Running Mix

So now this is what runs through my head while I'm at work.  (Sigh).  It always makes me tear up a little bit when I watch it.  I am becoming a sentimental sap (I guess I've always been a sentimental sap [it's why I like the sad, slow Tom Waits songs better than the loud brawlers], but I am now less able to hide it.  Or less interested in hiding it.), but I don't mind too much.  I really love the dude, and I really love Jeannie, and I really love this time of us all being together and happy.  And, weirdly enough, having a kid has made me feel younger rather than older.  I really thought it would make me feel older.  But things seem fresh and new in a way that they haven't for quite awhile. 

Anyway, this is the video I will watch when he gets older and he stops listening to anything I say. 

Jeannie's heading to work today for the first real time. 

I am crafting the perfect running mix.  It's not quite right yet, but all it needs is a few tweaks. 

We're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave.

So we had a big storm on Friday night and luckily, did not lose power.  Unfortunately, we lost power at 4pm on Saturday, about 14 hours after the storm had passed.  Ugh.  I probably shouldn't have gloated about my A/C to all of those homeless people I passed by yesterday.  Stupid karma.  Anyway, power came on in the middle of last night after some very hot laying in bed.  And not the good kind.

I think my son is trying to take a shit right here next to me on the couch.  Rude little bastard, isn't he?  One day when he's older and can appreciate it I'll pay him back by taking a shit right next to him on the couch and see how he likes it.  0i-o-i-o-0iikppokpkjjjjjjjjjomp=[-----------------------------------------------------------kljiuikm

I just went to heat up a bottle, and when I came back, something (or someone?) had typed all of those weird letters and symbols.  Hmmm.  Sam's first blog post?  Poltergeist? 

I went for a run this morning, as I have found that running seems to help the lung condition that I was experiencing (the one where my lungs don't seem to actually move air), and I haven't had to use my inhaler since I started running regularly again.  Hopefully that will keep me running regularly and help get rid of my belly, which is comprised mostly of turkey sandwiches cooked in butter, IBC Cream Soda, and chocolate chunk cookies.  Anyway, since I got back from my run, I have been sitting on the couch and now the couch is sweaty.  Don't worry, we've been planning on laundering the couch cover anyway.

Jeannie and I like being parents so far.

Today, we actually have a house project!  We're going to try and put up a door and jamb on our rear (guest) bedroom.  So the next time you and your significant other come to visit, you can have sex!  Unless you're not married, in which case your romantic activity will be limited to heavy petting.  Either way, it'll be nice to have a door. 

Trying to Find Those Stupid Nipples

We are back from a week in St. Louis.  All in all a good week, although I would've liked to have seen Rico Rico and I also would have liked to have seen Wes Anderson's newest movie with Ricky Elz, with whom I have had the pleasure of seeing several Wes Anderson movies.  Oh well.  I guess we don't always get what we want. 

It was good to take Sam around and introduce him to family and friends, and it made leaving especially hard, cause who knows who will still be around the next time we make it home and who won't.  Ugh.  Don't even like thinking about that stuff, but there it is. 

It has been very hot, both here and in St. Louis, but our house has stayed remarkably pleasant.  God bless insulation and ceiling fans. 

Apparently, all ears of corn have 18 rows of kernels. 

Wait, I just looked it up and that's not true. 

I think this might be my favorite music video of all time:




How can anyone not like Lionel Richie? 

America's Dumbest and Deadest

Took the Gasman on his first roadtrip today.  It was a small one, to see how he did.  About 3 hrs away, although with him it took about 3 and a half.  Had a wedding to go to up in State College, Pennsylvania.  Home of Penn State.  When I was a kid I decided, for no apparent reason, that I wanted to go to Penn State.  Well now I finally have. 

'America's Dumbest and Deadest People' is the name of a television show that the Jeanners came up with today.  Sort of a companion show to AFV.  AFV stands for America's Funniest Videos. 

One time when I was a freshman in high school, I called the first girl I ever kissed on the telephone, and she said, "Can I call you back, I'm watching America's Funniest People."  I knew instantly that she did not like me.  I don't remember if I ever spoke to her again.  The kiss was not very good.  It was my second kiss that I really remember as being indicative of what a kiss should really be like.  That kiss happened at a mixer (also my freshman year) during the song 'Brown Eyed Girl.' 

Sam did fine on his roadtrip, by the way. 

Off to bed. 

