Everyone You Meet is Jammin' in the Street...

...All Night Long.

That is how long Sam is now sleeping, and it is awesome.  I don't want to jinx it or anything, but he seems to have started sleeping from about 7:30 at night until around 5 in the morning, with a little fussing usually around 10 or 11pm.  Again, let me repeat, this is awesome.

Life has felt really good for awhile now.  There seems to be many things coming up in the near future to look forward to.  I'm looking forward to heading up to NYC to visit with the Schluetermetz' and introduce them to Sam.  I found out tonight that I am able to go to St. L for Christmas this year, so now I'm looking forward to that.  My girlfriend and I have a date next week where we're going to go to dinner and then go see Mike Birbiglia, and I'm looking forward to that.  Looking forward to buying and installing some fireplace doors and burning up all of the wood that's been sitting outside our house for the last 3 years.

We fed Sam some solid food for the first time yesterday.  Pureed apples.  So pretty much applesauce but without the extra sugar.  He didn't really seem to like it that much.  Made weird faces that I've never seen him make before, and at one point kinda looked like a cat trying to cough up a hairball.

Got some pictures from Katie the Traveler of the World over there in Kenya and they are pretty damned amazing.  Her first day there and she's out among the elephants and lions and all sorts of fauna.  How exciting!

Took a cute picture of the dude today, and since I'm trying to limit my facebook posting of cute pictures, I will now force you to look at it instead.

In the Still of the Night

The Jeanners and Sambone are in Detroit until Sunday.  They left this afternoon.  What this means:

1.  I am going to SLEEP the fuck IN tomorrow.  I don't have to be at work until 5pm tomorrow and I am going to take full advantage of that fact. 

2.  The thought "I should buy a pack of cigarettes this weekend" was in my head for about 15 or 20 minutes yesterday and wouldn't really leave.  It's gone now, but for awhile there it was definitely a little devil voice blaring in both ears.  I will not be buying or smoking any cigarettes this weekend. 

3.  This afternoon before I left for work, late afternoon light was coming through our front window and spilling onto the floor where Sam's blanket was spread and a teddy bear and some toys were laying, and it looked like a shot from a movie about a dead baby. 

4.  This weekend is going to be a mixture of relaxation and housework.  Also Chinese food. 

On an unrelated note, Jeannie got a haircut and looks young and sexy.  Seriously.  Stay away from my wife. 

More later. 

Australian Nads

The title of this post comes from a night quite a few years ago when I was driving around St. Louis and I passed a Walgreen's that had one of those billboard things outside, and on the billboard it said, "Wallgreens has Australian Nads!"  I had no idea what that meant, but I always thought nads meant balls - the genital kind.  So I thought it was a weird thing to put on a billboard.  Maybe a prank?  But apparently it is also some sort of hair-removal wax-type product developed in, you guessed it, Australia.  Still, a weird thing to put on a billboard.

I had a darned good day today.  Had a meeting this morning at work, then came home, and when I got home my ladyfriend was taking our boy out for some shopping with a friend of ours and her son.  So I had the afternoon at home to myself, and I decided to spend the day working on putting up a door and frame for our linen closet, a project that has been on my to-do list for several months now.  It's amazing how much I can get done when there's no stinkin' baby here.  It's weird:  I really really liked him being gone today.  And it also crushes my heart a little bit whenever I'm not around him.  Like, at work tonight I just spend the night picturing his little smiling face and wishing I was at home playing with him.  It's kinda fun that the missing him and enjoying his absence can kind of occur at the same time.

The Schluetermetz' have arrived in Off-Broadway.  If anybody's in New York during the month of October, go see their play, North.  It's pretty good!  Plus, I once wrote some music for it.  Including a song in which I had to sing in French, a language that I do not know and do not like.  I was digging through a bunch of old computer files about a month ago and I came across some of the files of the different versions of the songs that I recorded for that show, and they are all uniformly terrible.  Especially the ones where I had to sing in French.  Embarrassing.  But, luckily the songs got cut and if you go see the play in New York you won't have to listen to them.  Break legs, weinerslaves!

Katie the North American Traveler will, as of tomorrow, become Katie the Traveler of the World.  She is heading off to Kenya to live in some sort of tent for a few months.  The woman is braver than I, and I hope she comes back with stories of wonderful yet safe adventures. 

