child. And somehow I know that if this kids survives, it will be special no matter if it's "normal" or not.

And God says Ha!

I was successfully arraigned yesterday.

I went to court, and was assigned an attorney. He entered a plea of not guilty without having spoken to me, which was a little unnerving - I was worried that he was going to plead guilty to something and then explain why that was a good choice, but he didn't. He spoke to me after the proceedings to talk to me about my options, which are essentially:

1. Plead guilty and pay a $100 fine, suspended sentence of a year (last time I heard 30 days, I don't know which is correct or if they're getting meaner)

or

2. Go to trial.

Going to trial is going to mean missing more than $100 worth of work, as he predicts it will be a three week trial, and will probably be a lot more stressful than just paying the fine. The problems with this are that it would remain on my record, and that it would make a successful police brutality suit a lot more difficult. My criminal attorney and the attorneys handling the police brutality suit want me to go to trial, as I have a good chance of beating the charges, which would help the civil suit a lot. Also, going to to trial will cost the city a lot of money since they have to pay for my attorney's time as well as calling in all the police officers as witnesses. He told me that filing for dismissal is not an option; they tried that with other people and the court didn't go for it.

I don't know what I want to do yet; my next court date is August 23, so I've got a while to think about it.

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For an account of what happened in the first place, please see my daylog for May 3, 2001.

The runaround I went through to get a continuance on my arraignment is written up for May 7, 2001.

The charges against me are listed on May 10, 2001.

For an account of my first arraignment hearing, please see my daylog for May 24, 2001.

For an account of some of the conflict I've had with my coarrestees, please see my daylog for May 30, 2001.

If you want to read me whining about how much this has upset me, read my daylog for June 2, 2001.

This just keeps getting better. Or worse. It depends. There's this russian guy, apparently a visitor or something to the conference (wrhc) who has been hanging around in the computer room for whole week. Right on the first day he decided that he's not going to ask for permissions or any of that crap and went and installed the russian keymap, or would if he had the privileges. Of course, I would've done the same in same position, but now he's doing much of the other tech support here. Technically I should be the one, but I don't really mind. Gives me more time to read clueless comments at kuro5hin (mostly my own, I like reading my own comments), and besides, today I became a victim of UF productivity virus, so I can't be bothered with mundane issues. Still, some part of my mind thinks uneasily "so for exactly what do I get my pay?". I think it's because I was raised in a lutherian country, as atheistic as my family might have been. Christianity is more than a religion, you know, and even if I find the assumption of the existence of some supernatural beings unfounded, the ideals of our specific branch of christianity run deep, and among them, an idea that I need to be useful to justify my existence. Hmm. I wonder if that's why I have this urge to code software with no hope of getting anything, even acknowledgement, out of it.

P.S. Did you know that "hirvas" is a male adult reindeer? Probably you didn't. Is this the sort of information that should be in E2 database? IMHO, yes, it should be. Question: how am I going to tell this to E2 database? If I enter a writeup containing the text "An adult male reindeer", we all know what would happen to that writeup. But if there simply isn't any more to say about the subject, how can it be a weak writeup? Should I maybe softlink it to "adult male reindeer" and create a nodeshell for that? Doesn't that sound just a little bit stupid to you? So should I conclude that no, E2 doesn't need information about things for which there isn't much to say about?

Infinite_Burn has expressed everything I have been feeling so beautifully and succinctly that I can't find the words to add, that make any sense. But I do feel torn and split - and like I really have no choice - I must follow my soul's yearnings and walk that road. I just don't want to!

I'm afraid of what I will lose if I walk that path openly, publicly. And it beckons.

sorry for the jokes, I just can't help it.

This has been the worst fucking day of my life.

I had to run a couple errands today, so after breakfast and everything I start out. Everything goes fine... Got my car tags, got my paycheck, ate lunch with my girl, went to ETSU to submit my loan papers... and from there everything went to hell.

I had just pulled out of ETSU when I noticed my temp gauge was about to red line, so I pulled into a local Hardees and opened my hood. The radiator looked like it was smoking a whole pack of cigarettes it was steaming so much, and the reserve tank was shaking so much it looked like we were having an earthquake. Some dude that worked there came over and his jaw dropped on the ground as he saw the radiator... He was like "Dude, I've never seen anything like that..." Yea, your a great help dipshit...

So I sat there about 15 minutes while it was cooling down so I could put some water in there, and all of the sudden it started pouring. So I hopped in the car, closed the sunroof and all the windows and turned on the AC to keep the car cool. Everything was fine and dandy until the sunroof started to leak. By this time, the rain was getting so hard, I couldn't see halfway across the 4 lane. And when I say a leak, i mean a huge leak, so I went to a bank drive-thru and I think everyone who went by me was laughing their ass off. So I stayed at the bank drive-thru for two hours having a constant supply of paper towels sent to me by the tube system just trying to dry the inside of the car off. So I finally got home after spending 3 or 4 hours being pissed off at my car.

I created tomorrow's day log. I didn't do it for the glory or anything, trust me. I don't know, my trigger finger kind of slipped.

I was sitting the coffee shop drinking my decaf herbal tea and I saw this girl outside with these eyes I knew. It ended up to be someone I knew from high school. Someone who I rebelled against my mom with. Someone who knows stuff. She came bounding into the shop and gave me a hug. We then had a long, raucous, joyful conversation and I was lulled into feeling like high school again. Without the bad parts. And I started wondering why I am moving to Toronto, when my whole life is here. Sure, Ben is there, but what else?

I am such a rock star.

Wow, I am so happy and I don't write day logs much anymore but I feel compelled to today. I need to commemorate this day somehow.

Today was the first time in three years and three months that I have played my guitar and sang in public, in a formal place where people I don't know go, and have those same people appreciate my art. It was definitely more than one of those polite you're not that great but we will clap anyway things!! No, no not at all.

First they looked surprised...

Then they looked happy.

They didn't want to get up to go to the bathroom. People outside heard me and stopped in. I kept going and going not unlike that stupid bunny.

I'm exhausted. I'm content. I'm thrilled.

I have got to do this more often.

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WTF? Why all the downvotes people? I know that I am not the literary genius I think I am but daylogs are MEANT for the subjective things and I am noding joy!

Haven't any of you experienced joy before?