So...not quite a Two-Week Wait. More of a 12-Day Wait. Well, let me back-track a little. I've been a bit, but not horribly stressed about my upcoming travel and move for work. Since most everything I plan to have in Hong Kong has already been shipped from my apartment, my most pressing task has been to give away and/or sell the things that are left. Because all of my things have already been shipped, I've been sleeping on an air mattress for the past two weeks. Not ideal, but there are worse things. I know this because late last night around 1:30am, after I'd enjoyed my last night of karaoke in NYC with my cousin and a few good friends and gotten home to pack up a few more things, I pulled out said air mattress and found that, despite the fact that every morning I deflate it and fold it up into an uninteresting corner of the living room, my cat had not scratched, but bitten not one, but several holes into the air mattress. I took out the included patch kit (two patches, but I cut them to size and did what I could) and got to work damming up the leaks. Just when I'd think I'd gotten them all, I'd fill it again and hear a hissing coming from somewhere. Only to find one or several more tiny punctures in some random spot. Eventually, I ran out of patch and had to resort to crazy glue and packing tape. It did seem to work. But not well enough. I went to bed around 3:30am on a comfortably inflated bed only to wake up to the sound of my 6am alarm flat on the floor with an ache in my hip and lower back. Thanks Roy! So, for my two remaining nights Stateside, I will be pulling up a nice piece of hardwood at bedtime. Sweeeeet!
Not an ideal way to wake up. Now, flat on my hardwood floor or not, I had the sense to reach under my pillow and take my temperature. 97.33 F. A dip. That only happens for two reasons. I'm about to get my period, or I'm about to ovulate. We know I already ovulated. That's what got this party started in the first place. So I hauled myself up off of the floor and went into the bathroom to pee on a stick. BIG FRAKKIN' NEGATIVE. I'm optimistic, but I'm not stupid, people. I've heard other women say that they tested on CD12 and it was negative, but then they tested positive a few days or even a week later. I know my body and my cycle well enough to know that my period was scheduled for today or tomorrow. I just prayed for tomorrow to at least put it off by a little. Well, anyway, after the HPT-, I decided to lay back down for a little bit - hardwood floor be damned. I was not ready to face the day just yet. I set my alarm for 8am and tucked my face into the pillow.
Naturally, I didn't actually get up at 8am. So, naturally, I was running late to get myself out of the house and up to Harlem to get my hair braided. *sigh* Ever since the Wündertwins returned to Germany, it's been a hot mess sorting out their visa situation to get them back to NYC. And, unexpectedly pregnant as the elder twin was, the process took so long that they had to stay in Germany for her to have the baby whether the visas came through or not (so far, still not...) because she was just too far along to travel. (In case you're wondering, the baby was born in mid-June and is beautiful as we all expected him to be.) I'm happy for her, but I miss the days when those two girls would show up at my door at noon, chit-chat & watch movies with me and have my whole head braided in four hours. But I digress...I got up to Harlem only about 10 minutes late stepping off the train. I ran to the bank to grab some cash to pay the salon, and ducked into a beauty supply shop to grab a few more bags of hair just in case what I had already wasn't enough. Now, those of you who know me personally, know that my hair color of choice is a little bit unusual. So, I was going to compromise and get a "normal" color - just to fill in in the back and then keep the rest my usual, more vibrant coloring. But lo and behold: directly in front of me when I stepped inside the doorway was my color! Three for five dollars, so I bought three and power walked down the seven blocks to the salon - only to find that the braider hadn't arrived yet. I rang her and she was with her momma at Walmart! What the sh*t?! By the time she actually got there and started it was nearly 12pm (only two hours late for a 10am hair appointment...). And by the time she finished it was nearly 4pm (with the help of two other girls)...when the braider remarked that we started at 12pm and finished before 4pm and patted herself on the back for it, it took all my home training to keep from saying, "Yeah! Just think of how early I'd be done if we'd actually started on time!"
Anyway, this is all a way to let you know that when my hair was finally done, and I'd paid, I went to the bathroom before leaving and getting on the train for another hour and witnessed the arrival of Aunt Flo. Just when my day was lookin' up. Damn, I hate that b*tch! So this morning's HPT was not an "early result" or a case of false negative. I am definitely not pregnant. I pulled it together, grabbed my bag, and marched myself outside.
45 minutes later, I'm getting off the A train at 14th Street and 8th Avenue. I catch the bus across the street to take me to Union Square. I was meeting a friend in a couple of hours, and I figured Barnes & Noble is always a good place to hang out if I have nothing in particular to do. Now, if I'd actually gotten my hair done at 10am instead of 12pm, I might have had time to go home and get some things done. But alas, no...The up side was that I did get to see a friend that I almost never get to see because she is seemingly always in the middle of no less than seven projects at a time and/or in the throes of some mutant cold & flu virus. The down side was that, apart from getting my hair done, I was having kind of a rough day. My friend was aware of, though a bit oblivious to, my plans for baby-making. It's not her fault. Some friends are more interested/curious than others. And the truth is most people will gladly talk of nothing but themselves for hours on end if you keep silent enough and/or ask the correct set of leading questions. Cee just happens to be one of those people whom I never get to see and so always has 1) a mega-ton to catch up on, 2) always has no less than seven projects in the works at any given time, and 3) always talks at a pace that is just slightly above Mach 1 - meaning she's saying a lot, but I very rarely hear or understand what most of it is about until I debrief myself later. So while Cee was going on and on about her projects and what new things she was doing or thinking of doing, or thinking about thinking of doing, she would occasionally pause for my input or even ask me a question - which would catch me off guard and I would give some short, glib answer, and her conversation (mostly with herself) would continue on unabated for another 15 - 20 minutes or so. Way too much time to spend puttering around in my own head trying to sort out my own sh*t between necessary-conversational-input moments, and I nearly burst into spontaneous tears about seventeen separate times. I'm sure of it. Add to that the fact that I was super-emotional and physically low because (duh!) I'd just gotten my period, and (sorry Cee!) I couldn't wait to get away from her and head home.
The oddest thing was, the whole way home, I felt on the verge of tears and I just kept fighting them back and making lists of all the things I had to do before getting on a plane to France in 48 hours. The lists in and of themselves were staggering and that alone almost brought me to tears more than once. But I had my hair done today and I had tickets for an 8pm Cirque du Soleil show at Radio City Music Hall the next night with my cousin (who doubles as one of my all-time favorite people in the universe), and I was doing my damnedest to keep a positive attitude and go full-steam ahead. And I didn't get a lot done that evening once I finally did get home...I had to make arrangements with another friend to bring her all my non-perishable groceries. I had cupboards full of stuff and was livid at the thought of tossing out perfectly good (and really healthy, somewhat pricey) food if there was someone who could use it. And she's a single mum to two of the awesomest, ridiculously tall, and constantly eating kids you could ever meet. If anybody could use a big box of free food, she could. And this is a friend who was very much interested, curious, and hopeful about my goals for single motherhood (and also one who was able to talk to me about it very realistically since she is a single mum herself), so being in her presence was such a blessing emotionally, if not timing-wise. We knew this was our last chance to hang out and what was supposed to be a quick visit turned into two or three hours of get-it-all-in-while-we-can girl talk. Not enough time with her. Not enough time spent getting my apartment/luggage/cat business together at home. Sooooooo much to do!!! Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Hold it together, *s. Just hold it together...Stay tuned.
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