Tomorrow we will be entrusting our boy to a day-care person (the husband of a co-worker of Jeannie's), something that we will need to do about 1 day a month because there's one Tuesday every month where both Jeannie and I need to be at work.  I'm not looking forward to it, but I'm thankful that we were able to find somebody who seems like he'll be good, and relatively convenient.  Anyway, I hope it all goes well. 

In September, When the Air Turns Crisp and My Yeast Begins to Thrive...

Sam just fell asleep for a nap, and it's not really time for him to fall asleep for a nap yet.  He should still be up for another hour, eat, and then fall asleep for a nap.  But I'm not complaining.  And the old adage about sleeping dogs applies to babies as well. 

Not too much going on here.  It's late September, and the weather here has just been gorgeous for quite awhile now.  Just cool enough for pants and a T-shirt.  Regular rain, but regular sunshine as well.  Beautiful. 

My sister and her husband were here for a visit over the weekend, and then stopped back in last night before heading to the airport this morning.  Had a good time catching up with them, and I think my sister got a little smitten with Sam. 

I finally learned how to play Ooh La La on guitar!  Fun one to sing along to. 

The A-Train came over on Wednesday night for dinner and a little baby-time, and it was good to catch up with her.  She will be in a (perhaps bad) production of Little Shop near our house, so I think we'll try and make our way over to see it at some point, cause I like that show and I think Aimee will make a good Audrey. 

Hmmm.  That's all I feel like writing right now. 

You Jane.

'Make Sure You Read a Lot of Books': Writing Rules From Zadie Smith - The Atlantic

'Make Sure You Read a Lot of Books': Writing Rules From Zadie Smith - The Atlantic

These are all pretty great.  I especially love Kerouac's (of course) and David Ogilvy's.

"Something that you feel will find its own form"

The Kindness of Strangers

Well, at work tonight I was feeling proud as punch because I checked my e-mail (from my Razr phone!  Suck it, Steve Jobs!  Wait, I take that back.  I'm sorry you're dead.  And sorry for your friends and family.) and saw that a stranger had left a nice comment on my previous blog post (nice except for the part where he talks about coming upon me), and I also saw that what I thought was a stranger had "favorited" some of my songs on a music sharing website (although it turned out that that "stranger" is actually somebody that I knew from college, so now I don't know whether the "favoriting" was genuine or a courtesy favorite).  But anyway, it's nice to get compliments from people you've never met and who, most likely, you never will meet.

Yesterday me and the missus and our critter packed up and headed out to visit our friends Chris and Anna who live about an hour and a half to the West, and their young son Caleb, who is a mere 2 months older than our Sam.  And let me tell you, if you don't think that two sub-one-year-olds getting together and sniffing around each other and trying to eat each other is cute, then you are a soulless, sourpuss McGrumpy.  If you've ever wondered, "Am I dead inside?," watch this video and you will know:

I applaud Caleb's technique of attacking the eyes first.  I smell a future cage fighter.  Anyway, we had a very nice time meeting Caleb and catching up with Chris and Anna.  Also took a wonderful hike that made my ass hurt in a good way (but not that good), and finished it off with a tasty dinner.  Must make the effort to get out there more often.  P.S.  If you want to see a cute picture of me with two babies, check it out here at Anna's (and her sisters' [one of whom is Katie, the North American Traveller] ) blog.

Here's a funny story, and it's quick:  the other day I told a co-worker that adults shouldn't read comic books and watch superhero movies.  She told me adults shouldn't fart on other people.  Touche'. 

Decisions

There are several things I would like to do right now.  Sam has just gone to sleep for a lil' nap, and I need to:

1.  Eat breakfast.  Preferably eggs, bacon (aw, shizzle, I just remembered we're out of bacon), biscuits, juice. 

2.  Take a shower or bath.  Preferably a bath cause then I can reads while I gets clean.  I stink bad. 

3.  Brush teeths.

4.  Take a nap.  Rule #1 of baby raisin':  sleep when he/she sleeps.  

Really, I guess that's all I need to do right now.  Not as much as I thought.