Morning Constitutional

Sam's morning routine seems to have settled into this:  from about 4:30 until 7am he rolls around, half asleep, grunting and huffing, and then takes 3 shits spaced out about 15 minutes from each other.  DO NOT change his diaper after the first shit; you will regret it.  Anyway, on mornings where I am off work, I usually bring him into the living room in his little rolly bassinett so's the Jeanners can get a few hours of uninterrupted snoozles.

Not much to write about today.  I'm off work and I have a list of things to do - little things, mostly, because the Jeanners will be gone most of the day and I'm gonna be watching the Gasman.  Oh, I'm trying out Gasman as my nickname for Samuel.  I haven't really liked any of the nicknames that start with S, but I do like the way Gasman sounds. 

Had a dream the other night that Widitz had died and nobody had told me about it.

Had a dream last night that I'm not sure what the overall plot was about, but one scene involved sitting in a college lecture hall listening to some sort of wizard-type dude sing a song.  While some other dude was trying to get us or prevent us from hearing the song or something.  Oh, and I have no idea who the "us" was, I just know there was an "us."

Dreams are crazy.  The other night after I got home from work I wasn't ready to go to bed yet, and I exhausted all of my usual Internet reading options, so I came here to the blog, did a search for the word DREAM, and read all of my posts over the years where I describe some of my whack dreams.  It was pretty fun.  I think my favorites were this one, where Pat gets beheaded onstage, this one, with Ava Gabor's bush, and this one, where nobody likes Schlueter.  Although I think the best one for general wackiness is this one.

Work has been giving me little headaches lately.  Nothing major, but just enough to be annoying.

Breezy

Tonight at work I was going up an escalator and I had the sensation that my fly was down and that my dongbone was poking out of my pants.  It wasn't. 

Just got home from work, and I'm kickin' back with a G&T.  The Jeanners and the Sam must be asleep, or else they have gone out to some super-awesome underground Mother/Son club. 

The house is quiet.

Two things that I have appreciated greatly over the past few weeks:

1.  The work of Dr. Harvey Karp.  I hope that wherever that man is, he is sitting back with a fruity drink while scantily clad men and women fan him with enormous tropical leaves.  I would be totally willing to pay him $30 a month for the rest of my life. 

2.  All the damned ceiling fans that we have put in this place.  I can't tell if I don't mind the way they look or if I hate the way they look, but Jeez-o I love having constantly moving air. 

I'm gonna try not to eat a huge breakfast tomorrow, but I bet I end up eating a huge breakfast tomorrow.  

Ianic Pentameter

I had a dream last night that my friend Ian (who pronounces his name EYE-uhn, by the way) invented his own verse meter, and he called it Ianic Pentameter.  Normal Iambic Pentameter goes like this:  da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM.  But in my dream, Ianic Pentameter went like this:  da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM....(pause)....ta da!

For real.  That's what my dream was about last night.  Does anybody else out there dream about verse? 

Today I realized that I would totally watch a TV show that starred Scott Bakula and Richard Dean Anderson as cowboys.  If only such a show existed.

Little dude's doing fine.

We've made plans to come to St. Louis for a week starting June 20th.  Lookout, St. Louis, yer about to get shat on by my boy!

Been listening to a lot of Lionel Richie lately.  Can you believe he's 62?  Doesn't look a day over 50.

Beefcake

Jeannie took this picture the other day, and yesterday at work I was just thinking about it all day and couldn't wait to get home and hang out with the lil' dude.  And the Jeanners, of course.  Partly because I like both of them and partly because work was pretty boring and my feet were hurting.

Right now it's six-thirty in the morning, and I'm sitting up with Sam and the Jeanners is catching a little bit of sleep until he gets hungry again, and he's over in his bassinet, breathing heavily and farting.  Come to think of it, that's what I'm doing, too.

I'm realizing that I've become one of those people who does nothing on Facebook except post pictures of their stupid kid, but really, I can't help myself.  And I can justify it by saying that it's for out-of-town relatives and stuff, but really it's just because I want people to think that my kid is cute.

Last night I ate 2 hotdogs before bed and it was a bad idea.

Been starting to run a little bit again.  I'm only up to about a mile during each run, but I figured a little bit of exercise might help give me a little more energy during this time of less-than-usual sleeping.  So far it's been good, except that I feel like I weigh about 1000 lbs, 900 of which are in my legs.

We are making some plans for a St. Louis trip sometime in June.  Haven't bought the tickets yet, but we're close.

What else?

We went to a fun party on Saturday with ChesShakesCo folks, thanking Scott and Lesley for their part in acquiring the building.  Took Sam along and he got to meet a bunch of different folks.  He did pretty darn well and was pretty chill the whole time.

Then yesterday Roger and Sammy and Nyoka came over and hung out with Jeannie a bit, and then I came home from work and we played a fun board game called 'Ticket to Ride.'

