Amanda Hirsch's Blog

Finding Distractions: 24 Hours of Itch

2012-05-04T22:03:24Z

Yesterday, I woke up with a feeling.

A feeling that this was going to be rough day.

I've been a trooper with the last stretch of this pregnancy, I think -- but the latest indignity, near-constant itchiness, is starting to wear me down (I think I have PUPPP). I've tried everything -- anti-itch cream, Benadryl, oatmeal baths, cold compresses -- and nothing, and I mean NOTHING, works.

I lay there for a while, feeling spent, and then finally I rolled myself out of bed and got dressed. This -- getting dressed -- felt like a major accomplishment.

The morning progressed. Mid-day, I thought, "I'll nourish this poor little body of mine." I cooked a healthy lunch. There was quinoa:

I had four bunches of broccoli, but the idea of plain-old broccoli florets mixed with quinoa sounded boring and bland. I thought, "I'll puree the broccoli." So I boiled it, and then put it in the blender with some lemon zest, a handful of fresh mint, and a few swigs of olive oil:

I added a bit of Himalayan sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

The result, I must say, was delicious.

I also had a small amount of frozen peas so I threw those in as well, and mixed everything together, adding some parmesan cheese. The resulting dish was a bit odd, consistency-wise (the puree dominated), but the flavor was excellent. And I felt great for infusing my body with so many nutrients.

I capped things off with a square of dark chocolate and a mug of ginger tea.

And then the itching got so bad that I ripped my clothes off and got in the bath.

I dumped in heaps of baking soda. I spread baking soda paste over my ankles, which itched so badly that it took every ounce of self control not to claw them off.

I still itched.

I tried to read Yoga Journal, but all I could think about was how much I itched.

I closed my eyes and breathed and tried every relaxation and visualization technique I know. (Good rehearsal for labor, I suppose, but goddammit -- must I suffer this much before The Big Day?!)

Finally, I effectively distracted myself by listening to Marc Maron's interview with David Cross on the WTF podcast (Maron's a comedian and does long, soul-searching interviews with other comedians from his garage). They talked about smoking crack, selling cheap-ass jewelry on Venice Beach, and maintaining artistic integrity. Whatever. Keep talking. Be interesting. Distract me.

I got out of the bath, rubbed lemon all over my body (this article said to try it, and I was willing to try anything), and lay down on the bed in defeat. I started listening to Maron's interview with Carrie Brownstein, and promptly fell asleep (no offense, Carrie).

At 5:30, I summoned all my willpower and discipline to get up, get dressed, and drag myself to a movie... The Avengers. Another attempt at distraction. When we got to the theater, it was overrun with spastic children, one of whom kept stepping on my feet as he entered and exited our row over and over again.

This was a low point.

I wrote angry, snarky tweets on my iPhone that I deleted before posting. No one wants to hear your bitching.

I seethed.

I stuffed movie popcorn into my mouth and drank down a Sprite.

The movie started. It was fine. It distracted me. Thank god.

Afterward, the boiling rage I'd felt when the lights went down had dissipated. I was myself again. Phew.

I got an ice cream cone at Blue Marble Ice Cream and it was delicious -- mocha chip. We walked around Cobble Hill. The moon was full.

We took a taxi home. We watched this week's episode of Parks and Recreation and a couple episodes of The IT Crowd. I laughed and forgot how itchy I was.

I went to bed. I slept. Sweet, sweet sleep.

This morning, I woke up, and enjoyed a few moments of awareness before I realized... yep. Still itchy.

Ok. Deep breath. Power up the arsenal of distractions. Pull out the sofa bed, build a cozy nest, pop in a movie... write a blog post.

Please, let this baby be born soon.

Photo credits (all via Flickr): Quinoa photo by sweetbeetandgreenbean. Broccoli photo by Steven Lilley. Lemon zest photo by Robert Couse-Baker. Mint photo by nozoomii. Olive oil photo by Artizone. Popcorn photo by Andhi J. Moon photo by William Ward.

Comedic Intelligence

2012-05-03T17:39:12Z

Photo by Flickr user Howard StanburyI'm an avid Twitter user, and a lot of the people I follow are from the comedy community: improvisers I know, improvisers I don't know but whose work I admire, famous comedic actors and writers, etc. And I am amazed, time and again, at how many people who are absolute geniuses on stage and screen, really lack the gift of expressing themselves comedically in writing. They write tweets that are supposed to be funny but read as awkward at best, illiterate at worst. They do not make me LOL.

These are people who, when you put them in front of a microphone, the funniness just spills forth... oozes out of them. But in writing... none of that spark comes through.

I'm a big believer in the idea of mulitiple intelligences -- that "smart" can mean "smart at math," "smart at music," "smart at interpersonal communication"... etc. I guess there are multiple comedic intelligences, too.

I have the opposite problem of these perfomers-who-don't-write-so-good -- often, I feel I express myself so much better in writing than I do as a performer. As an improviser, I think my greatest strength is as an editor -- knowing when to end a scene or take it somewhere new. These storytelling instincts are ingrained in me as a communicator, whereas my "funny" instincts still, after almost a decade of performing, often come out so much more in conversation than they do on stage. I'm rarely the "funny one" in an improv show; I'm the teammate valued for helping make the show better, more cohesive, better timed. Which serves its purpose, don't get me wrong. But I feel like I have this "funny" inside me that still doesn't quite know how to come out on stage, and when I read comedians' Twitter feeds, I feel like I see them having the same problem, but in reverse.

