I want to tell you that I was brave, that it didn't hurt, that it was an easy procedure and that I came home and laughed about it afterward. The problem is that none of these statements are true. The truth falls more between sobering and horrifying, and does not reflect well on me. I cried through most of the procedure, it hurt badly, and as soon as I got home I downed my first round of Lortab even though my procedural anesthetic was still in place -- because I needed to numb the memories of the procedure as quickly as possible.The dentist asked me afterwards how I felt.

My surgery is Tuesday afternoon. This afternoon, as I was driving out to pick up books to read while I'm convalescing, I realized something that caught me off guard for a moment: I was happy about the upcoming surgery. Yes, nervous, incredibly - anything that involves a high likelihood of general anesthesia should be treated with the respect and caution such drugs deserve. But happy. Relieved. Calm. It was going to happen, and I was glad of it - glad and grateful that I live in a country, during a time, that lets me decide the future of my own fertility.

Edmund, most of the time, is too lazy to work up the effort to squeeze out a full-fledged meow, instead settling for a meaningful glance, occasionally laced with a whiskertwitch or two. Only when he is annoyed (defined as "my brother kitty will not play with me when I bite him on the ass") does he really feel the need to actually audibly voice his opinion. Today was no exception, but even without the vocalization, I got the point.

…to Jacob Kekoa Tsark, who apparently took his sweet time getting here on Friday, April 8th. I'll just quote these parts of Kara's email: "20 hours of active labor" and "emergency c-section."Yep, she's definitely got something to hold over this one during his teenage years.

I posted a similar entry, 'Happy belated birthday…,' in January 2003 announcing the birth of Kara and Matt's first son, Danny. A couple of years later, I can follow up what I said there: yep, Kara's a great mom. There's something inherently satisfying and cheering in knowing that the people who should be having kids are having kids. (Time to place yet another round of bets on whether or not the child of two engineers is destined to become an engineer. Check back in about eighteen years.) :D

Sorry. I had a starlady moment there with the title. Don't mind me. The arrival of my new socks has made my life far, far too exciting to bear. What, you say? Socks can't make your life exciting?