Negative.

At least I can enjoy the smug sensation of being right, and telling Q. “I told you so.” (This is cold comfort.)

Dr. L. is clearly not happy. He wants me in there on day 2 for a follow up. This won’t be happening seeing as I have absolutely NO desire to inflict the clinic on myself during Christmas, but I’ll go in sometime in January. Q. is coming too. And we’re going to ask the hard questions until we get some answers.

I sense that Q. isn’t done yet- isn’t ready to stop. Not without talking to the doctor, seeing what alternatives we have, what other tests they can do. So I’ll go along with that, and we’ll see where we stand at the end of it all.

If he can’t offer anything better than trying it all over again- I’m done.

If he has ideas about what to do next- I will see what Q. wants. We are a team. I won’t impose a decision to stop on him, even though it’s my body that’s taking the brunt of this. It wouldn’t be fair. He’s dealing with this as much as I am.

I stand by what I said earlier- I think I’m done. I’d like to have my life back. But I don’t think Q. is there yet. So we’ll see what happens in January.

But in the meantime, I will relish my newly needle-free evenings, and I am damn well going to enjoy my booze this Christmas.

So tomorrow is the big day.

This week has gone by faster than I thought it would. I think it’s partially because I’ve been busy with schoolwork, but mostly because I finally started to get out of the house every day for a walk, which has helped to contain (note: not eliminate) the crazy that’s been brought on by this meds combination.

I am still WIRED, people. I apparently need almost no sleep. When I sit still, I can feel my body just sitting there burning up from the inside out. I don’t feel like myself at all. There’s going to be one hell of a crash when I come off all of these drugs.

And I’m expecting to come off of them all tomorrow. I know last time I said I thought it would be negative, but I wasn’t sure if I really believed that, or if I was just trying to protect myself.

This time, however? This time I am just absolutely certain in my gut that the result will be negative. I can’t even really put my finger on why I feel this way. I know as well as anyone does that “symptoms” in the tww can be meaningless, and I’ve heard lots of examples of women who didn’t feel anything and turned out to be preggers. My certainty surprises me. It’s frustrating Q. But there it is.

I don’t believe that I’m pregnant.

And I think it says a hell of a lot about where I currently stand in our ttc journey, and how I’ve been feeling, and the toll this most recent tww has taken on me that the most overpowering emotion I feel when I think about that is relief.

Author : INDRA, HENRY

Audio mixer adalah suatu perangkat elektronik yang berfungsi sebagai pencampur dari beberapa input audio menjadi satu keluaran audio. Dari kebanyakan mixer yang beredar di pasaran rata-rata menggunakan op amp. Saat ini komponen FET mulai banyak dijumpai. Keunggulan dengan menggunakan FET ini pada noise yang rendah. Oleh karena itu, dalam tugas akhir ini dibuat audio mixer menggunakan FET. Audio mixer ini terdiri dari beberapa bagian, yaitu pre amp, tone control, dan adder. Pada bagian pre amp, digunakan common source karena sifatnya yang high gain. Pada bagian tone control dan adder juga dirancang dengan menggunakan FET. Hasil dari perhitungan dan pengujian diketahui bahwa audio mixer bekerja sesuai dengan perencanaan pada range frekuensi 20Hz-20KHz. Namun high pass filter (pada tone control) tidak sempurna (terlihat pada oscilloscope), tetapi tidak terdengar pada output speaker.

Keyword : audio mixer, FET

Sumber : http://repository.petra.ac.id/902/

Nearly a week through. Thank goodness. I’ve found in the past that the first week goes by relatively quickly, and it’s the second week that drags and drags. The first week you know it’s too early for anything you’re experiencing to be “symptoms”, so it’s easier to check out, kick back, relax, and try to pretend your life might not be about to change entirely in a week’s time.

The second week, I have found, is torture. Especially since I think I’ve proven time and time again that I’m GREAT at inventing symptoms. I am a superstar at fooling myself into thinking I could be pregnant. I’m just hoping the fact that I was (briefly) pregnant last cycle will help settle me down. Sore bbs are worth getting excited about. Everything else, not so much.

