August Twentieth, Two Thousand Fifteen
Had our third ultrasound yesterday. Went incredibly fast – too fast, really. Basically the pleasant nurse found all the babies, measured that they were still the right size and proportions and then brought in Dr. Schneider. After 2 minutes of inspecting blood flow from placenta to baby, she told us we had ‘passed’ and that we’d see her again in two weeks. That would be the old adage ‘no news is good news’. So I was pleased.
The tricky part is that as we start to absorb it, start anticipating it even, that's when the anxiety grows... Every article we read, every statistic, nothing but bad news bears. Chance of miscarriage? High. Chance of cerebral palsy? High. Chance of twin-to-twin transfusion? High.
Happily these are still fairly rare events - increased likelihood in our case, to be sure - but still in the low percentiles.
See, I’m so used to a sort of blind confidence. Unthinking arrogance. That nothing bad really happens to me, so it’ll be fine.
But these days, with these three, I feel like that’s been blown wide open. Something crazy has already happened. The shields are down and now anything goes. We’ve already beat the odds. We’re in unmarked & unknown terrain. Bizarro world. So hearing that we passed was a great source of relief. Because, holy shit, I’m getting excited about these girls. We’ve got names. They’re looking healthy. This is getting rad. In other news, playing one of my last shows for a very long time today. A quick lunchtime duet with my brother. Was kind of dreading it, but today it sounds fun. Doing a new song ‘Instrumental’ for the first and (I guess) last time. Still so very strange.
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Okay, show over. Always gives me a chuckle to do mid-day gigs. I have to change out of work clothes and gracelessly put on stage garb in my car, in a parking lot. Ah, the glitz and glamour. Show went well. We don’t often do acoustic gigs, as I don’t have very many songs that translate to a stripped down format like that, but we found just enough that work. Crowd reaction was pretty good considering we were basically hired buskers interrupting their lunch.
Had some fun with the banter, telling them that we were unofficially sponsored by one of the street meat carts in my line of vision, one ‘Walt’s Western Hot Dogs’. Announced that every time we mentioned them, the band and the crew each receive one free hot dog, and then proceeded to talk about them non-stop between every song.
Actually train-wrecked a tune for the first time in a very long time. 'My Love Don't Belong'. Hilarious, because it’s our easiest, and the song I’ve played the most in the last three years.
But, other than that, the thing was well-played and fun, and it was a full, blessed hour of NOT THINKING ABOUT TRIPLETS. Gill even brought Ozzy to see his dad play. It was a treat to see him, until he jumped on stage, got scared, and started to aggressively weep. Oh well. Can’t please everyone.