I am watching the little bugger today while the J-Dog works, then I'll be going in to work tonight at 5.  I don't usually mind the 5 to Close shifts too much because I can often get away with not doing too much and reading a book or something.  I finished the David Foster Wallace biography last night and I've decided that I didn't really like it very much.  It did, however, make me go back and start re-reading Girl With Curious Hair, and then probably Brief Interviews... will be next, and then Oblivion.  And if I'm still in the mood for more DFW after all that, then I'll re-read Infinite Jest.  Still the best book out there, by the way. 

I got called for Jury Doodie the other day.  But it's been less than a year since I last served so I sent that summons right on back.  I think that I will be like my Dad, and enjoy getting called for Jury Doodie when I am retired, but whiles I gots billz to pay I can't be doing it more often than I need to. 

Well, blogg writing is not on my list of things I'd like to accomplish in the next 45-120 minutes, so I'd better get started on my cookin'.

(when I just wrote "cookin'", I first mis-typed it and wrote "xookin'," which I think looks like a pretty awesome word)

Just Diarrhea

I think if I wrote a collection of short stories, it would be called Just Diarrhea.

Can you guess who my favorite song of the moment is by?  If you guessed Art Garfunkel, then you were right!  Seriously, though, it's on a new collection of his, and it's a pretty good song.  It's not like it's my favorite song of all time or anything, but I like it.  Plus, he says "fuck" in it.  You can listen to it here at NPR probably for a little while.  About halfway down the page.  It's called "Long Way Home."

I've been thinking lately about trying to do some recording.  I've got a few chord changes and melodies in my head that I'd like to try and flesh out to see if they could bcome something more or just die on the table.  I'm not sure, though, that setting up all the equipment and trying to carve out some time for recording is such a good idea, because it would be hard to record while Sam is awake, and hard to record while he is asleep, and it's not like the house is finished or anything.  So there's a lot going against it.  But who knows.  We'll see. 

The Jeanners and I got to see each other for longer than 15 minutes this morning, and it was pretty awesome.  Tomorrow we both have the day off together, which is even awesomer.

 (fart sound)

Today I took a nap in the back bedroom and it was fantastic.  If you're ever over at my house (and why wouldn't you be, really?), you should request to take a nap in the rear bedroom.  You'll probably have to remind me what you're talking about, cause I'll probably just assume you're talking about something dirty.

(fart sound)

I wonder if posts are funnier when, instead of just blank spaces in between paragraphs, there are fart sounds. Let's talk offline about it after the meeting.   

Rice O'Bill

My parents are here for a visit and dammit if it ain't going pretty well.  They have gotten quality time with the lil' Dude, the kind of QT they did not really get when we were in St. Louis in June.  So that's been nice.  They've also gotten to busy themselves with doing little projects around our house, which they have also enjoyed (although my dad has been chagrined that his chainsaw wouldn't start and thus he was not able to cut up the 4 branches in my yard that are too beefy for the loppers). 

The Jeanners has been real busy at work this week.  Getting home and eating dinner and spending a little time with the boy and then going to bed. 

Oh, and Sam made me so fucking crazy last night at 2am when he wouldn't go back to sleep that I wanted to throw him out the window.  Instead of throwing him out the window I instead went in and woke up my poor wife and asked for her help, and she was very nice and gracious to me and didn't get mad at me for waking her up despite the fact that she has been working very hard at work and doesn't get enough sleep.  A couple of redundancies in that last sentence.  Sorry. 

I am in the midst of reading the new DFW biography.  It's OK.  He has, up to the point where I am in the book (which is right around the time when he's starting IJ), come off as a bit of an asshole and a pretty complete fuck-up.  Somebody that just had no idea about how to create a balanced, happiness-conducive life.  I'm interested to see whether this changes as he gets older, as it seems like later in his life he might have been more able to get his shit together.  Anyway, reading the bio makes me want to go back and re-read everything, especially the Girl With Curious Hair stuff that I haven't read in awhile. 

That is all for now.  You may go back to your desk now. 

Dumplings? Yes.

I think that Dumplings? Yes. would be a pretty good album title. 

Anyway, I'm about to eat a ginormous plate of leftover chickn' n' dumplins' sitting atop a fluffy bed o' mashers.  Probably about 1.5 pounds worth.  The C&D were made by Jeannie's Mom while she was staying here (she left this morning), the mashers were made by moi. 