This week has been hard. Because semester has ended I’ve been able to rationalize working entirely at home. So since we arrived back from the clinic on Friday, I have left the house exactly ONCE- on Sunday, to make the five minute walk to the grocery store to pick up a couple of items we forgot we needed when Q. did the regular shop on Saturday. I didn’t actually get to CARRY any of said items except for the bananas since Q. was being pretty militant about the advice from the clinic not to lift anything heavy, but I did get to go outside.

It’s helped that winter has really decided to settle in. It’s easy not to want to go outside when the wind is howling and that lovely combination of snow/rain/sleet/ick so characteristic of early winter is pouring down from the leaden skies. I haven’t been as stir crazy as I might have expected. Were it summer, I would be going BONKERS.

That’s not to say that I’m not excited about the prospect of getting out this weekend. We have dinner and lunch plans. We need to do some Christmas shopping and buy some lights for our porch. I get giddy just thinking about the possibilities. And, to be honest, there’s no way I could manage to stay at home in the seclusion/quiet of this last week. Not in the final week of the wait- I need the distractions of the outside world.

I’ve been busy though. I made a list of all the school-related things I really should get done before the next semester, and I am slowly working my way through them. Erika asked about the essays I’ve been marking (finished yesterday- woo hoo!)- they’re on various aspects of ancient Greece. As usual, after marking forty-plus undergraduate essays I now doubt my own spelling and use of apostrophes…

I had a mild freak out on Tuesday. I’ve been avoiding the scale for the last couple of weeks since, like most women, I have issues with it, and I can get obsessed with numbers, and I didn’t want to stress if I put on a pound or two during this FET since that sends a good sign to your body (We have lots of food! Time to reproduce!). I’ve been pretty good about no sugar (although not perfect- my last day on campus involved a very large piece of carrot cake…), but nothing other than that.

So you can imagine my shock when the scale informed me that I’ve lost FIVE pounds over the last couple of weeks.

If you remember, I wrote here about how happy I was to hit my wedding weight, my happy weight, just before the half-marathon. Well, after the race, I dropped about three pounds, which I figured was muscle turning into fat, since I think I looked better at the heavier weight. And then I stayed at that weight for the next couple of months. It was nice having that consistency- with the PCOS I’m usually fighting to lose weight, or not actively trying to lose weight (and therefore quietly gaining it). It’s rare for my body to achieve any type of equilibrium.

Now I’m eight pounds below my wedding weight, and I’ve done NOTHING to achieve this. This is unheard of- I simply do not lose weight without lots and lots of effort.

My first thought when I panicked on Tuesday was my thyroid has swung round into hyper territory, as I’ve been really warm as well lately. But I don’t have the super-accelerated heartbeat or the high anxiety that I remember from the times I’ve strayed into being hyper rather than hypo. When I was hyperthyroid- I was WIRED.

So the only thing I can think of is it’s a combination of the pred.nisone and the metformin. My original f/s did tell me that metformin burns about 500 calories a day, but since I’ve never experienced any sort of weight loss on it before, I’ve never paid much attention to that. I can definitely notice the double dose of the pred.nisone though. I wouldn’t describe myself as hyper…just full of beans each and every day (again, not really normal for me, especially at the end of semester). And Dr. Goo.gle tells me this isn’t unusual (although weight loss doesn’t seem to be an expected side effect). So I’m wondering if my metabolism is basically on speed right now.

I’m trying not to panic that my shrinking self is sending out bad vibes to the snowbabies, because stress definitely won’t help the situation, and I can’t eat that weight back on again in a week, much as I might enjoy trying. The whole thing is just really weird. And I think I’m going to have to buy pants even if I do turn out to be pregnant as my current jeans have me emulating the baggy pants trend far more than I’d like.

On another note, my assvice for anyone who ends up in a tww with PIO shots: eat All Br.an. Every.single.morning. The day you start the PIO shots- start the All Br.an. It’s boring, and it’s got more sugar and secret elements of corn than my oatmeal does, but it really does work. This is the most comfortable I’ve been in a tww in ages.

