Megan Stielstra's Blog

Dear Fashion Industry,

I should explain that even under the most normal circumstances, I have a love/hate relationship with shopping.

I love shoes, boots, bags, anything that says cashmere, skin products that smell like fruit, books, magazines, small and unnecessary appliances, Bed Bath and Beyond, fizzy water, glassware, vases, frames, cards, scarves, gortex, sweaters, coats, sweater-coats, wrap-dresses (Dear Diane Von Fursterburg: you are hot), Laura Mercier, Origins, Anthropologie, Barney’s Co-op, Forever 21, Village Thrift, Maker’s Mark, etc. etc.

I hate pants.

This is because I have hips and most pants don’t, and I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be the whole Girl Whines About Her Butt cliché ‘cause you know there’s more important things going on in the world than the size of my ass but seriously, Fashion Industry, finding pants that work is the bane of my existence and since I’m not the only one—I’ve had this conversation with every woman I know be she a size 2 or a 20—you’d THINK maybe y’all could DO something about it and save us all from the following scenario:

ME: (holding up pair of size 2 super-cute pants) Excuse me, Marc Jacobs saleslady, do these come in a 10?
MJS: A 10?
ME: 10.
MJS: (uncomfortable) We don’t carry those in a 10.
ME: ?????
MJS: We just don’t …
ME: ??????????????????????????????
MJS: .. not a lot of women come in here who …
ME: ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
MJS: … need more than a …
ME: I AM STANDING HERE READY TO SPEND TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS ON PANTS AND YOU’RE TELLING ME I’M TOO BIG? I’M TOO BIG TO GIVE MARC JACOBS MY TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS? MARC JACOBS DOESN’T WANT MY TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS? DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN TELL MARC JACOBS, YOU CAN TELL HIM TO KISS MY FAT (Dear Marc Jacobs, I’m sorry, I love you, don’t be mad, you’re my favorite, I’ll always give you my two hundred dollars, just make me some clothes, please, thank you) ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

And the irony of all this, Fashion Industry, is the above Marc Jacobs moment (which I’ll bet you a hundred bucks every woman reading this has experienced at least ONCE, be the pants too small or too big or too bouffy at the thighs—who in the Hell looks good in bouffy at the thighs, I ask you?) happened LAST YEAR. WHEN I WAS VERY MUCH NOT PREGNANT.

Do you see where we’re going here, Fashion Industry?

If under the most normal of circumstances I can’t find a pair of pants to save my life (and no, I don’t only shop at stupidly expensive places. I can navigate my way around any Salvation Army in the Chicagoland area, thanks very much) what the hell am I supposed to do NOW?

We’re having this discussion because I went shopping last weekend. Because I’m getting bigger. This is what happens when you’re pregnant—you put on weight around your middle due to the human being growing there (currently the size of a zucchini according to babycenter.com) and while I’m really excited that you received the memo I sent about my pregnancy and subsequently filled your fall runways with these really cute empire-waisted shirts and dresses, I’m understandably disappointed with all my below-the-waist options, of which there are two—

1. Buy normal (re: not pregnant) pants.
2. Buy the maternity pants with the huge stretchy pregnant band

—and I’m sorry, but the normal are too small and the maternity are too big and there’s nothing in between except for MATERNITY SKINNY JEANS which, I mean, are you people SERIOUS???? Skinny jeans make me want to die like GENERALLY SPEAKING and you people go and make MATERNITY SKINNY JEANS? Are you on CRACK? I don’t care how MILF a girl is, skinny jeans don’t look good on ANYONE let alone a woman with a zucchini in her belly! And furthermore, are they even SAFE? Wouldn’t they cut off the kid’s CIRCULATION? I worry sometimes about having my laptop on my lap, like maybe I’m frying the kid or something and you people want me to spend eighty bucks on SKINNY JEANS THAT I’LL ONLY WEAR FOR A COUPLE MONTHS WHEN I CAN SAVE THAT CASH AND BUY MY FRIGGIN’ MARC JACOBS ONCE I GET MY BODY BACK (ASSUMING I EVEN DO, WHICH IS A WHOLE ‘NOTHER ISSUE THAT I DON’T WANT TO GO INTO) or maybe some diapers.

Marc Jacobs, diapers; Marc Jacobs, diapers (can you see me weighing these options, one on each hand?)

Anyhow, Fashion Industry. Just make some pants. That’s all I’m asking here: PANTS. Pants for being pregnant BEFORE you’re super-huge, and pants for AFTER you’re pregnant that are comfortable while you figure out how to handle your new life as an on-call buffet, and pants for after you’ve spent a year in the gym and got back down to your normal size ten which, if you want my opinion, shouldn’t be that fucking hard to find, Fashion Industry, NO size should be hard to find, be it for work or play or running around on a playground or wearing your new high heels or WHATEVER JUST MAKE A GIRL SOME PANTS WHY DON’T YOU ‘CAUSE I HAVE A LOT GOING ON RIGHT NOW AND I DON’T HAVE TIME TO LEARN TO SEW.

But I will. Oh yes. If it comes to that, I will.

Posted by Megan at 7:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Some people have asked if I’ve had any cravings, and while for the most part it’s been the exact opposite—as in, “I want mashed potatoes not because I want mashed potatoes but rather because the thought of eating anything else makes me want to die”—there have been a few:

Canned peaches in syrup (preferably the Del Monte ones in the glass jar)

This desert they have at Dunlay’s in Logan Square: a big chocolate-chip cookie served hot in a cast-iron skillet with vanilla ice cream

Reba. As in the TV show showed in reruns on the cw at 4:00 and 4:30 every day and while normally I’d be ashamed to admit that, there are only four-and-a-half short months left in which I can be excused of any and all questionable behavior due to excessive hormones and I’m going to milk ‘em for all they’re worth, people, so yes, I watch Reba, and yes, I think Van is funny and yes, the actress who plays Barbara Jean can do really interesting things with her mouth and yes, I'm looking forward to the return of my intelligence.