Thatisall.

Milestones

Hey, this is my 800th blog post.  And I started back on May 10, 2005.  So 800 posts in a little over 7 years isn't too bad - approx. 114 posts per year, so roughly one every 3.2 days.  I think I've kept you all very well informed as to the state of my lower GI.  Actually, I started writing the blog for two reasons:  1)  because I have always had a bad memory for life events, and I could feel it getting worse.  And 2)  because I found myself writing the same e-mail to multiple people, filling them in on the things that were going on.  And so I started writing the blog so I wouldn't have to write the same e-mail 5 times.  And the blog has been successful on both fronts - whenever i have trouble remembering something I can usually go back and check what I wrote about it on the blog, and I definitely send fewer e-mails to people, for better or worse.   The problem with a blog is that it's usually a one-way conversation, so I generally feel more out of touch with people than I did before I started this.  Oh well. 

Jeannie's Mom had been here since May 10 (the anniversary of the birth of the blog, by the way, which you'd know if you've been paying close attention), but left last night to head back to St. Louis.  It was a really great trip and I think everybody enjoyed it and was a little sad that she was leaving.  I truly lucked out in the Mother-in-Law department (and she doesn't read this so I'm not just saying that to suck up).  She's always been very cool to me, and for the last week and a half she's been a really great housemate.  So hopefully it's something she can do again in the future, because it was super-helpful for us, and I think she really enjoyed getting to spend time with Sam, and I know that as Sam gets older he'll benefit from time spent with his Grandma. 

Yesterday the insurance company paid us the 700+ dollars that they owed us that I've been hounding them abour for the last 4 months or so.  The sweet taste of victory.  Just in time for us to start fighting with them about the hospital bills for Sam's birth.  Ugh. 

I'm officially back into the grind at work and it is both more painful and less painful than it was before I left.  More painful because I care even less about being there, and less painful because I care even less about being there. 

Hmmm.  What else?  Jeannie's going to physical therapy today because her shoulder has been bothering her from feeding a burping Sam, and she's had shoulder issues in the past that PT has helped.  So her Mom and I took over as much of the burping duties as we could.

I think that's it. 

Shoots Poop

Well, I just gave Sam his Native Aerican-style name, and it is Shoots Poop.  My guess is that that's a fairly common Native American baby name, kinda like John or James or Mary or something.  The dude's new favorite activity seems to be to wait until we are changing his diaper and then shooting his poop either on the changer, he new diaper, or the wall.  Oh well.  There's something very bond-forming about seeing the poop shoot out of someone's butt. 

Happy 1st Mother's Day to the J-Dog!  She's a great Mom (so far), everybody would be proud if they could see her. 

Today we Skype'd with my parents for the first time.  It was fine and relatively uneventful.  Thanks to my nephew for walking my Mom through setting up a Skype account. 

I went back to work yesterday, which was painful at first but then not too bad.  It seems like right after I got back, the first thing that happened was that everybody told me all the stuff that went wrong while I was gone, so I spent the first few hours dealing with all of that stuff, and then after awhile I was able to settle back into a more normal work day. 

Off to the grocery store!

KKK Duck

Hey folks.  Just sitting here hanging with Sam, who is sitting on the couch next to me, loading his britches repeatedly.  This kid has some supremely loud farts and poops, like hear-them-from-the-other-room loud.  I doubt that this factoid surprises anyone. 

Tomorrow we will be picking up Jeannie's Mom from the airport.  She'll be staying wth us for about a week and a half, which is pretty awesome because I will be heading back to work on Saturday, and it will be nice to have an extra pair of hands around to help with stuff, and nice for Jeannie to have some adult company at home while I am at work.

Right now there's a song out that I am enjoying:



I heard them yesterday on the 'World Cafe.'

Tonight we gave sam a bath, and he has this little hooded towel, and Jeannie said he looked like a 'KKK Duck.'

That's all I got for now.

Big News

The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company closed on this building today:

Pretty darned exciting.  Congrats to all involved.

Morning-time (or, I Love This Jong)

It feels earlier than it is.  Which is 8:30.  Feels earlier.

Sitting on the couch, Sam is sleeping/gurgling/chugging/sighing over in his little rolly bassinet, The Jeanners is sleeping in the bedroom, the birds outside are singing and the world seems to be waking up, although the traffic out on Walther isn't very loud yet.

