periscope//honeydew ftw//are you organs really so cozy

Lately I haven't been blogging too much about food--check out Periscope, a relatively new app that allows you to broadcast and receive comments live. I do some cookin' through that

and take pictures of myself in glasses.

Periscope name: @SmileForMeBabyG 

Most recent broadcast: "how do you like your oatmeal?"

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“Yeah, natural birth is SO much better.”

do you hint sarcasm in that?

THE OTHER DAY in human biology class we were talkin about Cesarean sections. Also known as C-sections, they are the surgical processes by which babies are born.

What is the process? The wall of the mother's abdomen is cut through to reach the baby.

This is an image of a C-section delivery from a page titled: "6 Things I Aish I'd Known About Having a C-section." It is somewhat graphic, so don't click on it if you prefer cantaloupe to honeydew. 

So, that sarcasm came from a woman who, in class, sits to my right; she's a mother of three. 

A coupla us were discussing C-sections (when i say discussing, I mean sharing and shrieking at what we've heard about C-sections). Someone said that those "things," mothers' organs are taken out and placed to the side. after the baby is removed, doctors supposedly relocate the table-restin' intestines right back to where the...started.

Ewwww! we said, furrowed brows and all. Placing a mother's organs to the side?!

Wise mother to my right: “Yeah, natural birth is SO much better."

From all I have heard about traditional childbirth--both with and without epidural--hey, she may have a point. What would feel worse, anyway?

Photo by Ashley Marston, Birth & Lifestyle Photographer from Vancouver, Canada. Check out her page for her captivating signature, among other things:

http://www.ashleymarstonbirth photography.com/

today i decided that i am naming a child Elwood. the inspiration came from the extended version of Apocalypse Now (check out embedded link); the New Orleanian, Jay "Chef" Hicks (Frederic Forrest--what a name) mentions an Elwood when reading a letter he was writing home about almost being devoured by a tiger. He's a real nervous character--"strung too tight," Capt. Ben Willard (Martin Sheen) describes. but he seemed pretty chill to me.

"I JUST WANNA LEARN TO COOK, MAN!" (what he says after his tiger exposure)

The Chef's mention of Elwood got me thinkin' back to The Blues Brothers. Elwood is tall. I'm tall. I'll name my child Elwood--thanks to multiple layers of media-related inspiration, and the desire to embrace the length of my bones.

Having a child is quite narcissistic. Not saying there's anything wrong with being self-centered when there are both the cultural and survival imperatives to reproduce haploids of ourselves. But I recall Lucy from Across the Universe--a movie plotted around Beatles songs (is the band old enough to evade italicization?)--telling a friend that she would never have kids because it's too narcissistic.

I think I'd like to adopt, anyway. 

I get the feeling that you, reader, are laughing.

I'm taking myself too seriously.

No, the inspiration does not come from Angelina Jolie.

You've thought about this before--having children and all.

Especially when you're studying the reproductive system in a human biology course--sitting in the classroom, bookended by mothers--you think about it a lot.

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p.s. i really recommend the extended version of Apocalypse Now; interesting commentary on the French legacy in Vietnam. 

For more photos by Ashley Marston, I recommend her "Story Telling Sessions." She really has created a vocation for herself that I've never heard of before. Birth & Lifestyle Photographer:

http://www.ashleymarstonbirthphotography.com/work/story-telling-sessions/nggallery/image/1e4a6788-jpg/