publish ME

Before the topic at hand, a quick sidebar:
Miracles abound. No, I'm not talking about the fact that there's a baby growing in my belly. That's still just weird. I'm talking about the Kerry-Bush debate. Miracles. Someone taught Bush the word "vociferous"! I mean, get OUT! Okay, now to today's rant.

My feelings about publications on the condition of pregnancy are, by now, well-known to blog readers. Naturally, I won't let that stop me from droning on about it some more.

The average book tells you things like – if you're pregnant, avoid smoky, non-ventilated rooms. Ah-so. Whew. That was close, cuz I'd planned a vacation of long hours in a Minnesota pool hall during the cigar aficionados convention for my 7th month. If they're so concerned with a clean environment for my unborn, why is it that they never say things like, if you're pregnant, don't sit in your stupid car in a traffic tunnel at rush hour? Or, if you're pregnant, don't live in LA; or, don't vote for Bush. These things are overlooked.

I haven't had that much more luck with alternative press books either. While they seem to assume the mother's ability to navigate her polluted world, there are other problems. I've been reading this one non-mainstream book and I was really excited at first about what I was learning and how it was presented. Then the horror stories began. Story after story of terror and disappointment in the hospital. Testimonials of sterile rooms, evil nurses, inhumane treatment, the ghosts of fetal monitors still beeping in the reader's ear. It's a bit like the Fox News of liberal baby books. If they'd just refer to the midwives as "freedom fighters," I think we'd be set.

Maybe you're asking, why keep reading? Well, I'm not really sure what else to do on the preggo preparation side of things. Preggo yoga's only once a week. And, while it feels like I go to some miscreant doctor every day, my visits are more spaced out than that. I'm a cerebral soul. Read I must. This fact is also why I'm dead in the water when it comes to birthing a child, but we'll get to that later.

Consider this an open letter to publishers and agents. You could publish my trials and tribulations. You could even put some brightly-colored, dumbass drawing of a bugged out cartoon preggo lady on the cover if you want to and plop it on the new arrivals table next to the 25-year-old's "memoirs." I'd tour for you and not ask for much. Really, I won't be any trouble at all. I'll bring my own backpack and use it as a pillow. California has the family leave act – husband guy could watch the bean. If I got published, I could read me. Toni Morrison was once asked what one book she'd bring to a desert island. (Can you imagine someone having the nerve to ask Toni Morrison that inane a question?) She said she'd bring a blank ream of paper and write her own.