Yesterday we had a really nice visit from Aimeeudio, The Beej, and Abby.  They came over to meet the lil' guy and hang out and then went and picked up some Chipotle for lunch.   Very nice to chat and see the Beej and get to know Abby a little more.   And, of course, it's always good to see the A-Train.  This is my hope for her:  that she finds another job but does not decide to move.  Note - the last part of that hope is purely selfish. 

My stomach just growled and it made me remember that we're out of bacon.  And biscuits.  Ugh.  And the morning takes a sinister turn.  Then for breakfast it shall be:  eggs, fauxsage, potatoes, cheese.  Cooked in a scramble.  Perhaps pancakes. 

Had a dream last night that I moved to Chicago.  Also had a dream that I was at a park with BJ, Pat, Ian, and Lesley and that I was playing basketball with a 7-foot-tall basket.  Awesome dunks. 

Ugh.  Tummy growls have become intolerable.  Sam sounds asleep.  Time to start on b-fast.

Milk

J-Dog and I just got done watching the movie Milk with little Samuel sandwiched between us on the bed, so I guess you could say it was his first movie, although he slept through most of it.  Already taking after his mother's glorious propensity for falling asleep during movies, plays, etc.

It seems this week has been all about milk, really.  Our schedule has revolved around it and not much else.  Which has been kinda nice.  I don't know when the next time that Jeannie and I both have 3 weeks off work with not much to do will happen, so we've just been trying to enjoy each other's company, and enjoy getting to know the little guy, and enjoy taking care of each other.

What else?

Been transferring files off of a faulty external drive, been wrangling with my insurance company over an old bill for which they owe us $700 (and actually wrote a complaint to the Office of the State Attorney General!), mowed the lawn, did a little minor plumbing repair.

Hmmmm.  That's about it, really.  Life feels really good.  Why do we have to have stupid jobs?

All Apologies

I'm going to apologize right now if every post for the next long while has something to do with Sam.  But he happens to be what is going on right now, so I'm gonna write about him, dammit.  At least you won't have to hear any more about what's going on with the house.

I played him his first piece of recorded music today:



He was fussy, then when the music started he started smiling and paying attention.  He really seemed to enjoy it.

Also, a few minutes ago we were sitting on the couch together (OK, he was sleeping), and The Verve's 'On Your Own' came on, which is a great fucking song, and I love it.  And I've always loved the whole idea of the song, 'you come in on your own and you leave on your own...etc.'  But as I listened this time I realized that it's kind of flawed.  You really don't come in on your own.  Or at least you might not.  You might come in with a whole team of people waiting for you and shouting for you and pushing you and welcoming you and trying to make sure that you come in as easily and pleasantly as possible.

So maybe you don't have to leave on your own, either.

I have to say, this whole experience has totally messed up my emotions.  Blaaagh.

I'm going to go into work tomorrow for a few hours in the morning.  We'll see how that goes. 

Right now Jeannie is making a cardboard mustache to put on Sam.  No lie.

Samuel's Origin Story

So, our son Samuel was born on Thursday, April 26th, at 11:07AM.

The info:

First name:  Samuel (or Sam, or Sammy, or Samsonite, or Samosa, whatever.)
Middle name:  Anderson
Last name:  O'Brien
Weight @ birth:  7lbs, 15.6 oz.
Length @ birth: 20.5 inches

The story (from my POV):

So on Tuesday night at around 11pm, Jeannie and I were just getting into bed after a day of not doing much:  she had a midwife appointment, we ran some errands, we sat around.  So around 11 she starts having contractions, and with each contraction she starts having diarrhea.  And the contractions are about 15 minutes apart.  So every 15 minutes she's getting up to be in pain and poop.  Until sometime in the middle of the night when she starts throwing up with every contraction, too.  So she's starting things off not in a good way, because normally early in labor you should be resting as much as possible, drinking a lot of water, and eating some so you've got energy for the rest of the whole thing.  So she's able to do none of that.  And she's gotten no sleep because everything started happening right at bedtime. 

So Wednesday morning, after a night of getting sleep in 5 minute doses, I call the midwife to check in and tell her what's going on.  She tells me to try and get Jeannie to drink some Gatorade or Pedialyte and call her back when the contractions are about 5 minutes apart.  So we spend most of Wednesday with Jeannie either in bed, in the bathroom, or slowly walking around the house with pots and pans in every room in case she needs to throw up.  Until around 4pm, when the contractions were finally starting to speed up, and were about 6-8 minutes apart.  So I called the midwife again, and said look, she hasn't been able to keep any fluids down, and the contractions are about 6 minutes apart, and can you please just take a look at her.  So the midwife tells me to bring Jeannie to the hospital so she (the midwife) can check her (the Jeanners) out.  So we throw our hospital bag in the car and very slowly walk out to the car, and then very cautiously yet deliberately drive downtown to Mercy hospital. 

