2001-07-27 - 3:25 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Groove is in the Heart", another of those default songs.

Good lord, I'm having a nutty week.

First, I was feeling sick all the time and wondered if I might be pregnant (as of two days ago, I can say I'm definitely not).

Work is busy, so I'm not writing journal entries to procrastinate like I usually do.

My parents are coming this weekend.

Yesterday they came and ripped up about 2/3 of the hardwood. They have to come back Monday to finish ripping it up, and then Wednesday they'll install the new stuff. Argh. Everything always takes three times as long as you expect.

And just as it's looking like our house will be back in order, suddenly opportunities come along that might mean we'll be leaving it. In a matter of months.

Poindexter's company is not in very good shape. He's been expecting to be laid off for quite a while. So finally this past weekend he actually took a gander at the want ads.

And what did he find but a company in the Philly area, that does the exact type of work he wants to do, and they have literally DOZENS of openings at all levels. My guess is that they suddenly got a bunch of new projects (or one big one). It looks extremely promising. Keep your fingers crossed, please!

I'm trying not to get excited about it, but it's hard.

I'm also a little freaked out. We always knew we were going to move to Philadelphia (or somewhere near my folks or his) at some point, but I figured we'd start getting serious about it next spring. If this company is as desperate for people as they seem, we could be in Philly by Halloween! I'm trying to start adjusting to the idea of leaving.

Fortunately, my company would rather have me work remotely from Philly than quit, so I will just keep my job. I was telling Michelle that I would probably look to share office space somewhere once we get settled. That way I'd have people around and can avoid that cabin-fever feeling I occasionally got when telecommuting from San Jose.

I couldn't resist peeking at realtor.com for a bit. We think we'll probably rent out our house and eventually buy another in Philly, if that's possible. Maybe sometime soon we can do our scouting trip that we had to postpone.

The pregnancy thing:

Over the weekend I was feeling really weird, sort of worn out and queasy. The timing was right so that it could have been due to pregnancy hormones.

Either I didn't really believe I was pregnant (quite possible), or I don't seem to be quite so frightened of it. I had a weird feeling of resignation. Que sera, sera.

Poindexter and I discussed it a bit -- like, would we have to change our plans for moving, could we live on one salary, and a nifty way we'd tell our parents (a telegram with one word -- OOPS -- would tell them all they needed to know). The fact is that there's nothing that would keep us from raising a kid in the way that we wanted to.

My reasons for not wanting children are mainly these:

1. I don't want someone else to be more important to me than Poindexter.
2. I love my sleep. I cherish it.
3. I don't want the intense responsibility that never goes away.

Notice that none of these have to do with children themselves. Honestly, I think kids are great. I love babies and toddlers. I love babysitting. Crying children don't frighten me. I'm afraid of teenagers, but Poindexter's not, so there would probably just be a shift in responsibility in those years.

If I had a child by surprise (since at this point in time there's no way in hell I'm going to say, "Let's make a baby" or even "Hey, dear, let's skip the birth control just this once"), I have little doubt that I would be madly in love with that child and want it very much, and that I would enjoy watching it grow and develop into an independent person.

It's weird. If I hated kids, it would be easier for some people to understand why I don't want any of my own. Someday I'll come up with a good analogy. Maybe it's like a great vacation spot. "It's a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."

An e-mail from a dear reader made me want to clarify a few points from the previous entry.

When I say "people who can't separate nudity and sex", a better way of describing this might be "people who can't separate nudity-for-bathing and nudity-for-sex". Because, after all, nudity is necessary (well, in some places, anyway) and highly enjoyable in a sexual context. But nudity is necessary for bathing, too, but it's a nonsexual activity. In Japan, they have these public baths and hot springs and such, and nobody wears a bathing suit. In Japan the line between is much more clearly drawn than it is here.

Maybe even it's not an inability to separate that bothers me -- if you're wired to think SEX when you see a naked person, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. It's more that I dislike people who don't respect the fact that I DO separate nudity and sex on a clothing-optional beach. I don't want someone presuming I'm there to get laid.

And yes, I am always aware that there are going to be people who presume that anyway. I'm just going to have to practice polite-but-firm ways of warding them off. Somebody, I forget who, suggested trying to get a "female" area of the beach going. No men permitted without a female accompanying him.

As for the man in the SUV, I was not actually worried about psychological scarring. I'm not even all that upset. I was just completely pissed by his inappropriate behavior, largely because it's NOT what going to a nude beach is about, for me, and because it's the kind of behavior that makes local governments close nude beaches.

In retrospect I wish I'd chewed him out about it. "This is inappropriate and I suggest you find a private place to do that." The only reason I didn't is because I was concerned for my own safety. Sometimes being a small, hard-of-hearing nudist female in a world full of perverts is a pain in the ass.

Anyway. It drives me crazy when people take something that is very innocent and natural for me and turn it into something perverted or inappropriately sexual. Being able to swim and sunbathe nude is, for me, similar to how two-year-olds like to run around naked after their bath. It's just NICE. It feels good in the way a cool breeze feels good on a hot day. So I tend to want to explain myself a lot, lest people get the wrong idea. I suppose if anyone reading is convinced that nudity is only for sex or that nudity in general is perverted, they're going to think I'm just in denial. Oh well.

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