I’m not sure how to tell you this, but movies are kind of a big deal.
As I wiled away life during pregnancy, I couldn’t help but think of every baby reference across my history of couchtime. They’d just come to me. I’d be shuffling my belly from the bedroom to the bathroom and remember Mrs. Mott and that turtle trimmed nursery. When discussing names, I wanted someone to suggest “baby fish mouth” and how it was sweeping the nation. When Michael and I exposed our utter fear about how life might e after baby, I remembered how Holly Hunter reminded Nicholas Cage that “Evrythang’s CHAEEnged.” At some point in my birth, I pictured someone yelling: But I dont know nothin’ about birthin’ babies! And afterwards, for a random stranger to say, a la Frances MacDormand that Scarlett was: ”an angel straight from heaven”. But most of all, when people would ask how it felt to have a baby inside my stomach, I wanted to respond: “You know in alien, when that dude was in that guy’s stomach? It kinda feels like that.”
So I was pretty thrilled when I found a Molly Ringwald onzie at Rock the Cradle in the Baker District. Despite me knowing that this purchase was a little too. . .something. . .I bought it and looked forward to my baby being pretty in pink. And when John Hughs died earlier this summer, that onzie became a tribute to the 80s director who taught me more about birth control than birth.
But on September 14th, this onzie was trumped when I got a package from my good friend Amy who had recently moved to New York City.
This is my friend Amy who once saw Rose McGowan at a bowling alley. My friend Amy, the only person I know who understands the significance of an 80′s sitcom montage. My friend Amy, who once drove us all over LA until we found the Brady Bunch house. My friend Amy who just hung out with Kinsey at a Mad Men party.
Inside that package was five things:
1) An author-autographed copy of The Virgin Suicides. Obviously crucial in creating Scarlett’s dark side.
2) First Thousand Days Baby Journal, with art from Nikki McClure, where I can “record my innermost thoughts!”
3) A black and white postcard of Coney Island in the 50s. Don’t ask my why I will treasure this. Even I don’t know. But she does.
4) A card with a station wagon in front of the New York’s Washington Memorial arch with a message about a delorian–a mixed reference of When Harry Met Sally and Back to the Future message. Need I say more?
5) A onzie that says: Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner.
I couldn’t believe it. Nine months of baby brainstorming and I had missed the biggest, allbeit, most indirect baby reference of them all. But I couldn’t wait to dress little Scarlett in that perfect 80′s vintage. That night I happened to take a look at CNN.com only to learn that Patrick Swayze had passed away. It was almost eerie. Scarlett shall wear that onzie as yet another tribute to a movie I have memorized.