So yes, the Jeanners' mother has been here for the last 12 days, and it's been great, as her visits usually are.  Great because for the last 12 days we haven't really had to worry about dishes or laundry or childcare, and great because some days we got to sleep in until 7 or 8, and also great because Jeannie's Mom is a really easy person to live with, and we're able to be comfortable and be ourselves and everybody I think enjoys it all very much.  As an example of the comfortable-ness:  yesterday I was outside working in the yeard, and Jeannie and her Mom were in the back bedroom with Sam, and I peeked in the window and Jeannie's Mom said, "Look, a burglar!" and then Jeannie said (to me):  "I'll burgle you right up your butt."  And then I had to assure Jeannie's Mom that Jeannie was only joking and that my butt had never actually been burgled.  Anyway, just the type of interaction that we're able to have that we wouldn't be able to have if, say, my parents were here. 

While J's Mom has been here, both Jerns and I have been working a lot.  The Jeanners will probably be pretty busy at work through the end of next week, and maybe a little longer -- it's her busy season.  I should be relatively un-busy at work for the next month or two, right until we start getting into the deep shit for Christmas. 

I wonder what we'll do for Turkeyday this year?  I wonder what we'll do for Christmas? 

Sam-o is sleeping. 

3 AM Eternal

For some reason I thought that "3 A.M. Eternal" was a PM Dawn song (even though, now when I think about it, I remember the lyric "KLF is gonna rock you").  I'm glad I googled it before posting about it in this blog because if I hadn't I would've looked like a sucka. 

Well, it's a little after 3 in the morning and I'm sitting up on the couch eating a protein bar and it's not even baby-related, dammit.  (Meaning that the sitting up isn't baby related, not that the protein bar isn't baby related.  Although the protein bar isn't baby related, either, now that you mention it.  But the fact that I'm sitting up at 3 AM and it's not baby related is what's bothering me.)  Thinking about work.   Not really worrying, just replaying stuff in my head.  It's been a busy week, I've been working as an MOD by myself for the first times this week, and on my very first day as a solo MOD we had a 4 hour visit from a group of head honchos including the VP of loss prevention for the company.  I think I came off as a little bit harried at times but pretty well at other times.  Ugh.  It's sad to care about a job that you don't care about. 

Jeannie's Mom is visiting right now, and it's a great time for her to be here because work has been so busy this week.  Then my folks are coming for a visit in early September. 

MOD, in the context I used earlier, stands for Manager On Duty.  After googling it, I see it can also stand for Minister Of Defense.  Just wanted to add some clarification. 

I should go back to bed.

Tharty Fahve!

Today's my 35th birthday.  I passed the day thusly:  going to work in the morning, coming back home at around 9:00am, opening cards and presents from Jeanners and Sam, farting around on the computer, napping, going back to work at around 5pm, coming home, talking with the Jeanners, feeding Sam, trying to get him to go to sleep, getting him to fall asleep on the living room couch, getting a fucking cricket out from under the radiator in our rear bedroom because it (the cricket) was driving me fucking crazy, putting the cricket outside, carrying Sam into his room, settling down to record all of this wonderfulness for posterity. 

Sam got me $50 for my birthday, to put towards my purchase of an Onkyo TX-8050 stereo receiver.  What a guy. 

The other night (last Sunday night), when I went out with my co-workers for drinks after work, I had 3 beers at the bar and 1 beer at home, for a total of 4 beers.  Spread out over about 3.5 hours.  And I woke up on Monday with a pretty substantial hangover, and the hangover was mostly gone by the end of the day on Monday, but a piece of it still lingered for the rest of the damned week.  What gives??? I can only surmise that someone must have slipped me some sort of drug, probably because they wanted to have their sordid little way with me.  I've narrowed it down to Jeannie or Brian G. 

The Jeanners got me The Koran for my birthday.  I'm spelling it the way it's spelled on the book, so if you don't like it direct your complaints to the book, please. 

Jeannie's mom is going to be coming out this weekend and staying for about a week and a half.  I'm looking forward to it.  It means that the Jeanners and I will get to go on some dates, and also I might be able to get some stuff done around the house. 

It's been a good year.  Weird to think that right around this time last year we were starting to figure out that the J-Dog was preggers. 

Ok, I'm gonna go now. 

ATL

Just got in from Atlanta this evening, where we spent the last 3 days.  The Jeanners had to go to a bit of a conference for the Habitat, and I was able to take the days off so I tagged along. 