Also, read the directions on things. The bruising from the Frag.min injections has gotten noticeably better since I reread the directions and realized that you are supposed to take the needle OUT of your belly BEFORE you allow it to self-retract into its guard in that nifty manner it has. (I’m really annoyed with myself for this one.) And make sure you don’t give yourself time to think about the needle. Just swab the area, pull off the cap, grab some belly, and jab. It stings less and you get less bruising if you do it with confidence/gusto. (As an added bonus you then bring less psychological bruising with you to your next injection…) 

The twws are hard on Q as well. He really wants to do everything around the house, but he’s exhausted from teaching, and it isn’t fair for him to cook dinner and clean up afterwards. He’s finally letting me do a bit more, which is helping ease the guilt I feel when I’m meant to just sit around and be pampered. We are a good team, and we have a routine that really works. Twws disrupt it.

8 days to go.

Please read my last post before reading this one.

Go ahead.

I’ll wait.

Done?

Ok:

Hubby and I have one frozen embryo from our IVF.

Gah.

It has been on ice now for almost two years. They say that they shouldn’t be frozen for more than about three years or they have less of a chance of surviving.

Our plan had been to use the frozen embryo sometime soon, but since the great big miraculious surprise that is Nolan…I now have a huge moral delima on my hands. I do not want to have another baby for at least, at LEAST two years – and Hubby does not want any more children at all ever. He would accept (begrudgingly) another “surprise”…but he is 100% animate about not trying for any more children. And he has a valid point at the moment, we have a lot on our plate and we are poor! We didn’t used to be, but circumstances have changed and we are not in a good place right now. Of course, that will all hopefully turn around someday soon…but that’s where we stand at the moment. And on the cusp of a kidney transplant as well, BTW.

When we decided to go the IVF route we agreed that if we had more frozen embryos after the cycle than we could use that we would donate them. When we had one left, we decided that WE would use it. Now we’re just…stuck?

Personally, my decision would be to give the embryo a shot in a year or two. Sooner than I would like – not sure if we can even afford more children (or the ones we have for that matter – ha!). But that is the only thing that feels “right” to me. Giving embryos up for adoption would always be hard for me – but when it is just one, it makes me feel like the right thing to do would be to just give it a chance. Heck, the odds of it resulting in a pregnancy are not so great anyway! Right?

I feel like for just one embryo/child it is not worth me wondering about him/her for the rest of my life and him/her wondering about me. When I made the decision to donate if I had more than I could use…I never meant ONE embie. KWIM? I feel that even though it’s not ideal – my moral solution would be to go for it.

Even when we were prgnant with the triplets, I wanted to still use that last embie one day – Hubby did not.

I feel like we concieved four and so four should gat a chance.

Hubby feels the opposite. He feels that it would be selfless to give another family a chance. He does NOT want more children – ever.

I worry that no one would even want to adopt just a single embryo and that because Evelynn and Lennon both had heart defects and Lennon had craniosynostosis that the embryo would not even be a candidate for adoption. (I have sent out some emails to get more information about these issues.)

I honestly have to admit that the idea of giving away an Evelynn or a Lennon or a Nolan just kills me. I know its selfish, it’s VERY selfish…But it’s my blog and I can be honest. It doesn’t mean that that’s not the decision that will end up being made in the end, but it will eat at me for the rest of my life if I do. Perhaps that’s the price I have to pay for my three beautiful children…and it’s well worth it. And I want to help other couples, I REALLY do…but my children are so amazing…how could I ever have one I didn’t get to meet and love and spoil? I would love to be able to give that to someone else…I have BEEN in their shoes, and I know how much it hurts to not have a child when that is all you want in the world. But…::sigh::

And is it fair to the child? As I said, if I had three or four or more embies, then yeah…they would HAVE to be put up for adoption. I couldn’t provide for that many children. But I think I could provide for ONE more…so what is the correct answer in this situation? IS there even a right answer?