We get to the hospital around 5pm, and go up to the delivery floor where they take her into a triage room and run all the normal tests on her, and discover that she has extremely high blood pressure and also is not dialated very much (3-4 cm.  She needs to be dialated 9-10 cm to deliver.)  But, because of her alarmingly high blood pressure (something like 180-something over 120-something), and the fact that her contractions were strong and regular, they admitted her into the hospital.  They told her that because of the high blood pressure, they would need to put her on magnesium to help prevent her from seizing (!!), and also that being on magnesium would make the whole process suck.

So we get admitted to our delivery room, and this is where the whole process got really weird and terrible (for me), and time stopped having any sort of meaning and everything.  So we get admitted to our room at probably around 6pm or so, and because Jeanners has been laboring for 19 hours at this point, and is still only 4-5 cm dialated and has a long way to go, she opts for the epidural to try and get some rest (epidurals basically numb you from the belly down so you don't feel the contactions as much).  So she got an epidural and was able to get a few hours of sleep (again, by this point time had stopped meaning anything, so I have no idea how long she slept or what time it was when we woke up) and rest, which was wonderful, and she woke up later and we talked a little bit about how wonderful the epidural was and how nice it was to be able to get some rest.  Oh, also the epidural helped her to stop throwing up, which was a good thing.  So anyway, after some time, that epidural wore off, and she was still only about 6 cm dialated, and the pain of the contractions was coming through again, but she still had a long way to go.  So they gave her another epidural, and she was able to rest for a little while, and then that one wore off.  And she was still only 6 cm dialated.

So I think at this point it's sometime in the middle of the night on Thursday morning, probably around 3 or 4am.  And the anesthesiologist (Dr. Wu) comes back in and says that she can't get any more epidurals, and he was a bit stymied about why they weren't really lasting very long and said that there was one more thing they could try but that it was something that they rarely ever used for vaginal deliveries, and it was called a spinal catheter.  He said that it was the same type of anesthesia that they used for a caesarean and that it is pretty much going to be 100% effective at stopping any pain.  So the Jeanners gives him a weak thumbs up and he comes back in a little while later and gives her the spinal catheter.  She's then able to sleep for a couple of hours.  I really have no idea how long.

So then at 7am on Thursday morning, a new midwife comes on.  Her name is Kate and she's probably late-20's or early 30's, maybe.  I feel very hungover because I haven't really eaten or drunk much and haven't slept much.  The Jeanners is awake, and the spinal catheter is wearing off, and she's about 8 cm dialated.  The baby has dropped really low (I should add here that the baby has been very low for a long time by this point, and that's part of the reason why there was a lot of pain.  Low baby + not enough dialation = pain.), and Kate decides to try and work some manipulation magic and try and get Jeannie to 10cm so she can start pushing.  I have no idea what Kate did, but she was able to move things around and somehow get Jeannie ready for pushing.  Jeannie, at this point, after 2 epidurals, the spinal catheter, the continuous magnesium drip, and maybe 4 hours of sleep in the last 32 hours, is pretty much just the shell of a person.  She's laying there, and she's getting maybe a minute of rest in between contractions, and they're hurting BAD, and she's is just 100% exhausted.  Nothing left. 

And then it's time for her to push.  And Kate is there at Jeannie's feet, and there's a nurse named Tiffany that's holding her left leg, and I'm holding her right leg, and every time there's a contraction, she pushes about 3 or 4 times for ten seconds.  And I have no idea how she did it, because she seriously had NOTHING LEFT, but for about 3 hours she pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed.  And then Samuel was born.

So that's how he got here.

SAO is ready for action.

He doesn't always have that gunk all over his eyes. They put that on there. I like him.

Let the Waiting Begin?