It's amazing, isn't it, how we're able to express ourselves so much more effectively, and authentically, in some contexts, than in others?

Sunchoke Gratin and Other Birthday Delights at Pure Food and Wine

2012-05-02T18:26:21Z

Last night Jordan took me to Pure Food and Wine for my birthday dinner. It was DELICIOUS. Jordan, a passionate carnivore, was highly skeptical of this raw vegan restaurant, but his starter -- a chicory salad with bourbon cask sour cherries and buttermilk dressing -- quickly won him over:

It was AMAZING - far better than the avocado sushi I started with, which, while tasty, was pretty ordinary (I probably should have guessed as much, but I'm such a sucker for creamy avocado)...the salad, however, was out of this world, a perfect combination of flavors and textures (in addition to the ingredients mentioned above, there were lapsang smoked walnuts and 'salsify bacon,' which, as far as we could tell, means dried plantain strips).

I scored a homerun, however, with my main course -- a delicious sunchoke gratin with vanilla poached pear, black kale pesto, shaved black truffles, and truffle hazelnut cream... behold:

YUM. For dessert, I had the much vaunted mint sundae from One Lucky Duck, the restaurant's take-out-only step-sister around the corner (whose smoothies make me swoon). It was delicious, but too much food for me after a very filling meal... and also did not photograph well (sad face). Jordan's pumpkin cheesecake with brown ale ice cream, however, posed very nicely for this portrait:

He resisted ordering it -- "you can't have cheesecake without cheese" (plus, it was $15... ouch!), but relented when this very pregnant birthday girl insisted she needed to have a bite... and we had no trouble polishing it off :).

I capped my evening with a cup of chamomile and rose tea to-go. Perfect. I highly recommend Pure Food and Wine for special occasion dining if you appreciate delicious, artful preparations of fresh, organic ingredients; by "artful," I don't mean, "fussy," which I hate... I just mean, creative combinations of ingredients, where the creativity is in service of heightening flavor, as it should be. You definitely don't have to be vegan (I'm not), or eat a raw vegan diet (I don't), to appreciate what this awesome restaurant has to offer.

Happy birthday to me!

Nesting

2012-05-01T17:37:37Z

I haven't yet hit that late-pregnancy nesting instinct and energy surge of legend... but the past few months have definitely had a nesting theme, as we've settled into a new place and put together the Hirschling's nursery. Plus, I'm just generally a nester -- as much as I love to live in the city, I need my home to be my sanctuary, and I'm happiest when my calendar includes plenty of free nights to just stay in and putter.

This morning, I took an extra long walk with Cosmo (they say walks can spur labor...!). It had rained earlier, and the air felt fresh, and full of promise. I tuned into the sound of birds singing as Cosmo sniffed and trotted. And I found myself thinking about nests.

Some nests are majestic, dramatic:

Photo by Ro Irving on Flickr Others are sweet, and quaint:

Photo by David Stillman on FlickrIt takes a lot of work to build a good nest:

Photo by Pat Gaines on Flickr

And yet, for all that effort: our nest is not the center of the universe. There are nests everywhere:

Photo by K. Hurley on FlickrFor more on nests, check out this tiny e-book on nesting by my friend Kate.

Love Affair

2012-04-27T18:11:03Z

Jordan and I met in hJordanigh school. I knew from the moment I saw him that we had a connection; being a shy, boy-averse teenager, I didn't act on that instinct for years, but I knew. In fact, I have a journal entry to prove it. I was going to the homecoming dance with someone else (even boy-averse girls who were terrified of flirting got asked out, apparently, in my group of friends), and I wrote in my journal, "I don't really connect with John. I think I'd connect with Jordan Hirsch." We'd never even exchanged "hellos," and yet, I knew.

I knew.

This past weekend we celebrated the 18th anniversary of our first kiss (exchanged, furtively, backstage, on opening night of our high school's production of Guys and Dolls), and I am still as giddily in love with him as ever. I bask in his presence. I am grateful every single day that I get to share my life with him...for the joy of his companionship, and for the peace that comes from feeling understood down to the farthest reaches of my soul. Just writing that sentence fills me with awe, that I'm lucky enough to be so understood, so accepted and loved for exactly who I really, truly am.

Last week I wrote about my fear that having a baby will interfere with this love affair... and then I wrote about my faith, which runs deeper than fear, that anything born of our love will be a positive thing.

I think maybe I resisted the idea of having a child for so many years because I felt the need to protect our relationship, like precious cargo. It's a natural instinct, I guess, to want to protect that which we hold most dear. But as I prepare to become a mother, I need to remember that holding onto something tightly is rarely as powerful as letting go.

People keep saying, "Once your daughter is born, you'll finally know true love." This pisses me off. I know true love -- I know it well. Intellectually, I can understand that the love we are going to feel for her is going to be off the charts... that it will knock us off our feet. But until she arrives, that's just an idea.

Faith is a funny thing. For now, my faith that she will expand our hearts, and our worlds, remains a conceptual faith -- something I want to believe very badly, and that I trust deep down is true, but I don't KNOW it. She's a leap of faith, and we're still in free-fall. In the meantime, sitting across the room from me as I write this is a man who has made my life better every single day for the past 18 years. My faith in him, and in our love, is the most certain thing in my world.