Encore!

Oh my. Does everyone remember my friend John*?

No? You should read this brief little post before going forward. Go ahead. Take your time. I'll wait.

[Mrs. X looks out the window. Ooh! There's that lady who always walks in the neighborhood who desperately needs to wear a sports bra. Honey, if you have B's or bigger, they shouldn't be swinging - and yours are definitely doing to the two-step. Buy a freakin' bra!]

Finished? Ok, so yesterday morning before I went on my walk, I checked my email. Usually, this is pretty anti-climactic. Yesterday? Not so much. There was an email from John. I had long ago lost hope that he was finally getting back to me on my last email in which I shared with him the news of our first loss and our struggle with infertility.

I wasn't disappointed. Not only was it not an email finally acknowledging that we had a loss, it was pictures of the kid's christening, with the harpie wife thrown in for good measure. To make matters worse, there was no message, it was just a generic, 'come see my on-line album that I'm sharing with you' bullshit. Needless to say, I didn't look at the pictures. All I could think was "you have got to be freakin' kidding me."

So I spent the first 1.5 miles of my walk pondering how I should respond. Actually, I should re-phrase that. I knew exactly how I wanted to respond - I'll spare you the expletives - but I needed to figure out how to do in a nice way while also edumacating him as to what an insensitive ass he was being.

I finally settled on this: I sent him a response email, congratulated him for the umpteenth time (I swear I've congratulated him on this kid more times than I've congratulated anyone else on the birth of a child) and then .... I asked him to stop sending me baby pictures. I told him about our second loss in a row - after IVF, no less - and told him how hard it was for me to see baby pictures right now.
image: idsfa
What I didn't say was how insensitive I thought he was being by continuing to send me this crap when I've been so honest with him about all that we have been through. I realize that he's a guy and therefore, he's not necessarily blessed with the sensitivity gene, but we were really good friends in graduate school and I would think that general rules of friendship would mean you would AT LEAST RESPOND WHEN YOUR FRIEND TELLS YOU THAT SHE'S HAD TWO MISCARRIAGES! A simple 'I'm sorry' will do the trick.

As expected, I haven't heard anything back from him and frankly, don't expect to. But, I make this solemn pledge - if he sends me anymore freakin' baby pictures - after I've specifically asked him not to - he's getting blocked. No more Mrs. Nice X.
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In other news, Spot Watch '08 continues. To paraphrase the immortal words of Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet in Spaceballs, "She's gone from brown to pink!" That's about as momentous as it gets. Still no flow. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. If things continue on their current spotty trajectory, I will get serious about getting things moving.

I'm off to do more drunk quilting. Kids, don't try this at home.