I was perusing the Internet the other day and happened upon a few “blogs.” “Hmmm,” I thought.  “I should start one of those!” “Oh wait,” I then thought.  “Don’t I have one?  No.  I used to.  Er, wait, something is stirring in my mind . . .”

So it is.  It’s been a month.  No existential crises again, either.  Just plain old work and plain old being the size of a bus and unable to accomplish as many things in a day as I am used to being able to accomplish.

However, I have once again moved from middle management back to lower level ignored employee.  People ask me if I would want to stay a director, rather than, say, a person who directly documents feces in the shower.  “Never!” I will always declare.  I only have occasional feces to deal with; directors face it daily.

In other news, I have happily been ignoring my dissertation for months.  Any day now, I anticipate getting back to that.  I think if I am awake all night with an infant, my theology will be far more interesting to read.

Being nine months pregnant is interesting for a variety of reasons.  But the one I’ve found oddest is that lately strangers come up and talk to me with alarming frequency.  Some try to touch me, and I was warned about that, but others just seem to want to chat.  About anything.  Maybe I am the least threatening creature there is?  I am, in fact, two people, so talking to me is like talking to a crowd?  Where I am gathered, surely is the presence of the Holy Spirit?  Who knows.  The most recent incident of this was today on the train.  A man looks me up and down.

“Yeah.  So, you one of those Gloucester 17?”

“Pardon?”

“Ya’all are having a baby, right?  Are you in high school?”

I was so taken aback my internal filter went all wonky.

“Uh, dude, I’m 30.”

The guy blinked.  “Those girls need to be put on birth control.  The school should give it to every girl.  I bet your mama just hopes you graduate.” He clucked his tongue.  The T pulled into a station, the door swished open, and he stepped out.” Through the window, he pointed at me and shook his head.

Truthfully, he’s right.  My mother does hope I graduate.  She is constantly inserting into conversation bits like, “Well, I know you have to go work on that paper!” Or, “Surely you have more than a chapter now, right?” Somehow though, I don’t think this is to what the gentlemen was referring.

So it is.  What happened to just offering me your seat?

I came home and looked up the Gloucester 17.  I had seen something about it on some message board, had been shocked, but hadn’t thought much more of it.  Apparently 17 girls at a local high school made a pact to get pregnant.  And now many are speculating how birth control in the schools would solve this issue.  I don’t see how this could be true, though.  As birth control would require people to not want to have babies and thus use it.  And, if this were in the fact the case, shouldn’t medical professionals handle this sort of thing?  Or parents?

And to think I’ll soon be having a daughter.  In a world where teenagers make pacts to get pregnant.  This is what will keep me up at night and keep the theology interesting, people.  Not the infant screaming.