Well, maybe I should predict the weather, or organize train timetables or something. We turned up, as requested, at 11.45 am. Our two embryos were placed into my uterus at 1.30 pm. But since I had indeed brought a book (and we even bought lunch at Tims beforehand and packed it in), and I didn’t drink any more water after I finished my litre, it wasn’t too bad. I’m definitely in the groove now- the nurses all remember me and happily leave me to do things myself. They know that I know how it all works.

Our two embryos looked fantastic again. These two were the one natural fertilizer, and the last one from the ICSI. The ICSI one was a super high grade as I recall from the chart, and you could really tell. My f/s and the head nurse took pains to point out just how awesome it looked, even discussing with the embryologist what they could see on the big screen. And I don’t think they’re shitting me. I’m sure they muscle up enthusiasm and hope for every patient. But I’ve read the reports- I’ve seen the pictures. I know we make good embryos.

So I’ve come home to rest and relax, when I’m not popping pills or jabbing myself. They actually got me to do a Fr.agmin right there in the clinic before we went home. The nurse spent a lot of time preparing me for the bruising I can expect with the double dose of Fr.agmin and the baby aspirin. I’m resigned to it- I have always bruised easily. And now, yep, I’m basically a pin cushion.

I didn’t want to give the impression in my last post that I don’t have any hope for this cycle, because that would be a bold-faced lie. I have heaps of hope- loads of hope- dangerous amounts of hope. I know my thyroid is balanced. I know that I am dosed up to the eyeballs on every possible medication that could help (the head nurse looked at my instructions and said, “Well, you’ve got everything in the book here!”). Our embryos are great. My lining was great. I have absolutely NOTHING scheduled for the next two weeks as semester is winding down and I can miss the last couple of days of classes. I can just stay at home and mark student essays and read books for my comp lists, and relax. I am in a great place with school right now, so there is no stress hanging over my head there. I’m physically fit, but I haven’t been exercising much. I’ve made sure I haven’t lost any weight.

In short, I’ve done everything I can.

What I don’t think I have any more, and I used to, is expectation. I no longer expect to get pregnant. I no longer expect things to work. I have hope, yes, but if it doesn’t work out, I think I’ll be resigned rather than surprised.

C’mon snowbabies. Please like your environment enough to want to stay.

Transfer is set for noon tomorrow, which means probably around 1.30 pm given that my clinic tends to run all sorts of late if you’re not having a retrieval. This means that I have learned the following lessons: 1. Take a book with you! Even if you only get there the scheduled 15 minutes before your transfer time! And 2. For the love of Pete, when you have drunk the one litre of water they recommend, STOP DRINKING. They recommend this amount for a reason. Last transfer I kept worrying about my bladder, so I kept drinking, and making Q. get me more water…and yeah. I nearly exploded. I even ran off to the loo without telling them (sneaky me!) because it was so dire. And sure enough my bladder was fine even after I eased the pressure. So this time round, I’m determined- no extra water.

I am a bit nervous about the embies, but the other ones survived the freeze, so I guess it would be a surprise if these ones didn’t, given they’re of a similar quality. Q. is being really really strict about what I’m allowed to do for the next two weeks. I’m very lucky to have a husband who is determined to a) not let me lift a finger and b) cook only my favourite healthy things. Mind you, I know that the house won’t get cleaned, so I went on a bit of a binge last weekend to make sure the dust bunnies won’t drive me buggy.

We started the pio shots up again two nights ago, and Q. hasn’t lost his touch. One side is still more painful than the other- I have no idea what we did to it last time, but I still have bruising from the shots in October, so it clearly wasn’t happy. We’ve got a bit of a routine going. I try not to think about the possibility that I could have these in my future for ten weeks. I’m supposed to want to get pregnant…and thinking about those needles (and the twice a day Fr.agmin fun) makes me shudder.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about why I feel so strongly that this could be our last cycle. I’ve been in bad spots before about ttcing- especially after the IVF cycle failed back in May. And then we had the summer off, and I rediscovered myself, and came back full of zen and ready to tackle anything. And yet here I am, one cycle later, ready to throw in the towel.

I think a lot of the reaction after the IVF was shock. We weren’t expecting to go to IVF- it was a last minute conversion decision. I was souped up on so many drugs. And then there was the discovery that my thyroid had been out of balance the entire time.

