Cusp

Tomorrow begins my third trimester. And today, I am flattened on the couch.

I was supposed to be meeting an ambitious book deadline today. Yesterday I wrote to the powers that be and confessed that that was not going to happen. I am not meeting the deadline. I'm not even approaching meeting the deadline. I am so fucking far from the deadline that I can't even see the deadline. I'm so far from the deadline that I am not even all that stressed about not meeting the deadline. Who could possibly meet such a deadline? I'm not making any progress negotiating peace in the Mideast either. So why worry about it?

Am I flattened on the couch because it is my third trimester tomorrow, or because I am lazy? Or because it is hot, as L suggests? More importantly, does it matter? The point is the flattening, one could argue. Here is me, on the couch. I'm swollen in the middle. Inside, my fish-friend swims back and forth, back and forth. Fins flickering. He settles down when I am in or on the water. Seems appropriate. But I am not on the water, I am on the couch. Fin, fin, fin.

Things I could do: shower. Put on clean clothes. Eat this yogurt on the couch next to me. Have a smidge more coffee. Read some stuff that will edge me at least in the right direction as the deadline. Blog (what I am doing now, in fact). Or I could just slump over and turn on the TV, which is what I want to do. I shouldn't do that. I should at least pretend I am doing something worthwhile.

Something other than what I'm doing, which is knitting a new human out of my own flesh.