Baby Nielsen is a girl!! And I am a terrible psychic. (UPDATED BECAUSE I'M AWFUL)

If you're like me, ultrasound pictures are entirely indecipherable, so let me explain. What you're looking at above is a picture of Baby Nielsen's bum. I think. I'm pretty sure. Anyway, the arrow is pointing between her legs, and the three little white lines indicate lady parts. Oh how embarrassing.

On Friday I was exactly 17 weeks pregnant. Eric and I were getting a little antsy to know whether we had a little miss or mister on our hands, probably mostly because we had a bet that whoever was right would get 50 dollars to spend on whatever they wanted. I was going to use this as a clever way to force Eric to buy me baby clothes with me, but it didn't quite work out because I was positive that Baby was a boy. And now I'm getting no end of "I told you so's" from Eric.

Actually, I'm just wrong in general as far as the whole baby guessing thing goes. Since learning of my pregnancy, my maternal instincts have apparently taken a nosedive off a cliff because I'm about as clairvoyant as a rock. We've had a bunch of friends find out baby genders, and I've been wrong EVERY TIME. I swore up and down that baby


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Apparently I hit "publish" instead of "save" on this one before finishing it.

OH GOOD.

I don't even remember where I was going with this. I guess I'll just finish this post now, since it's already been up for an embarrassingly long time. I'm a very reputable writer, take me seriously!

I think my point was that I have a 100 percent failure rate at guessing baby genders. Which, if you think about it, is actually pretty accurate. That's like a perfect succes rate, in a way. So maybe I am kind of psychic. Like, "my gut says you're having a boy, so it must be a girl."

By the way, I was positive Baby Girl was actually Baby Boy. In fact, just last night I had TWO DREAMS in a row that she's a boy. I'm still not 100 percent convinced that this isn't the case.

Welp. That about does it. Let's chalk this up to pregnancy brain and forgive me, kay guys? *Womp womp*

Three days without Facebook. Because I haaaate myself.

This morning I checked Facebook. Then I went to work. Then I checked Facebook again. I spent the first hour of the day working and checking Facebook until I read something that made my heart twist. See, I have several Facebook friends who are pregnant and who got pregnant around the same time I did. However, their babies are healthy. I had a miscarriage. I would have found out whether my baby was a boy or girl this month...and that means that THEY are all finding out and excitedly posting their news to Facebook. Meanwhile, I'm torturing myself by obsessively reading their updates and looking at pictures of their cute bellies and the sweet baby socks and clothes and books that they're receiving as gifts. I am not even close to being over my miscarriage. I feel like a mother without a child. I am jealous, angry, empty, and sad every time I see one of those updates. It's hard, REALLY hard to be happy for people who are getting what I thought I'd have. I lost it, seemingly at random, seemingly by chance, seemingly for no reason, and arbitrarily they didn't. But I digress. Because the point is that after I saw this girl's update and felt that familiar sinking, empty, drowning-in-a-well-filled-with-my-own-emotions-blaaaaah feeling, I got PISSED.

I'm mad! WHY am I doing this to myself?! Is this REALLY how I want to feel?? No one is forcing me to look! I sat there, staring at the computer screen for at least five minutes, realizing that I am torturing myself. I have a wound that's trying to heal, and I keep ripping it open and examining it. What is wrong with me? I'm not a jealous person. I'm not a person who doesn't rejoice in the happiness of others. I'm not a wallower. In the past I've always been able to muster up enthusiasm and joy for people who have what I want.

See, without Facebook, I wouldn't even know that these friends are all having girls so far. They could tell me or I could find out on a better timeline, one where I don't have to crumple into a pathetic pile of sadness in secret and they don't have to feel guilty for sharing their good news. I actually am not sure if they all even know, but I don't want them to feel bad when they post a picture of an ultrasound.

I've realized that being a part of every single thing that every other person does is a responsibility. If we're going to have that much knowledge about the lives of one another, if we're going to give ourselves so much freaking ability to be connected at all times, then we have to learn not to abuse it. Torturing ourselves with Facebook is NOT responsible behavior. It's insane. It's kind of sick. I do it all the time. It's not just the miscarriage, either. I can't count how many times I've felt awful after comparing myself to other people, particularly other people I hardly even know. And when was the last time I argued for hours on end over some stupid political opinion in real life? Facebook is the perfect forum for that, unfortunately. I get to watch some awesome things happen in the lives of my friends, but I also get to feel just sick to death because of all the negativity. It's negativity I force upon myself.