I feel different now. It’s not shock. It’s not a sense of being overwhelmed, or out of control, or a need to reclaim myself. The best way I can describe it is I feel a sense of finality, and even maybe a sense of peace. I feel like the decision to take time off after the IVF was an emotional one- me scrambling to impose some sense, some meaning back in my life. I don’t think my current thought process is coldly logical or anything, but I don’t feel like I’m making this decision on the spur of the moment, or out of panic, or anything like that. I feel like it’s been building for a long time, and it’s only just now that I’ve been able to open my eyes, see it, and accept what it means.

I think that switching to the pio shots, and the Fr.agmin, and the Pr.ednisone with the FET (and with now upping the Fr.agmin and the Pr.ednisone to twice a day for this one) has definitely been part of the reason why I’ve reached this mind set. These twws are HARD. They were always hard- the unknowing, the overanalyzing, the dreaded phone call. But now they’re hard physically as well. I was already concerned about what all of these drugs could be doing to my body. But the fact that I can still have bruising coming up two MONTHS after the shots ended, and the fact that the Pre.dnisone wakes me up at 4 most mornings- that bothers me. I don’t like the toll that this is taking.

It will sound ridiculous, given what we’ve already been through, but I feel like these new drugs have finally made me ask whether it’s really worth challenging nature as much as we have. I dealt with ICSI and the retrieval. I dealt with the lap. I dealt with all the other scary drugs. And I think I could cope with all of that because I always assumed my problem was GETTING pregnant. I knew going in to this mess two years ago that I had PCOS. And while I knew enough not to assume that pregnant=baby, I can definitely admit that I always felt that getting pregnant would be the hard part.

The last two years changed that. The failed IUIs changed that. And most of all, the chemical pregnancy changed that. My f/s raising my doses of the drugs that combat auto-immune problems was a big fat warning light. It’s clear to me now that my problem isn’t just getting pregnant (although that is also a big problem- hence the ICSI), it’s maintaining a pregnancy as well.

I think realizing that really blew a big hole in my optimism and my enthusiasm. Because it took us TWO years to even get to a pregnancy, one that ended as soon as it began. And it finally sunk in that after all the toil and trouble, it’s possible that getting pregnant will turn out to be the easy part.

This week I had a dentist appointment. I’ve had the same hygenist for ages now, and when she asked if I was on the same meds as last time, and I confirmed it, she said, “You know, I was looking at your meds, and you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I’ve been trying to conceive for two years now.” We had a great talk (well, as good a talk as you can have when you’re garbling around all the implements in your mouth). She’s dealing with recurrent miscarriages- four of them. She’s got auto-immune hypothyroidism too…and absolutely nothing else to explain why her babies keep dying. And while we chatted and compared clinics and laughed at the stupid things people say to you, a tiny thought echoed in the back of my head that this too could be me.

And yet, I worry about what people will think if we stop. I worry that I will be quitting at something (and I am not a quitter- I am if anything dangerously stubborn). I worry that we will look ridiculous for not doing another IVF cycle…or two…or three…or whatever it takes. Because that’s the siren song of treatments. They are addictive, and now there is really nothing concrete that will force us to stop. As long as we can muster up the money and the emotional fortitude, we can keep at this. I’m still young, as they all keep telling me. So to feel like I do, to want to stop like I do, it is so hard to silence the other voice in my head, the one that chastises me for quitting and claims I will regret my decision.

I often have the song “Seasons of Love” from the musical Rent in my head these days. I love the bit where they ask how to measure a year. Because you can measure our ttc journey in so many ways as well. 26 months, sure. But SEVEN chances at getting pregnant. That’s what we’ve had: four IUIs, the IVF and the two FETs. And given the fertilization rate from our IVF, the four IUIs never had a chance. And given my thyroid report, the IVF was doomed to fail as well. So 26 months for two shots at pregnancy.

