8.28.2002

i wanna get my kicks... on interstate 85

i was struck by the desire today to go road tripping. it'll be fun! we'll bring cameras, take photos, and blog all the way across the country. maybe we'll even make a film out of it! and surely there'll be enough adventuresome occurences happening in some top-down, radio-blaring world of my imagination to make a novel happen sometime along the way, right?

two things must happen for this public relations/literary feat to be possible:
1. i must have a laptop.
2. either i or my husband -- preferably both of us -- must become a licensed driver. (this is high on the list, i swear. we're leaving nyc and so have no choice)

also in the corner of my imagination that is planning this mythological excursion, there is this third as-yet-unrealized fact: as we're barreling down the nation's highways and byways in my mind's eye, i'm always pregnant.

i can just *see* it.

now i recognize that there's lots of doctors visits and exercise and sensible eating and things like that that're supposed to accompany pregnancy in real life, so i understand this whole gestate-on-the-road idea is largely a flight of fancy. but think about it: wouldn't a huge cross-country road trip be a *fun* way to spend part of your last nine months as a free person? i figure when i get pregnant (NOT that i'm trying, but then again neither do i have a license yet so it's all in divine time) we can start selling off all our stuff and/or sublet our apartment for a year, and then spend five months or so driving around having our last hurrah, celebrating our freedom before we enter our indentured servitude to a screaming tyrant who doesn't speak our language.

you may be sensing a certain reluctance around this issue. thing is, i'm conflicted. i think children are endless sources of wonder and beauty, but infants... man. i am overwhelmed & frightened by the completeness of their need. i can hardly remember to feed MYSELF dinner... i'm supposed to be responsible for the care and nurturing of a helpless being who can't even say thank you or ask properly for the tittie when it's hungry? eek.

on the other hand, my family lives in phoenix and my mother has declared that my first child must be born out there. (some kind of family tradition thing i was told, although HER mother traveled out to see HER when WE were born. she's like, uhm, no. i'm parked in the desert to stay. yall have to come hang out with ME.) grossly unfair, true, but at the same time it gives our road trip a quantifiable, reachable destination with long rest at the end. in addition, my sister is a massage therapist and doula (birth assistant), adding fuel to the give-birth-in-AZ fire.

yeah, i think ending up seven months pregnant to be coddled and cared for by my family in the desert is a damn fine idea. a damn fine idea indeed. now if only i can find an ob-gyn and a nutritionist to come along for the ride...

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