The Scientist is back from the funeral. He turned 29 on Saturday. I took him out for dinner and baked him the most kick-ass chocolate cake ever. No. Seriously. It rocked. I take little credit for it, since all I did was follow Nigella's recipe. Have I mentioned how much I love her? Bake the chocolate mousse cake from her book How to Be a Domestic Goddess. Your loved ones will adore you. Unless they don't like chocolate. In that case, screw them and bake it for yourself.

So here's the thing. I want to write here, but my mind is being consumed by something that is only a possibility right now. The thing is...the thing is...the thing is that there's the chance I could be pregnant. I might be pregnant. Yeah, I know. I know! It's crazy. And all I can do is wait and see. Wait. Wait. Wait. I am the worst wait-er ever. I'm so impatient--I want things now now now, not later. Not down the road. Now! It's torture for me to stand in line (and probably torture for those I'm standing with--The Scientist bears the brunt of it, as he does in all things).

I'm ok if I can plan. If there's a specific date involved--a specific date I can put on my calendar and track backwards from, adding important milestones at appropriate intervals. We set a date for our wedding early on in our engagement. I had folders. Many folders. A master folder with alphabetized subfolders. Spreadsheets. Beautiful spreadsheets cross referenced between the number of guests (dynamically pulled from our our guest list, which was also on a spreadsheet) and the price of the food with each guest getting an estimated number of drinks (not a generic estimate, a very specific estimate for that particular person--Friend A likes the sauce and will probably have 4 beers; Grandma B doesn't drink, put her down for 0...except add 1 glass of champagne because she'll probably want to toast with us), both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Shopping lists and to-do lists on my Handspring Visor. All cross-referenced with my calendar, of course. I made packets for all the important people, complete with day-by-day schedules of when they were supposed to be where and important phone numbers. Of course, extensive planning doesn't stop the unexpected, but at least it prepares you (me) for the things you (I) can expect and control. We had a broken down limo (switched for another one the day before the wedding), a flat tire on my car (while I was getting my nails done at the salon), a psychotic church lady (the mandatory assigned church wedding coordinator), and people from across the country to deal with. It all went perfectly smoothly except when my dad didn't look at his schedule and was an hour late to the rehearsal dinner because he stopped for drinks in the hotel bar with my uncle (that's why I gave them schedules! Come to think of it, maybe it was on purpose.). Some might think I was an obsessive bride-from-hell. I preferred to think of it as being well prepared.

Where was I? Oh yes, my fondness for planning and my inability to do so because I don't know if I'm pregnant or not. You can imagine how I feel not knowing for sure. Wondering. I've had insomnia every day for the past week (except last night, strangely). Waiting for the requisite 14 days to go by before I can test. Trying to figure out if there's a way to scam a blood test out of my HMO. Thinking about going in to get my cough checked (I can't take any medicine! I might be pregnant!) and casually mentioning that I could be, might be, but it's early, and could they just do a little blood test while I'm there? Would that be too transparent?

But I guess some things just have to be done the old fashioned way. So I'm waiting. And thinking. And wondering. Don't worry, I'll let you know.

Oh. And if there is a tadpole? The due date would be January 27, 2003. Don't think I haven't been researching.