When I put it that way, saying I want to quit sounds ridiculous. Who quits after two attempts?! But of course they aren’t just two attempts. Because it took us 24 months to get to those attempts- two years of medications and clinic visits and treatments and tests and surgeries and more medications. And if it really was THIS hard to get a chance at being pregnant, then the wanting-to-stop voice in my head calmly points out that maybe it’s time to stop beating our heads against the brick wall.

I really haven’t said anything about this to Q. I know that he won’t be willing to even discuss it until we know the results of this cycle. And I also know it will take some effort to convince him that I’m not just speaking from a medication-induced haze of despair. And, given that we are about to transfer embryos tomorrow, in some ways maybe it might seem silly that I’m spending so much time hashing this out.

I need to, though. I need to get these thoughts out, and organized, so I can evaluate them. So, if you’ve made it all the way through this beast of a post- thank you for listening. It means so much.

An untitled poem of 1854 by A. A. Fet, literally translated, goes something like this.

How cool it is here under the thick linden-tree—
the intense heat of midday has not been penetrating hither,
and hanging over me, thousands
of fragrant fans are swinging.

But there, in the distance, the burning air glitters,
wavering, as if drowsing.
So sharp and dry is the soporific and grating
ceaseless ringing of the grasshoppers.

Beyond the shadows of the branches the vault of heaven shows blue,
as if lightly shrouded in haze,
and, like dreams of slumbering nature,
wavy clouds pass by.

Here is the Russian original.

Как здесь свежо под липою густою –
Полдневный зной сюда не проникал,
И тысячи висящих надо мною
Качаются душистых опахал.

А там, вдали, сверкает воздух жгучий,
Колебляся, как будто дремлет он.
Так резко-сух снотворный и трескучий
Кузнечиков неугомонный звон.

За мглой ветвей синеют неба своды,
Как дымкою подернуты слегка,
И, как мечты почиющей природы,
Волнистые проходят облака.

A transliteration follows.  (It uses the typographically convenient system of Nabokov’s Eugene Onegin.  Stress accents in polysyllables are marked, except where the accent falls on ï.)

Kak zdes’ svezhó pod lípoyu gustóyu –
Poldnévn­ïy znoy syudá ne pronikál,
I tïsyachi visyáshchih nádo mnóyu
Kacháyutsya dushístïh opahál.

A tam, vdalí, sverkáet vózduh zhgúchiy,
Koléblyasya, kak búdto drémlet on.
Tak rézko-sukh snotvórnïy i treskúchiy
Kuznéchikov neugomónnïy zvon.

Za mgloy vetvéy sinéyut néba svódï,
Kak dïmkoyu podyórnutï slegká,
I, kak mechtï pochíyushchey priródï,
Volnístïe prohódyat oblaká.

Here is the original word order, with some alternatives.  (Genitive phrases are indicated by of- prefixed to the first word.)

How  here  cool/fresh  under  thick/dense  linden—
midday  intense-heat  to-here  not  has-been-penetrating,
and  thousands  of-hanging  over  me
are-swinging  fragrant  large-fans.

But/And  there,  in-the-distance,  glitters/glares  air  burning,
wavering/swaying/vibrating,  as  if  is-drowsing  it.
So  sharp-dry  soporific  and  grating/harsh/crackling/chirping
of-grasshoppers  ceaseless/unresting  ringing/peal.

Beyond/behind  haze/shadows  of-branches  show-blue  of-sky/heaven        vaults/arches,
as  by-smoky-haze  shrouded/enveloped  lightly/slightly,
and,  like  dreams/daydreams  of-slumbering/fallen-asleep/lying-in-the-grave  nature,
wavy/undulating  pass-by/go-along  clouds.

The tree is a linden, or lime.  If the speaker of the poem is in Russia, we might expect the small-leaved linden, Tilia cordata (or parvifolia).  But since the word for the leaves means a large fan, opahalo not veer, maybe it is the large-leaved linden, Tilia platyphyllos, whose species designator is formed from Greek platus ‘broad’ and phyllon ‘leaf’.  It could also be their hybrid, the common linden Tilia × europaea, whose leaves are of intermediate size.

