strange days indeed, mama

justin didn't send the computer off when he planned because he spent the whole day trying to download pictures from his czech trip, and we didn't want the computer to come back and sit on our porch while we were on our next trip. so we still have it here, but we might as well have sent it off because we've spent practically no time on it.

i'm in this limbo - am i or not? - that's almost too much to think about without going insane, so i haven't been thinking about it. much. i've thrown myself into work (ha! for once!) and christmas shopping (half done!). it's hard to write about something i'm not letting myself feel. much. so i've stayed away from the computer.

for the record, here's what's happening: mid-week, i was stinky, and starving, and feeling pelvic twitches (for lack of a better term), and i felt electric sparks on my left thigh (i'm not even getting into that one any further except to say i experienced something identical and very odd at the onset of the other two pregnancies). today, i'm a little stinky, but i really have to sniff hard and close, and the pelvic twitches have become more like twitchy cramps, and the leg fireworks have stopped. despite what justin (sarcastically) says, i'm no doctor, but my gut feeling is that we managed fertilization but not lasting implantation. i tested yesterday, thinking i would put my mind at ease, but the negative result only made me feel...lumpier. i don't know what i expected on cd26 - maybe my very own christmas miracle, complete with angelic choir. maybe i should be thankful not to have that sort of result while seated on the toilet. it's kind of weird that two of my life's peak moments have occurred on the toilet - makes it a little hard to share those stories. next time i test, i ought to get my ass off the toilet and go in the other room to wait for the result.

we leave friday for either lisbon or madrid (depending on which flight looks better), and i am sooooooo excited to just go away. my original plan had been to test thursday if my period hadn't started; maybe i'll wait until friday - at least if it's negative, it will be negative a few hours before i get on a plane to drink myself silly for a few days. so there's that consolation.

both cities are great for drinking. lisbon will mean putting on our black clothes and slinking around the port institute by day, tasting different vintages and commenting wryly on the 70s modern decor, then at night consuming masses of brazilian food with vinho verde, the fabulous portuguese green wine, then sipping more port while listening to fado somewhere. madrid will mean nightly bar crawls starting at 10 or 11 pm, drinking a tumbler of sangria with the house nibble - hot grilled mushrooms, or sharp montego cheese, or crusty bread - at every establishment around the city center, rolling into the chocolateria about 6 am to drink cups of hot chocolate as thick as pudding and dipping freshly fried churros into our cups, then falling back into bed until it's time to do it all over again. either way, i win.