Stayed in a very nice, very tall hotel.  We were on the 43rd floor of like 75 floors.   The view from our room looked like this:

I liked it.  Made me feel like Scarlet Johansson in Lost in Translation.  Especially when Bill Murray kissed me. 

Yesterday I spent the day with my Aunt and Uncle, which was fun but much too long of a day. Today I hung out around the hotel and drank a chai latte that made me a happy boy. 

Other things that happened:

I said these things to either my son or my wife.  You make the call:  "Are you choking on that?"  and  "Let's stick that in your mouth rather than your eye." 

I watched an adult male on the plane home tonight work his way through a book of word searches.  Seriously?  Are word searches for adults?  Are there other adults out there that work on word searches?   Also, he was using a highlighter to do the word searches.  Strike two. 

Our plane was a bit delayed and we sat on the runway for 2 hours.  Not a fun thing to do with a baby.  He used up all of his nap on runway sitting.  Luckily we were sitting next to a very chatty, nice, baby-lover.  

The cool kids trash the hotel:

Bedtime for Bonzo!

Go the _____ to Sleep.

Hmmm.  Sam's schedule seems all messed up the last day or so.  Not eating real well, not sleeping real well.  Which makes him get hungry like every hour, and then fall asleep as soon as he starts eating.  Ugh.  Tough on the Jeanners.  She's trying to catch a few more ZZZ's before she gets up to head off to yoga class at 10:45 this morning.  Will she go?  I think she probably will.

I'll be heading into work this afternoon, maybe going out for a drink afterwards.  Haven't had drinks with any work folks in quite awhile (since January), mostly because there are a lot of lames working at the Nobes these days. 

The Jeanners and I will be heading to Atlanta in a coupla days.  She has to go for work, and I am travelling as child care.  We will only be there from Tuesday to Thursday, but it will be nice to get away for a little while.  I've got an aunt and uncle living there that we'll be meeting up with.  I am now going to google the hotel and check out the amenities.  Hoping for sauna or steam room.


(...)


I get the impression no sauna or steam room.  But that's OK.  It looks like a snazzy hotel.  I can (sniff) make do without a sauna or steam room.

I cut the grass the other day and did one hell of a trimming job.  I feel much better about myself.

Reading the Carolyn Cassady book is making me feel like I'm going to go on a Kerouac binge next.  But I'm also jonesin' for a re-read of Infinite Jest.  What to do?

I've been enjoying the new Bobby Womack album, even though it's pretty weird.  90's beats, a kinda nasal old-ish black man singing, and sparse piano.  But it all adds up.

This page has been redesigned to better meet your banking needs

That's what was at the top of my online banking page today.  And in my head I said to it, "Fuck you, you don't even know me." 

Today I stayed home with the boy and then went into work this evening, came home and had a few minutes chatting about the day with the J-Dog on the bed, and now she is asleep and I am in the living room checking my shit and drinking a G&T and eating crackers.  It was a good day.

Tomorrow:  meeting about theatre-building stuff, hopefully cutting the grass.  Our yard has gotten to be a bit disgraceful this summer:  garden is a complete overgrown mess, grass has gone unmowed for too long several times, and weeds are running rampant in all of the planting beds. 

Watched a funny episode of CHEERS yesterday.  It was the "Woody, I'm going to steal your girlfriend," one. 

Jeannie and I are going to Atlanta next week.  Oh, and we're bringing the baby with us.  It is weird now that I cannot properly describe our plans by saying, "Jeannie and I are going to __________."  That I now have to include a third person in that sentence.  Not sure I like it yet.  I like having a baby, though.  He makes me very happy. 

I'm reading a book right now that I really like a lot:  Off the Road, by Carolyn Cassady.  She was Neal Cassady's wife, and the book is basically an autobiography of her time with Casssady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg, and it's really interesting to hear the stories of these adventurous men from the perspective of the wife who continuously got left behind with the kids.  And yet who was also a definite part of the group, and a part of the writing and the letters and the scene that kept the whole thing going.  If you're a Kerouac fan and have gone through all of his stuff, it's definitely worth a read. 

I should go to bed.  If this meeting tomorrow is anything like the last one, I'm gonna have to get up early just to try on all my different outfits before I find one I like. 