The insect referred to is called the grasshopper, kuznechik.  In crowds it is producing a constant ringing sound, presumably in the linden tree as well as beyond it.  Since in view of the heat the time may be late summer, we may wonder if the term is being loosely used for the cicada, tsikada.  I don’t know whether such usage is possible for a countryman and nature poet like Fet; of course, the speaker could be less exact than he.

The first stanza is concerned with here, the place of the speaker, who may be a poetical shepherd or plowman taking his rest at noon.  It is like an earthly heaven or terrestrial paradise dedicated to his comfort.  What is outside is happily avoided.  The air is cool and fragrant.  The senses affected are the subtle ones of touch and smell.  The place invites meditation.

The second stanza considers there, the place the speaker can see by looking out from under the tree.  It is hellish: the very air is burning, and seems to have succumbed to the inexorably soporific song of the grasshoppers.  This place is perceived by sight and hearing, the dominant senses, which demand all of one’s attention.  It is suggestive of passion and exhaustion.

In the third stanza the speaker becomes aware of what is above him, neither here nor there, but rather the sky and the clouds in it, somewhat veiled by the tree which in the first stanza excluded the heat.  There is silence, and the seeing that now occurs is a kind of vision of heaven, whose moving clouds he compares to the dreaming thought of nature herself, as though she were a shepherd dreaming of her sheep.  This conception of nature as slumbering—is it just?

To a reader of Plato, the scene is reminiscent of the dialogue Phaedrus.  There Socrates and Phaedrus talk in the midday heat under a plane tree, platanos, its name like that of the platyphyllos linden deriving from platus, because of its broad leaves (or flat bark, or broad crown, depending on your authority); and they hear the song of the cicada, tettix.  Although the word is also translated ‘grasshopper’, in this case it surely means ‘cicada’, since the dialogue alludes to that creature’s time underground and subsequent metamorphosis—see the discussion here.

According to a tale Socrates tells Phaedrus, the cicadas in the tree are singing and conversing (engaging in dialectic); themselves descended from men who loved song, if they should see those below “conversing and sailing past them—as though they were Sirens—proof against the enchantment” of their voices which would lull hearers to sleep, they may bear a good report of them to the Muses Calliope and Urania as men who “pass their lives in philosophy and honor the music of these Muses who, being the most concerned with heaven and with logoi divine and human, send forth the most beautiful voice” (258e–259d).  (The last phrase echoes Odyssey 12.192, of the Sirens; cf. Iliad 3.152, of cicadas.)  I find some similarity to this scheme in the poem of Fet.  Not giving way to the glare and noise of the great world that would drown the poetic sensibility in heedlessness, the speaker is vouchsafed a certain access to the divine: the tree in which the grasshoppers or cicadas sing becomes partially transparent, admitting to view a region far above the solitary self of the first stanza.

Like other sound, song is produced by vibration, which is a type of cyclical motion.  Besides the insect song, Fet’s poem shows more of this: the leaf-fans swing, the air wavers, the clouds undulate.  (For that matter the heart-shape of the linden leaves [whence the name cordata, above] suggests a beating pulse.)  In Phaedrus too there is much cycling, reversal, and repetition, especially in the journey of the soul (246a ff, passim); other examples are Phaedrus asking Lysias to repeat (228a), Socrates performing a palinode (a re-cantation, ‘singing over again’ or ‘back’, 243b), and written words serving to remind, that is, to take one back (275a).  Above all, there is the give-and-take of philosophic discourse, by which a natural cycle of words begetting new words without end is maintained (276e-277a).

Why then is the song of the cicada or grasshopper soporific, a voice that lures to destruction?  Whatever biology may have to say, proceeding from the Socratic myth we may imagine that it is simply too rapid to convey its meaning to a person.  To the high energy of midday heat corresponds the high frequency of the insect’s vibration; it suits the nature of that little creature, but not human consciousness, which is aware only of a ringing or buzzing.  The ancients found this song sweet, it seems; but such pattern-forming distinctions as may be drawn in it are quite lost on human beings, so that rather than being stimulated by the song one is charmed or dazed, and finally put to sleep.  As Socrates indicates in criticizing the speech of Lysias and the epitaph of Midas, failure of form accompanies deficiency of sense; a discourse must be well structured and adapted to the hearer; and distinctions are essential (see the latter part of Phaedrus, e.g. 263d–264e, 271c–272b, 277b–c).  These desiderata depend upon right tempo.  A garden of Adonis hastily forced in summer bears no fruit (276b).  Whether in solitary meditation or in conversational exchange, the philosophic discourse which above all things Socrates would perpetuate demands its own temperate measure.