Posted by Megan at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So, with the help of my good friend Shiow and her radio expertise, I entered the Third Coast Audio Festival’s Dollar Storey competition and while we didn’t win, I’m still really proud of what we made.

You can listen here.

Shiow, you’re the greatest.

Posted by Megan at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Report: Many U.S. Parents Outsourcing Child Care Overseas

Posted by Megan at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

&Last night I dreamt that 2nd Story was in a karaoke competition at the Hidden Cove up on Lincoln and Bobby and I were selected to represent. We had to get up on the little stage and sing as many songs as possible without looking at the lyrics—as soon as we screwed up we were out. I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of obligation, like I'd be letting the whole organization down if we lost. The actual singing part of the dream went on forever: Bobby and I going back and forth with the songs, first him, then me, and I don’t remember all of them but I do know that I did Only You by Yaz, Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper and some Violent Femmes tune, I don’t remember which, and Bobby did Pour Some Sugar on Me and then—the thing that killed me—like I’m sitting there in the dream watching this happen thinking, "Now I am dying. I'm dreaming and dying at the same time"—Bobby did RONI. As in TENDERONI. By BOBBY f'ing BROWN, people.

I woke up laughing. Which is a really nice way to wake up.

In a completely unrelated dream, I dreamt that my kid is a boy.

We named him Shark.

(?)

Posted by Megan at 7:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Christopher just sent me a text message asking how I am, because lately some days are good and some days are bad. Some days I eat and some days I don’t. Some days food is the greatest thing in the Universe and some days it’s manna of Satan.

I wrote back: OKAY. I ATE SOME BAGEL.

Except I realized too late that my phone’s T9 didn’t recognize the word BAGEL so the text I just sent him really says: OKAY. I ATE SOME ACID?

Posted by Megan at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Saturday I’ll be reading for a new series at Around the Coyote called RE:Action, where writers are shown an artist’s visual work in order to write what the piece first makes them think of. Then, at the opening, there’s a reading of those responses (and also art and wine and the general fabulousness that comes with attending swanky gallery openings).

The artist I’ll be reacting (RE:Acting) to is Haseeb Ahmed. There’s information about him here, as well as the piece of his that I wrote about: it has the same phrase in two different languages—one at the top and one at the bottom—connected by a messy triangular web of lines.

It’s interesting because I’m used to writing off of very concrete things—a definite image, or line of dialogue—so it was this whole other mental process for me to look abstractly at a piece of art, decide on an overall significance for me as an audience to that art, and then translate that significance into my own experience in order to find the story I wanted to tell.

What I eventually came up with was distorted communication: how someone says one thing and it’s interpreted as something else based on the different connotations both parties have. I like the idea because it’s relative to greater world issues, but also to everyone’s day-to-day situation. Like, one person says “I love you,” but to them the word “love” is really happy and to the person they’re saying it to, it’s really scary. The same with “Girlfriend,” or “boyfriend” or “mine” or “Holy Land” or “marriage” or “no” or “friend,” etc. etc. and all this anger and confusion happens because people either don’t bother to explain themselves, or are really emotional in their explanations so they’re not listening to each other anyhow.

Am I making ANY sense? This is why I write stories and not theory: because when I get into the theory I realize halfway through my big heavy speech that even I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore. Like last night I had this really crazy dream—

which is either connected to school starting this week or just general hormone-y-ness (probably the latter. My dreams have been nutty lately, like Monday I had one where I was in Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind and I was so super pregnant that I couldn’t even walk so they just had a folding chair in the center of the stage and I sat through the entire show and said stuff occasionally which was really boring ‘cause part of the fun of that show is all the jumping around. So anyhow, one of the thirty plays they did was called NAME MEGAN’S KID and the audience got to vote. They decided on Bootsie. Bootsie Jobson)

—in which someone said, “I’m going to write something truly original!” and then, in the dream, I had this lengthy discussion with myself—

‘cause no one else was there to discuss anything with, I don’t even know who said the whole “going to write something original” thing to begin with, unless it was my subconscious or something, to which I’d say, “Shut UP, Subconscious!” because I get really bored with theoretical discussions when there’s so much real stuff going on (I’m thinking of the time a friend said, “I had the great conversation today! We talked about the theory of penetration!” and I was like, “penetration is a theory?”) and furthermore, if I happen to be living in a barn and can’t find any real stuff, my imagination’ll do me just fine, thank you—SO. You can see how having a dream in which I talked theory all night was really annoying and I woke up kind of irritated and would really like a double espresso

—about whether or not writing something original is even POSSIBLE. I broke down the differences in originality of content and form and structure and the whole time I was talking I’m going BOOOOO-RRRRING in the back of my head and then I decided I should just wake up already and do the Yoga-for-Pregnant-Ladies DVD ‘cause at least that’s somewhat interesting. And the lady has a Bristish accent. Which is always fun at six a.m.

And what were we talking about?

Oh yes. This.

Posted by Megan at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Step one: lay on table.
Step two: smear petroleum jelly-type substance on stomach.
Step three: plug body into an amplifier, as though you’re a guitar.
Step four: listen as your kid’s heartbeat vibrates through the room.
Step five: whisper "Oh." Because even though you do words for a living, there are none that can even touch the surface of this moment.

Posted by Megan at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)