Just got off the phone with Sarah. Very excited. Still no baby, but here’s a transcript of the call—which I pray no one overheard:
Me: Hello?
Sarah: You sitting down?
Me: Yeah. What’s up?
Sarah: I passed my mucus plug.
Me: (excited) Really? Your mucus plug? What did it feel like?
Sarah: I didn’t notice. I went to sit on the pot, and…
My parents have been living in the basement for a week now, and Sarah’s womb has been painfully quiet the whole time. Every time I go downstairs, Tom and Lois are sitting on the couch, eating peanuts and watching Law & Order. And every time Sarah goes down there, they jump up with excited anticipation, and when they realize she has come to simply put in a load of laundry, they sigh. Audibly. They don’t mean any harm—they just want to meet the baby, too—but their presence seems to have spooked Sarah’s cervix. The pressure is overwhelming. “I feel like every day I don’t produce a child, I’m letting everyone down,” Sarah said…
Every time my phone rings at work, I think, Here we go. I look at the calendar: This is the day. I look at my clothes: This is what I’m going to be wearing in all the pictures. Usually, it’s someone calling to ask my least favorite question: “Has the baby come yet?”
No, it hasn’t. Thanks for reminding me.
It’s easy to forget that Sarah’s due date was an estimate—not an appointment. In most cases, post-term pregnancies aren’t really “late”; they stem from miscalculations of the time of conception…
It started in a bar, as so many ideas do: an NCAA-tournament style bracket for singles. A friend of mine and I had been weighing the benefits of one
arty activity over another, with the deciding factor being, well, men. As
in, when you’re over the Saturday night bar scene, where else can you go to
meet people? It got me thinking: what if you canvassed the arts & culture
scene and plotted out the possibilities on a bracket? …
Sometimes Cupid needs a little help. Meet a few singles who were looking for love, and the matchmakers—both old-fashioned and newfangled—that brought them together.
Here’s what it’s like sharing a bed with 39-weeks pregnant woman. Or, at least, with mine.
Early this morning, I was sleeping peacefully when I felt a tugging on my shirt. I rolled over and Sarah was staring at me, wide awake.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Is it time?”
“No. I’m miserable.”
“What’s the matter?”…
“I’ve got a fucking human being in my stomach, that’s what’s the matter.” …
The guitar lessons were great, but did the crush on the teacher remain just that—a crush?
And what goes better with a pick-up line—a Black Cat espresso or a Miller Light on a doily?
We present the championship match-up…
Brittney’s pick:
Valentine’s Day can be too mushy sometimes. I love this shot by Flickr user Ankylosaur. The single heart and stark black-and-white trees are at once heartwarmingly cute and desolately chilling. They perfectly encapsulate the moods of both lovebirds and the lovelorn on this day.
Esther’s pick: I can’t imagine anyone would ever buy such a demonic-looking stuffed animal for his/her loved one. Myself? Chocolates in a heart-shaped suede box from a buddy who probably would have bought the scary bear below had he seen it first…
Even though an anonymous commenter called it a place “full of dumb yupps,” the soccer league at Sport & Social beat out the marathon running group.
But what will happen when kicking balls goes head-to-head with waiting for a cold one at the Friendly Confines?
The field has narrowed yet again. Here, the Final Four…
Will country-punk Carol’s edge out late-night perennial Marie’s? Is the
pick-up scene better in a marathon training group or a soccer league?
It’s
time to find out which Chicago hot spots make it to Singles Bracket: Elite
Eight. Drumroll, please…