Truth be told, I am always, ALWAYS dieting. Even when I eat an entire serving dish of Stove Top Stuffing, I’m still “dieting.”

Today, being 12/1, and finding out yesterday that FET #1 was a total bust, I thought it would be a good test run for New Year’s Day and have started a hybrid diet of Atkins and Weight Watchers — two diets that rarely intersect. An Atkins Advantage bar is 4 pts. That’s a lot when you consider a Fiber One bar is only 2 — and they’re the same size.

I have ballooned since moving to LA. I went from a healthy 140 lbs. to 152 lbs. to my “oh-shit” weight of 160 lbs!!! There is probably no way to lose the poundage for New Year’s Eve, but maybe 8 lbs. in the next four weeks? That seems doable. Sorta. I mean, I’ve never done it before, but there’s a first time for everything.

Those people on the Biggest Loser lose that in a week. Granted, they’re huge to begin with and they have that fire-breathing monster, Jillian, to make them work out.

Maybe I’m in denial, or maybe I’m still numb, but I’m starting to become a little bit more “okay” with this pregnancy not being viable and it only took four hours. If you take the money out of the equation (this frozen embryo transfer cost me and my husband $2,200), I’m just back where I started. Nothing gained, nothing lost (well, except for $2,200).

It’s time to look at the upside of not being pregnant for a moment. I can once again drink Diet Coke and eat sushi. I may even smoke a cigarette or two. New Year’s Eve just got a whole lot more fun. I don’t have to feel guilty about graduating to the ranks of pregnant while a couple of my close friends still suffer among the unpregnant. Oh, and then there’s the big Shroom Fest this summer.

You read it right. Shroom Fest, baby.

To clarify, I am not a big druggie. Or rather, I’m not a druggie at all. In fact, I’m pretty much what we used to call “straight-edge” back in the 90s. I quit drinking in 2001, just days before September 11th and never went back. Not even once. Not even on September 12th, when the cloud of the obliterated Twin Towers blew over my Brooklyn apartment. Not even in the face of all the recent turmoil in my life when perhaps a less committed person would have taken a drink.

But, for some reason, I feel compelled to take mushrooms in my thirties. I was inspired by an article in the New York Times about a 3D Bjork video which had been directed with the aid of psychedelics, and for the first time, I thought that shrooms may be more interesting–and maybe even useful–than simply watching “Wizard of Oz” to “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

The last time I ate a mushroom cap, was about ten years ago, mixed in with a half tab of ecstacy and about eight drinks. It did nothing for me. But now, with a clear mind and an adult’s consciousness, I think it might be a real experience. My husband thinks it’s weird and wants nothing to do with it, and my friends think I’m bluffing. But I just want to do mushrooms and do them once on a beautiful summer day in the heart of Central Park.

So, assuming that I’m not knocked up by June (and the likelihood is very there now), then I have more thing to be thankful for.

ROAF (søppelhentingsselskapet som eies av kommunene Skedsmo, Lørenskog, Nittedal, Sørum, Rælingen, Enebakk, Fet og Gjerdrum) skal innføre plastsortering og en løsning for matavfallet i 2011. ROAF har nemlig dessverre ikke fått på plass noen ordning for gjenvinning av matavfall ennå. Jo lenger tid dette tar, jo mer skadelig er det for miljøet.

Det er så klart positivt at ROAF skjønner at dagens søppelsorteringssystem ikke er godt nok, men spørsmålet mitt er: Hva er det ROAF somler med? Hvorfor kan ikke dette gjennomføres i 2010?

Lenker:

Romerikes Blad om ROAF: http://www.rb.no/lokale_nyheter/article3576731.ece

ROAF: http://www.roaf.no