Repeal Day

Here I sit, big as a house, while the baby rat-a-tat-tats a little soft shoe from the inside, my internal organs are merely her percussion instruments. Right then, it’s gone beyond soft shoe as she’s gotten stronger and bigger and the space available to her shrinks. She’s moved from dancing to boxing.

I keep meaning to write and then lose track, lose focus. So I’m not going to even strive for a great deal of sensible narrative tonight.

Whenever I see a bay nut this time of year I think of Cassie (aka Indigo.) They’re made of her favorite colors and I keep thinking that she doesn’t realize just how much she likes yellow.

They say that babies know who their core family is because they recognize the voices of people from the womb. Since I’ve been pregnant, we’ve watched all seven seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer on DVD. So I guess she’ll think Sarah Michelle Gellar is part of her core tribe. That’s just wrong.

Yesterday (happy Repeal Day, by the by) I stopped by Goth@m, what remains of a once renowned San Francisco piercing parlor called The G@untlet (they seem to use the same “G” logo) to have a few personal body ornaments removed in preparation of the girl’s arrival. Years ago, the SF-location closed down and one of the piercers started Goth@m. I’ve walked by it several times, it’s a stones throw from the old place, but I’ve never been in. I was in the neighborhood dealing with my tax guy, so I figured “no time like the present.”

A beautiful black man was working behind the counter of this somewhat sleazy looking hole-in-the wall of a place (no pun intended.) (The G@untlet was the equivalent of a clean well-lighted place to modify your body, this place had a rather dingy, back-room abortion clinic feel about it.) The beautiful black man, heretofore known by his nickname, T@sty C@kes (I don’t lie), had awesome tattoos – some of which included scarification, all of which were raised. He tells me that tattoos on people of color are raised because of their pigment. I had no idea and I don’t remember T. Lee’s tattoos being raised and I’m thinking, am I so insulated that I don’t have many friends of color with body art? He let me run my fingers over the tattoos – I love that raised feel.

So the beautiful black man called T@sty C@kes, with the fantastic raised tattoo and body jewelry has me hop up on an old and rickety exam table in a small grey room with a window that looks out into a dimly lit, dirty light well and he’s holding the needle nose pliers between my legs, shaking his head, saying he hasn’t seen a vagina in over ten years and how his Mom isn’t going to believe this. I try to console him by telling him I haven’t seen it for several months either. And I’m thinking, this is one of the things that make me different from other pregnant woman– who talk about the wonder of the baby moving and wax whimsical at the notion of motherhood. Their stories never seem to involve a T@sty C@kes between their legs with a needle nose pliers.