Not everyone needs to know what I'm thinking! I don't need to know what everyone else is thinking, either. I don't need to hurt over someone else's baby when I'm not even finished hurting over mine. Seeing other women's pregnancies work out so up close and personally makes me forget the peace that God has given me after hours of prayer and thought. It makes me forget that sometimes I need to focus on my own personal tragedies before I can heal enough to face the world. After my miscarriage, I shut myself into my apartment and took a week of alone time, some of it with my husband, some without. It felt good to just deal on my own. But I wasn't ever really alone with my grief, because I was on Facebook. Because even when I was weighed down with my own suffering, I was still involved, however indirectly, in the affairs of other people. Their lives just went on while mine was utterly halted for a while and watching that makes a cynic out of anyone. I have enough stress in my life without everyone else's on top of it.

This post was originally supposed to be a lighthearted humor piece about how much Facebook sucks. I even had ms paint up to draw some hilarious pictures of myself curled up in a deprived ball on the floor. I probably should have written this after the anger subsided and I may even go back and delete it because I'm not sure I'm ready to share yet, but I've gotta say, it feels good. I cannot believe it took me this long to figure this crap out.

So here's my plan to start getting my Facebook habit under control: I'm not going to be on Facebook until Saturday at the earliest, longer if I can handle it, just to see how it feels. Then I'll have to come up with some sort of battle plan, because this sucks and I'm not letting a stupid website control my emotions anymore. Who knows? Maybe I'll even be able to come to terms with my feelings on my own without interference, however indirect or unintentional, from anyone else.

That one time I got punched in the face by a bird in Mexico

Mexico is a place, a place that I had never been to until recently.  And by that I mean that I went on a cruise there and I really thought there would be more to tell you about that but there isn't.  There IS, however, a little to tell you because I was attacked by rabid birds.

I was just strutting down the market-place in Ensenada, buying such trinkets as seashell earrings and cheap Mexican cocaine, when WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT, there was a churro stand!  And the churro guy was like, "Here, have a free sample of a churro!" and I was like "May I kiss you passionately, old Mexican churro man?" 

I love churros.  Churros are the only Mexican food that I love.  They're like little fried tubes of joy.  And cinnamon sugar, which is equivalent. My mom sometimes makes churros and I remember why I love my mom.  Not that I wouldn't love my mom if she didn't make me churros, it would just be significantly harder and also I might call her by her first name.

What?

Churro man handed me my free sample of Mexican magic and I, exuding the joy of a woman with a fresh churro and veins full of cocaine, bit into it immediately.  Unfortunately, when an object has pulled from a vat of bubbling oil moments before you place it in your mouth, it is still scalding hot.  I was like "MOTHER OF SWEAR WORD" and then held the churro out so that the Ensenada wind might cool it slightly. 

I continued to walk down the road of the ocean-side market, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air when, all of a sudden, I saw birds!  Look at 'em, they're everywhere!  They're so cuuuute!  And then I continued walking and didn't think about them again. 

Until, not two seconds later, I felt something slam into my face with the force of a small missile.  I felt seagull feet tangling in my hair and saw, to my horror, a snapping beak lunging at my churro, over and over.  And I wish I had been like, "NOT MY CHURRO.  YOU'RE GOING DOWN BIRD.  PREPARE YOURSELF" and then popped a homie in the face, but instead I was more like, "eeeuuuughghhghgGGGHHHEIEEIEIE!!!  MOMMMMM!!!!  HELP MEEEEEEE!!!"  And the evil bird just kept punching me in the face until it snapped up my churro and flew off. 

Those Mexican seagulls aren't afraid of anything.  I hope the churro burned it's tongue on the way down and I hope that every stolen bit of food tasted like rubber for weeks and I hope that that bird never gets married and dies alone.

And so it begins...

Did you know that Utah is freezing?  Freezing enough that I would seriously consider stealing a homeless person's only blanket if I thought it would do any good?  Freezing enough that if you wait too long between blinking, your eye lubrication quickly turns into ice?  SO COLD that the only words I can get out through my chattering teeth are "OHMYGOSH WHY WHY WHY I HATE THIS NO WHY"?  Point is, I don't like it.  Other point is, I'm pretty good at exaggeration.

Well today was one of those probably-colder-than-the-Arctic kind of days.  Luckily for me, I had a crucial test that I had to take for Biology (or as I like to call it, "Bio-dumb-ology." I never said I was clever) and parking at BYU is God's way of reminding me that those stumps of flesh attached to my butt are legs and are, in fact, capable of mobility.  So there I was, making the long and freezing trek back to my car from the testing center when I began to wonder why it was so dark.  I looked up at the sky.  It was filled with menacingly fluffy clouds.  Naturally I gave it a warning look, a look that said "You'd better just STAY clouds.  I don't want any precipitation out of you."

One miserably freezing walk later, I was finally, finally, FINALLY about to open my car door when I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING, a tiny, delicate, beautiful snowflake landed on my sleeve, pristine and perfect.  I blinked once and then immediately squished it in horror.  Waves of disgust rolled through me as I looked around and realized that. it. was. snowing.  It was very light snow, the kind that you might just mistake for a giant with dandruff scratching his head only you know, giants aren't real.  Probably.  I looked up at the sky and I was MAD.

