still missing my cat.

sitting in a ferry terminal. this is the east coast. i have sat in several ferry terminals and will sit in more before we're done. they are a good place to catch up on internetting and eat suspicious fries that will probably make my stomach hurt.

i just re-read my previous entry and was amused by how materialistic travelling while pregnant has made me. who knew all it took was a jacuzzi tub in a giant bathroom to reduce me to blathering? ah well. i have no regrets about that b&b. in fact, after they made me gluten-free french toast in a separate pan, accompanied by elegant fruit salad (no melon filler for these guys, oh no) i tried to plead with the queen to move here. to the b&b, i mean. he looked amused with a touch of panic.

after i reluctantly packed my things and signed the guest book, we took off to be tourists for a day. we visited signal hill (the view is amazing, plus the tower is open to be climbed, which i always love) and nerded out at the geo centre. we then went to an archeological dig an hour out of st john's, but of course it was closed for the season. still, we parked for the night on a big hill and fell asleep to the sound of waves crashing beneath us. pretty great.

since then, we have been driving back across this island, back to port aux basques where we now sit. the next five days or so are nova scotia, then a day in new brunswick and off to the states. my friend in new orleans, the little pixie, is getting excited and so am i. hey, tomorrow i am 27 weeks pregnant! wild, i know. and i am actually having some "happy to be pregnant" days. i realise i spend a lot of time writing about the crappy parts. but there are hormones at work that make me think this is a good idea, and if i don't overeat and i do pee every ten minutes, they keep me somewhat satisfied. also, i have recently become enamoured with crackers, peanut butter and pickles. i have them as a snack every day. it is pleasing to my belly.

we will be back in alberta at the 33-week-of-pregnancy mark. we are almost halfway done, time-wise (i am slowly reading this great book about time, and i must say it is awesome. i am currently learning about entropy, which i have always wanted to do). i have begun to have pangs of longing for home, but they have not eclipsed how great it is to be out here. last night, for example, we parked just outside of a closed-for-the-season golf course and had a romantic night in, consisting of pasta-by-LED-light, then cribbage and hot chocolate and sarah vaughan. afterward, we each did our own thing. hank is separated by curtains into two rooms, so i napped and read (the time book and a fantastic novel by louise erdrich, which i am totally hooked on and trying not to read too fast because the writing is good enough to read it slowly) and the queen practiced classical guitar. these are the kind of nights i think i will miss when we have a baby. so i did my best to really enjoy this one.

i just got distracted by the queen's photos on fbook of our trip. i'm sleeping on the bus through about half of them, so they're new to me even as they look familiar. i had deep thoughts to share (i do still have them, when i'm not napping or thinking about food) but they have floated away on a sleepy ether. i think they were about - oh yeah! (thanks brain) - commitment and phobias. see, being in my early thirties, i have relationship phobias, and had basically come to peace with the idea of not really having one of those LTRs. short liaisons, as shallow as their reputation may be (no judgment here, i learned a lot), were serving me just fine. i have been reading on some people's fbook profiles links to interesting articles about the psychology of relationships. i provide a link even as i hesitate, probably because i fear being judged flaky for getting something out of this. but i did get something out of it, so i bare this link to my own psyche, sigh. it hit the nail on the head for me in regards to several points.

one, compromise. i resisted compromise for a long time because i felt it to be disempowering. so many of the relationships in my life (not the romantic ones, i mean my childhood and family relationships) robbed me of my autonomy that i really needed to spend some time not compromising with anyone. but eventually, that leads to a stubborn attitude of "my way or the highway" when frankly, my way isn't that much better than anyone else's. still, if it feels gross, don't do it, so i didn't. stevens makes a point that allows me to separate the disempowering choices with the simple compromises that come with any close relationship. his examples are perhaps a bit too simple, but i get it.

another interesting point the article brought up for me is how the inner gender balance of each of us affects our choice in relationships. it sheds a little light on some of the patterns i have seen in myself and others. as i have become more comfortable with my feminine side (realising it does not eclipse my masculine side) i have found men who respect and appreciate my femininity more. this has, in fact, been very recent. perhaps men in the past have appreciated my femininity, but since i didn't, i probably either didn't notice or judged them for it.

anyway, the article disintegrates into a discussion about "why there are so few good men out there", which i don't really buy into, so read it at your own discretion. i got something out of it so i share.