Today is the baby's due date, although at this time (1:07pm), Le Tigre has shown no signs of wanting to leave Chez Womb de Jerns. Our plan is, if nothing's happened by this evening, we go out for spicy food. Also been trying to do lots of walking, etc. I've been off work since Friday, and I have to say, I'm really happy with the way things have worked out, timing-wise. The last couple of days have been great - getting little things done, walking around, getting a little bored at times, eating a lot, resting, talking a lot. Really been kinda nice, I think. The other day Jerns said she was reading through some old blog posts o mine and they made her laugh a lot and were a good way to remember all the shit that was going on at the time. That was nice. That's pretty much why I still like writing in the blog. Our memories really are so bad, and time has started moving so fast that it's nice to have something to pinpoint dates and events and stuff. Last night as I was laying in bed in the middle o the night, I was thinking about time, and how at a certain point in life it seems to all of a sudden strap you onto the front of a roller coaster and just start moving faster and faster. To me it feels like swimming in the ocean, and for childhood and adolescence and up until my mid-twenties I was just swimming around out there, la dee da, no real sense of movement or momentum, and then all of a sudden a wave starts to build right about the time I hit 30, and right about now I can feel the momentum of the wave pushing me towards the shore, and I haven't started flipping around or tumbling yet but I'm sure that's on the way (probably 40's and 50's and 60's), and really I guess the shore is senility or death or maybe just blissful old age, but the power of the wave is pretty strong and riding it and trying to stay on top of it is really the game of the whole thing. Today I was able to salvage data off of an external hard drive that's been failing by putting it in the freezer. Hmmm. Who knew that would work? Thanks, internet geeks. I'm now off to clean off my dirty body. POSTSCRIPT: So I just published this post and it seems that this new blogger publishing thing has done away with all of my paragraph breaks and everything. Hmmmm. Well, enjoy this post On the Road Original Scroll style.

No News is Good News

No news here. Jeannie told me the other day that my previous post might make people think that I'm homophobic or anti-gayness. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. I have some close acquaintances who are full-on gay, and some of my best friends are mostly gay. Drew and Eric, I'm looking directly at you. Oh, and BJ.

Today was my last day at work for a few weeks, which is pretty awesome. I know that once the baby is here I will be willing to cut off my fingers for a good night's sleep, and that when I don't get a good night's sleep I pretty much hate life no matter what, but right now none of that seems to matter because I'm going to get days off of work. So I'm looking forward to being off work. Tomorrow morning the J-Dog and I are gonna start the day off right with a lumberjack breakfast and a nice walk. Then we're gonna put a 2nd coat of paint in the baby's room, I'm gonna clip my fuckin' toenails, and I'm gonna give myself a haircut. Bam! Try and top that for a perfect day.

Well, Jerns is waiting for me in bed, so I guess I should probably go to bed. Good night!

For the Ladies and/or Gays

The baby is due in one week. The bag for the hospital is packed and ready to go.

I am realizing that at any moment the Jeanners and I might have to go to the hospital, and then once the baby's born we'll be busy with learning all the new baby stuff, so potentially there might be a decent stretch where I don't get to update the blog.

During that time, I would like this picture that Jeannie took of me the other day to be the picture you see when you come here.

Non-Facebooking Mofos

Hello people out there who don't Facebook or are not my Facebook friends,

Please consider donating $1.00 or more to my friends' (The Schluetermetz', they feature prominently in this blog) Kickstarter campaign. They are raising money to take 2 plays that they wrote and produced to NYC.



Donate HERE.

My Wisdom from the Grave

It's Wednesday morning, I'm off work. I've got some wiring to do today, wiring which will require me to shut off the power to the whole house, and the Jeanners is coming home at noon-ish, so I've only got a few hours to do it, but writing in the blog was on my list of things to do for yesterday, and I didn't get a chance to do it, so I'm taking the time to do it now. Other things from yesterday's list that didn't get done: buy paint, and wire.

The other day I was driving home from work, and I was thinking about how these days that are happening right now are probably the last days of my life that I won't be a parent (barring any serious tragedies), and how weird that is, and then I started thinking about what if I died when the kid was real young, and what if the kid never knew me and stuff like that. And then I started thinking about the different ways in which the kid would be able to get a sense of who I was/am, and of course there would be stories from the Jeanners, and stories from friends, and this here blog ain't a terrible way, either, although I think it probably presents a dumber and more silly side of me than is entirely accurate. So then I started thinking, well, if there were like 3 things that I would want the kid to know, what would those things be? And the three things were kind of like lessons, basically saying, "Well, here are the things that I've found to be true during my time here. Here they are and make the best use of them that you can." So, without further ado, here they are:

1. You often cannot control the things that will happen to you, you can only control how you react to them. Whether you are happy or not usually depends on how you react.

2. Everything changes, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. If you are feeling good now, expect to feel bad later. If you are feeling bad now, expect to feel good later. Don't get too comfy.

3. Some days life feels too short, some days life feels too long. However it might feel on a particular day, it is always: impermanent. Live accordingly. Enjoy the things around you while they're around you, and try to waste as little time as possible on something once you decide you don't enjoy it. Easier said than done.

