Every Monday I have to fill out a survey as part of my clinical trial experience at New Hope. I’ve memorized the questions by now and can zip through it pretty quickly, but it’s still annoying sometimes. The questions are all based on physical and emotional health, and I guess it’s supposed to follow your progression of elation/depression as you go through each stage of the process. There are gems such as:

Do you ever feel so blue that nothing can cheer you up? (um, no)
Do you feel anxious and stressed? (HAHAHAHA always)
Are you in control of your problems? (I like to pretend that I am)
Are you still able to enjoy music and television shows as much as before (…yes?)

The one that really gets me lately is the “Do you take care in your appearance?” One of the responses is, “I take as much care as ever” which inevitably leads to me humming “same as it ever was… same as it ever was” and having Talking Heads stuck in my head for a few hours.

As much as I bitch about my weight gain, I’m not vain. I’m relatively grounded when it comes to appearance. I wear minimal makeup, I never color my hair and most of my wardrobe comes from a clearance rack. However. I’ve been feeling impossibly frumpy as of late. I’m super bloated and it’s just not attractive. Everyone warned me that the first trimester is incredibly unglamorous. Mostly you’re nauseated, exhausted, bloated, grouchy and not even cute looking pregnant. When we were TTC I yearned for this; now I’m just feeling so blah and then feeling guilty for not embracing every nuance of being pregnant. I mean, part of it is the whole “not feeling pregnant” thing. Then a part of it is how I get dressed every morning, check myself out in the mirror, give myself a B- or C+ and go to work. But somehow over the course of the day I deteriorate and I’m not sure how it’s happening. By the time I leave my hair is frightful (either limp and dead or up in a ponytail), my pants have crumbs/dribbles, my shirt clings oh-so-unattractively to my stomach fat, my T-zone is oily and I feel like a total slob. I just don’t understand. It’s not like I’m trying to impress people at work, but I don’t want to be regarded as the “hot mess” of the office either. I’m just getting sick of looking like shit for no apparent reason. OK, I promise this is the last time I mention it because any ladies who are currently TTC are probably like, “Shut up bitch, at least you’re pregnant,” which is exactly what I would be saying to me three months ago.

In other news, I’m still sans-symptoms except for a weird yet intense craving for tuna. Is it because I know I can’t (shouldn’t?) have it very often? Maybe. But I could legit eat tuna for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I just had tuna for dinner. It was glorious.

Well friends, I’m off to book club. We read Life After Death by Damien Echols, which was interesting because this month’s host promised a “light, beach-y read” and then chose something absolutely opposite of that. It was pretty nuts… not very well organized and had no flow, but I guess he’s an OK writer. It was also about 200 pages longer than it needed to be. I may have missed my calling as an editor.