"No.  NO.  DID YOU HEAR ME I SAID NO.  SERIOUSLY, STOP.  I HATE YOU, YOU HEAR?  I HATE YOU."

And I stood there shaking my fist above my head, yelling in the middle of the parking lot.  And now everyone who happened to be nearby (hint: many people) think I have a mental disorder or anger management issues.  If only they understood.

This is no exaggeration, the snow actually began to fall harder and thicker AS SOON AS I EXPRESSED MY FURY.  I don't understand why no one believes that the Universe hates me.  It's taunting me.  It's taunting me and there is no reasonable outlet because you can't just punch the Universe.  I guess I could punch the snow, but that would be awful because HELLO it's cold and wet.  The Universe has found the perfect weapon against me.

I was willing, maybe even hopeful, for a truce between myself and the snow.  I wanted to enjoy its sparkly beauty just like everyone else but, just as the white man and the Native American couldn't reconcile their differences and contagious diseases some 10 odd years ago (right?), I see no hope for peace here.  Except the likelihood that a holiday revolving around food will come from this feud is slim to none so THIS IS EVEN WORSE.

And you'd better believe I just said that this was even worse than that time Pilgrims settled America and virtually everyone died.  I don't know how I managed to end this post on an offensive note, so I guess I just have a talent.  Please send hate mail accordingly.

This is your own fault. YOU ASKED FOR IT.

I've been getting emails and comments and messages from people asking me if I have any other talents.  Other than drawing velociraptors.  Yeah.  Because that's a talent.  Anyway, usually I say, "NOPE.  NOT A ONE." Except a few of you have been very specific.  "Do you sing?" they ask.  Well...the answer is sort of.

I sort of sing.  I have taken a couple classes.  I've been in a few musicals.  I'm just not pursuing singing, so it's kind of something I don't do much, unless I'm alone, in my room with a hairbrush and underpants.  Because that's what pop stars do.

I thought I ought to share this with you since A. you seem interested, B. I really enjoy looking at/listening to/generally talking about myself, and C. it's been asked a surprising number of times.

So!  This is me singing "Just You and Me" by Zee Avi.  It's one of my favorites and I don't do it justice, but that's okay because SO WHAT, that's why.  My webcam sucks so you'll need to PUMP UP THA VOLUME!  It gets easier to hear after a couple lines, I think.  Also, I mess up a lot.  SO SUE ME.  Or sew me.  Whatever you want to do is fine with me.

Also, I have to just link you to YouTube where I have it because Blogger hates me more than anything and is trying to save you from watching this, I guess.  You have been warned.  By me and by blogger.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE MELODIOUS SOUNDS OF MY VOICE THING.


P to the S: disneyaddict326 is the youtuber who uploaded the instrumental that I sang to because I have no instrument-type skills.  GO HER!

Just a quick update to let you know that I have not died a horrible death.

It seems like I'm always assuring people who don't care that I haven't experienced an untimely demise.  I need to come up with a new reassurance.  Like, "HEY I HAVEN'T CONTRACTED MALARIA LATELY, HAVE YOU?" and people would be like, "Dude, just shut up already, we KNOW that you're fine" and I'd laugh nervously and start talking about not being dead again. I don't know.  It's really late.  I shouldn't be blogging.

Since you're all so FREAKING INTERESTED in my schedule and life, I have officially finished my last day of classes (YAY) and will now enter finals week, which means this week will be a ton of studying and then there will come test taking and then moving back to my mom's house because I am so lame it's painful.  OH DID YOU KNOW MY MOM MAKES PRETTY HAIR STUFF NOW?!  She made me a headband that looks like that one Kate girl's headband.  Like, the chick who's marrying that prince guy.  William Shatner?  Yeah, that Kate who's marrying Prince William Shatner.  Anyway, I'll post a picture of that because my mom makes cool stuff and you all need to see it so that you can tell me my head is prettier than Princess Kate Shatner's head.

...I totally had a point with this.

OH YEAH.  So I'm going to be really busy for two-ish weeks, but then I'll be BACK and I'll do PRODUCTIVE THINGS like maybe change my blog layout to reflect the actual month that it is.  Because it is not February.  This is just embarrassing.

Anyway, point is I'm alive, just busy.  And I'll start being not busy so that you can all go back to telling me that you love me and/or telling me that I need to go die a thousand times and stop writing because my writing makes the world explode regularly or some such crap like that.  Yeah, that's what's up, HATERS.

...That was oddly hostile.  I'm sorry.  I need to go to bed now.  Been working on one too many final projects, if ya know what I mean.  And you probably do because that wasn't a euphemism at all.

Oh my goodness.  This is getting out of hand.  Goodnight.