4. The best decision I ever made was to decide that loving Jeannie and spending time with her was the most important thing in my life, that as long as we were together then anything else in life that happened would be tolerable, and that without her company nothing in life would really be right. I decided then and there that I would do whatever it takes to be with her. I remember making this decision as if it was yesterday, and it came out of a nervous breakdown-type-thing att the end of college that was probably the worst time of my life. So, as Brian Eno has said, "Beautiful things grow out of shit." Once you know that you love someone or something, commit. It doesn't have to be any sort of official commitment or anything, just a sentence in your brain and in your heart that you can go back to when things are hard or aren't working as you planned.


Ok, that's all I've got. Futurebaby (aka Le Tigre), if you're reading this and I'm not there, BE GOOD AND HAVE FUN.

To wire.

Welcome Back, Mr. Bookshelves

For a few years now our bookshelves have been in the basement, holding our stored stuff and getting dirty in the process, no available room to put them in. Our books have been in boxes either up in the attic or down in the basement, depending on which area was being worked on at the time. Now that our living room is getting into shape, I was able today to clean off the shelves and bring them upstairs. Tonight, the J-Dog and I will bring up some of our books and fill them up (the shelves, not the books. The "them" refers to the shelves.) O happy day!



The Jeanners' parents were here for the weekend, visiting and helping out and delivering baby goods from family in the Lou. So, we now have a crib, and some rocking chairs, and a bassinet, and all sorts of other crap that we will be able to store our baby in. We had a good visit with her folks, although it seemed short, but that's probably because I had to work on Saturday and then Jeannie and I had birthing class on Sunday, and I worked again on Monday, etc. So that's probably why it seemed short. Oh, we also picked up a cute little rug for the baby's room yesterday. It's yellow and blue and red and green.

Where's Rico Riley been? Have you been wondering that, too?

Writing this blog post has given me a chance to procrastinate going outside and changing the oil on our lawn mower and perhaps even...mowing the lawn. I normally enjoy mowin the lawn but I just don't feel like it today. But it was on the list that I made last night of things that I wanted to get done today, so I'd better do it. That way, I will have a warm feeling of accomplishment as I tuck myself into bed tonight.

Janet van Arsehole

Here's what's been going on:

The Jeanners and I are finishing up our mini-vacation in downtown Baltimore. Not really a vacation because we've still had to go to work and baby-delivering class and stuff, but still makes Baltimore feel kinda new and strange. The floor refinishing is finished (and looking nice, by the way), and the house has been airing out for the last 2 days. Tonight we will be sleeping in our own bed once again.

Saturday we hit some estate sales and moving sales around town, and then ended up going out to what ended up being a kind of mansion up in Northern B-more county, where a dude named Bruce was selling a bunch of his stuff so he could move to DC. Ended up getting a couple of rugs at a great price, I think because he really just pitied us. Note: if you ever want a good deal on household furnishings, take along a cute pregnant wife.

So, this week there is some priming and painting in the works, and then the J-Dog's folks are coming out next week to deliver some baby stuff that our families had in St. Louis and are passing along to us.

T-minus less than four weeks. Zoiks!

Cave Dwellers

The floors in most of the rooms in the house are currently being refinished, so on Tuesday night Jeannie and I moved all of our stuff into a back bedroom in the kitchen. So we're basically hunkered down in this cave-type place for the rest of the weeek. Well, actually just for another day, because on Friday we're going to be staying in a hotel in downtown Baltimore for 3 days, because we can't be in the house for a few days after they put down the polyurethane.

The good news is that the rest of the house, is starting to shape up nicely. To wit:





Saturday we're getting massages downtown! Can't wait.

I hear what is probably a woodpecker.

Panama

Right now there are two drywall guys working in the other room. They are listening to the radio, to what I assume is the Baltimore equivalent of K-SHE (that's KSHE95 FM, Real Rock Radio, for all you non-St. Louisans). So far I have heard ZZ Top, The Who, and Van Halen, among others. They are occasionally singing along, and seem to be good guys. One of them has called me Danny. I did not introduce myself this way, but I don't mind it.

Not too much else going on. I went over to Art's house the other night, at the invitation of Ian, and had a good time playing some guitar but mostly listening to other folks play. My guitar was sounding like shit, probably because of keeping it out in the car and then bringing it inside to play. I must learn to take better care of my things, as my mother has always said. Then yesterday the J-Dog and I had birthing class and then spent the rest of the day getting the rooms ready for the drywall guys.

People have started giving us stuff for the baby, and Futurebaby's bedroom is beginning to fill up with junk. Not really junk, but stuff that we have no immediate use for and therefore seems like clutter at the moment. Yesterday the Jeanners and I agreed on a girl's name for the first time. I'm not going to say what it is, because most likely Jeannie will change her mind within the next few weeks, anyway. She seems to do that whenever we agree on something.