Does anybody actually read this thing anymore? 

Our Flow is Always in Escrow

For the last few months, I have been going folder by folder and removing files from a damaged 500GB external hard drive.  The hard drive is what we used to back up all of our stuff - pictures, music, all the tracks from songs I'd recorded for myself and others, etc.  So the hard drive is broken but I found a trick on the internet where you put your drive in the freezer, and then take it out and try to get the files off of it.  It will work until the drive heats up too much and stops working again.  Then you put it back in the freezer and repeat the process.  It's all very fascinating, but it only lets you dump a couple of GB at a time, which is why this process has taken a long time.

ANYWAY,

Yesterday I was finishing up getting the files off of the hardrive, and in the process of putting it all on fresh drives I was organizing it and looking through old pictures and songs and stuff.  What fun!  The highlight of the day, I think was digging out the Steinmetz Family Rhymin' and giving it a couple of spins.  It has stood the test of time.  Lyrics?  Tight.  Flow?  Never defaults.  Production?  Kickin'.   I still give it an A+.  Just in case it's been awhile for you, here it is:



(p.s.  If any participants in the SFR wish me to take it down, just let me know and I will)

Also great to look through old pictures.

Sam's 3 month birthday was yesterday.  He spent it eating, pooping, sleeping, and attempting to stand up.  He recently decided he doesn't really like laying down anymore, but what he REALLY likes to do is stand up with somebody holding him under his pits.  Anyway, here's what he's looking like:

BTC's

What the hell's going on?  Not much.  I got home from work tonight (work which was very boring, and stupid, and pointless) and watched a couple of FRIENDS episodes with my ladyfriend, while our offspring slept and dreamt, and we ate chips and salsa.  And my ladyfriend added cheese to the salsa, which was the best idea that anybody had all day. 

All of the vowels on this keyboard are having problems.  Well, at least E and O.  I've had to go back and re-type like 50% of them in. 

Also, gin and tonic from a jar. 

I think Sam is getting to the point where he's so cute that it's becoming problematic for Jeannie and I.  Or maybe we're getting to the point where we think he's so cute that we start becoming big pains in the ass. 

Are you having problems figuring out what to get me for my birthday?  Easy.  Get me an Onkyo TX-8050.  You're welcome. 

I should really go to bed. 

They're gonna have to dust your chin for groin prints.

Tonight was boring as hell at work, so I read a little bit from a lesser-known Kerouac book and thought about travelling.  I thought about one day in the future, maybe when Sam is 6 or 7, taking a trip up to Alaska and seeing Spifferoo and recording some songs.  I thought about taking another bus ride up to New York to see the Schluetermetz' show this fall (maybe a coupla times).  And I thought about a time on Spring Break during my senior year of college, when Sean and Misty and I were on some very windy, mountainous road in the Blue Ridge Mountains that had a posted sign that said 'avoid this road in icy weather' (or something to that effect), and we were driving around in ice and snow and fog in my little 4-cylinder Dodge Spirit.  I miss that car.  Gordon.  El Gordo.  And we thought we were going to die on that road.  And then eventually we got to this little town at the bottom of the mountain that was pretty and snowy.  And I still have a picture of that town in my head and I have no idea if it's a real picture or just a made-up memory. 

Tonightat work I decided that I was going to have a G&T in a ball jar when I got home.  I have a G&T out of a glass when I just want to unwind, out of a ball jar when I want to get silly. 

Anyway, I look forward to travelling with Sam.  Of course I'd eventually like to get to Europe, and part of me is glad that Jeannie and I haven't been yet, and now when we go we can take the boy with us. 

What's been going on?  What do I want to remember? 

Jeannie and I headed over to PFI last night to see Pride and Prejudice.  Took Sam with us.  It was a little tricky, because we had hoped to have him fed and asleep by the time the show started, but he was just finishing eating when the show started and it took most of the first act to get him to go to sleep.  So it wasn't as stressless and relaxing as we hoped the evening would be, but at least he wasn't making a lot of noise or fussing or anything. 

The recent house projects have involved putting up doors and door jambs.  We have to put up a door and jamb on the linen closet, and then all the doors will be up except for bedroom closets, which is pretty exciting.  And then once the doors are all up, we can start putting up trim and the house will start to look pretty again. 

Life is good.  That's all for now. 

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.