On Pregnancy

Not only is it bridal season, but it is also baby season lately. I am only beginning to realize what a poor deal pregnancy is--you can't smoke or drink and you feel hungover all the time (morning sickness).

Other things you can't do: drink coffee or tea (one of the delights of life), sit in the sun, eat anything interesting, have your body temperature get too high, or do anything besides sleep, because (surprise!) you're just tired all the time.

Also on pregnancy:

From what the cover charmingly proclaims to be "the first manifesto of the liberated woman," The Second Sex (don't worry, I have many critiques; my mom, on seeing me reading it: "Now you don't believe all of the things you read, do you?"): "This projection of herself [in pregnancy] is also for the woman the foreshadowing of her death. She expresses this truth in the fear she feels when she thinks of childbirth: she fears that it will mean the loss of her own life."