Giant Steps

The J-Dog and I have scheduled a drywall dude to come and work on a few rooms in our house next week, which is awesome, and then there will be a few days in which no one is working on the house and in those few days we might try and do a bunch of painting, and then another dude is gonna come in and refinish the floors. At least, all of the floors except for the kitchen and rear bedroom, which are going to be getting new flooring at a later date. This is all very exciting. It means that the scope of the "house project" is finally starting to get smaller instead of the infinite expansion that has happened over the last 2.5 years.

Anyway, what else?

I woke up the other day with pain shooting through my neck and back. That was fun. It's gotten a little better over the last couple of days, but still painful enough to keep me from doing any real work during the mornings that I've been off.

I bought the latest Bruce Springsteen CD, which I do not like very much. Remind me to stay away from any Bruce Springsteen albums that involve any combination of a)banjo and b)fiddle. I also bought the latest Andrew Bird CD, which is pretty good. It sounds like pretty much every other Andrew Bird CD. I also bought The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which is by the same guy that wrote Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell) and is also pretty good.

I took our computer apart yesterday because the power jack has been a little screwy, and I wanted to see if the problem was in the jack or the cord. Seems to be in the cord.

Anyway, boring boring boring. I just got home from working a night shift, and I'm having a G&T and checking my shit. The Jeanners is in bed and I hope I don't wake her all the way up when I go in but I'm sure I probably will. She's a light sleeper. Probably from her days in jail-o.

Gettin' Lazy Again

It seems that now in my free time what I do is curl up in bed in my clothes and shotgun episodes of Breaking Bad. Ugh. It feels terrible.

Tomorrow, I break the cycle (weather permitting).

The plan:
wake up at 8-ish
lumberjack breakfast
set up rain barrels
call parents
start walking downtown (should take about 1.5 hours to get there)
$5.00 lunch at some sketchy storefront Chinese restaurant along the way
walk around
walk home
dinner with J-Dog and perhaps Katie, the North American Traveler

Several weeks ago, I wrote in my schedule book at work that I needed to be off today from 1pm to 4pm. I made the schedule, giving myself the afternoon off, but because of scheduling issues, I had to go into work this morning and then again later tonight. However, I have no idea why I originally wrote down that I needed the afternoon off. So I hope I wasn't forgetting to do something that I needed to do.

I think my favorite album from 2011 was k.d. lang's. I was also thinking tonight about the Black Dub concert that I saw last year and how it was probably the best concert I've ever seen.

Ponis for sale

The other night Jeannie and I were sitting around (which is what we do), and I was on the internet (which is what I sometimes do), and she was probably lounged on me in some way (which is what she does), and she told me to buy her a pony. So I was being all funny and I got on Google and typed in "Baltimore Ponies for Sale," except I messed up and typed in "Baltimore Ponis for sale."

This short story doesn't do the whole situation justice, but it was pretty awesome.

Because 'ponis' is kind of like 'penis.'

Anyway.

Hey! Last night we went to this big sale of second-hand baby stuff, and it was a little crazy because you had to have a ticket to get in, and you had to be a pregnant lady to get a ticket (or the guest of a pregnant lady), so it was basically a big grocery store-sized place with a couple of hundred pregnant ladies and their moms, and a few tortured/amused looking guys, in a kind of Black Friday-esque feeding frenzy. It was not our type of scene. Nevertheless, we got some good deals on some newborn clothes (which are, admittedly, cute as hell) and other basic stuff. We waited in line for literally 1 hour to check out. The worst part was that we both had to hold our farts while we were in line because we didn't want to be rude.

Tonight we have nothing planned so we will probably watch Downton Abbey. Or, as the customers as work like to call it, Downtown Abbey. Which, in my head, would star Jackée.

Dead Rats Behind My Eyes (or Sorry, I Need You in the Butt)

Last night I had a dream that E. Elz and I were going to a concert featuring U2, Ozzie Smith, and ZZ Top. I think that Ozzie Smith was really supposed to be Ozzie Osbourne, but my dream-mind must have been confused because I kept saying "Ozzie Smith" in the dream.



The other night I had a dream that Ian was calling my references, and was talking to people at the B&N about me, and kept asking them, "Do you ever feel like he has dead rats behind his eyes?" And everybody kept saying yes.



And also last night in bed, Jeannie kneed me in the butt and said, "Sorry I kneed you in the butt," but what I heard was "Sorry, I need you in the butt." Hijinks ensued.

Also, I cannot find any good pictures for "kneed in the butt."