but $@#! it was $@#!ing exhilarating. i was glowing healthy and even smelled nice like a bakery of pearls j said i wasnt showing just yet. the fertility docs each recommended their own gynobstetrician so we went browsing and still to doc meanley who was encouraging. he said we were doing better than ever until he pressed j to share and j who never liked being pressed said that he considered a child like a book like hed get to write a child but doc meanley dispproved and asked what happens if you get blocked dont books end up writing you and though j was peeved doc meanley pressured more by claiming that j was being “aversive.” He asked why did you try for a baby if you dont actually want a baby to which j asked “why did i get married if i didnt actually want a marriage” and the doc said it was enough with the “aversives” but then j said “i got married and am having a baby with her so that no one else would [have to????] because i love her so much” what a schmuck if youre reading this having you in my life was already like having a child.

work was so great to me too that already just the moment i told my boss “ben itkowitz” (reread my pseudo/anonymity policy) he was jumping up and down with me saying bubele take all the leave you need. which in ben language meant you best square everything away before you pop one. which meant training my templacement just personable enough that s/he would get on as comfy as sportswear with the clients but also just shoddy and incompatent enough for dealing with coworkers officeside that s/hed get fired if they didnt consult me on every single detail throughout my maternity. that was the only move to make according to “emi” and “tal” for u&i to beg me back to acct mgmt and beyond that promote me. also i needed to prepare clientside transitions for all the open accts though i have to be careful what im typing “net bank of new england ii” “manic webisode” “hellacopter: da game” “pomegranate” “beverage” all while brainstorming a campaign for the alarm system thing and planning the probono.

the msgings always the difficultest but dealing with the city its doubled. the conceptual idea of it was about links between the local and nonlocal or between personal health and the environment. it was an initiative directed at minority communities that are come on in the majority if you ever get out of the cabs. now just lump general women and children in with the minorities and you already have three quarters of the city and the rest are jewish males (the bulk of who are HANDICAPPED).

wed been working on the proposal copy/design for the promo material different versions for different schools and religious groups for community leaders and parents. it never made any sense that though the work was probono we still had to pitch but we did and so went downtown to the school like ps 188 that was interim headquarters until the office at the health dept got its hvac cleaned of mold.

a guard ushered us down the hall amid all the students leaving and told us to wait by the lockers and we obeyed like we ourselves were still in school and the guard became a teacher. i felt like that difficult to describe to anyone who hasnt felt it feeling of being elated but crap and feeling id rather be going with the students heading out from last class or extracurriculars to snuggle into carrot celery hummus and a nap. the students were so big in their bodies but their faces were small and they carried what i had high in front of me low on their backs huge enormous sagging backpacks. they were asian hispanic and every other race to justify my decision about bringing along “khan” who was pakistani and “rod” who was half brazilian half korean i think though this wasnt their acct. they were just relatively between accts at the agency and ive always known how to present. the rest of my team was “jim” and “jon” two guys (black) (and gay and jacked and impeccably tailored my bangers my banging creatives was our jk though they werent romantically involved with each other and me a preggers white girl rounding out her 20 lbs heavier filenes basement going out of business suit.

i wasnt sure what we were waiting for and then i was sure and getting queasy. i hadnt been told this was a cattle call the type in which prospective clients interview a number of agencies or i had been told and id forgotten but whichever i was flustered nauseated or nauseous j always corrected me. [501c3s and public agencies are worse than private corporations theyre the absolute worst to work with please forgive the digression. the money given to them out of the goodness of hearts or from taxes doesnt go to the hungry children without healthcare but to midlevel professionals on disability and though i understand why a for profit has to try to get the best work for the best price the city likes to swing dick the same way and had already smacked u&i $20k in the hole on a campaign that ultimately lost its winner 4x that. well beyond any monies saved in the deductibles. still profile was enhanced.] i got that it was a cattle call and that i was the cow with the door letting out a team from an agency ill just call “the white agency.” they all were hauling out their mockups i didnt have a chance to eval because of a pet the bulge reunion with this totes bitch wasp girl who shrieked that she hadnt known i was preggers as if we were friends and id neglected to tell her and she wrapped herself around me to exaggerate how burst i was but i only said i thought shed been laidoff and had gone into media admin or alumni affairs for like marymount or williams.

we went in after into not anything administrative but just this classroom all set up like a classroom just chilling. it made me think no way im going to send my kid to this or any other publicschool im just going to follow “tali” and move back to wykagyl or the north shore of the island or do like “emi” and straight from the hospital fill out an application for the 92nd st y anything but abuse my own kid like this. It was just this spare ugly dropceiling sheet tile flooring streaked like the dryerase board dented globe dump. At a table the color and greasy texture of fries and a seeded bun stool the size of a burger i eased down onto slow like i was at maximum capacity already.

now im already on thin ice writing about a client so im just going to composite with the assurance that unlike with j everything is true but the job must be protected. its really difficult to do that because i just have this urge to go ahead and type because there arent any consequences here in front of me besides my smoothie. in the future there will have to be this immunity. this immunization booster or whatevs that lets me both vent and erase lets me both tetrant and delete because i can say from experience from having been on the other end the receiving end that a spouse cant be just a recipient or sender. there really have to be better ways than this or crumbling cookies and sneaking a scoop of yellow cakebatter icecream into my smoothie to cope with the pressure. “verna smith” sat atop the teachers station across from us. she was the project mgr. an old but young mix of black mama poet laureate with dreadbraids twisted through cowry shells dangling peacock feathers and white dyke flannel over chinos. then maybe two maybe three other people inhouse. communications personnel at the health and education depts.

“verna” was talking forever about the project the expectations whatevs but always bringing it back around to her resume or core principles. it was difficult to pay attention especially by “in my socialwork days up in the Bronx” but also because of the cramping just severe excruciating cramping. though i dont mean to be so mean. its difficult because im making up “verna” from the combo of two people honestly the project comanagers and the one from health was tolerable enough because about to retire and haitian french but the other from education was middleaged an irish catholic phd cunt who said things like “advertising in schools can be justified only as a teachable moment for media literacy.”