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."

Insulation and Pregnancy

I used the title of this post as a subject line for an e-mail to my mom, and she got a kick out of it, so I thought I'd use it again.

What's been going on?

The main news is that the insulation folks were here on Monday finishing up the insulation work on the house. So the contract that we've been working towards for the last year-and-a-half or so, and that we took out a loan for, and included all the yard work and roof work and insulation work, is now finished. Except for finishing all the paperwork and filing for all the remaining money rebates that we're eligible for. It also means that the large, looming deadline that has been hanging over our heads for a lot of the housework we've been doing is no longer looming over our heads. Now, the only large, looming deadline is the impending arrival of the baby currently known as Le Tigre.

I'm currently reading Cloud Atlas because of an online recommendation made by Miss J. Hunt. I am enjoying it. After the long non-fiction wasteland of Studs Terkel's Working, I needed something somewhat fanciful to get lost in, and Cloud Atlas has been good for that.

In the quest to come up with a good baby name, I think I've stumbled on a few rejected baby names that would make good dog names:

Otter
Junk
Mr. Miyagi
Sammy (or Samantha) Davis, Jr.

Most likely, now that the nuts and bolts work that needed to get done for the insulation crew is finished, we will mostly likely be focusing on some more decorative things like doors and trim. This is pretty exciting. I've been wanting to put up some doorjambs and hang some doors for like a year now, but the J-Dog wouldn't let me. Yea for doors! Huzzah!

Spinachi

Sometimes when Jeannie and I eat spinach, we call it "spinachi" (pronounced spin-AH-ki), and then we immediately say, "..a gunner, name of Winocki..." which is a reference to the scene in Pulp Fiction where Christopher Walken is talking about hiding the gold watch up his behind. Anyway, that's just a fun little fact brought to mind by the smell of the spinach that Jeannie is cooking there in the kitchen. I myself can't stand cooked spinach (or its smell, for that matter), I only like spinach fresh and uncooked in a salad. J-Dog likes them cooked greens, though.

I haven't written in awhile, mainly because too busy. Busy with work, busy with house stuff, and then 2 weekends ago I had a few CSC obligations that took up some time. This last weekend, though was a bit more balanced and I got to spend more time with the Jeanners, and we got some good work done which was nice. It has put me in a bit of a euphoric mood over the last day or two. The other thing that has put me in a good mood is the fact that we have been entertaining the idea of paying people to do the rest of the drywalling and also refinishing the floors. Now, we still have to find out exactly how much all that would cost, which could take a great big dump all over the whole idea, but still, it's exciting to throw the thought around.

Tomorrow after work I'm going to look at a building with the folks from Ches. Shakes., so hopefully that could be exciting. Then a doctor's appointment on Wednesday, where I will hopefully get the prescrption for my inhaler refilled because it seems to be doing the trick for keeping my cough at bay (and when I stopped using it for a few days ye olde coughe came back). Then Thursday I am off work and have a bit more wiring and cleaning up to do here at the homestead, and then to rehearsal for Merchant to go work on some of the music that I helped with. And that's pretty much what I've got to look forward to for the next few days.

Also: I am excited about the notion that a baby is brewing.

orangutan gang bang

Tonight I will be heading to the Phoenix Emporium in beautiful Ellicott City, MD, to sing some karaoke as part of aq going-away celebration for one of my former co-workers, who is going to Florida for an internship with Disney. I am considering wearing sunglasses indoors. I am also planning on eating a meal here at home before I leave, and then maybe having a second meal, or at least appetizers, once I get to Ellicott City.

The Jeanners and I headed to Ohio over the weekend to hang out with the Schlueterileymetz' for Fake Thanksgiving. The weekend also included: sledding on mostly grass, basic auto repair, compare/contrast human babies and monkey babies, backwards underpants, Ratchet & Clank, Phase 10, naps, lots of food, less gas than you might expect, and beatboxing.

Other than that, it's just been about going to work and then getting little things done on the house. This weekend The Jeanners and I should be able to get some good drywallin' done. And the insulation folks have been scheduled for the first week in February, which is pretty exciting.

About a week back.

My back has been hurting me. So tonight I went to CVS and bought me some new heel cups. The Jeanners made a decent attempt the other day to buy me some new insoles, but the poor girl just doesn't know what the f@#% she's doing when it comes to my footcare. Still, she gets points for the effort in my book.

Today I was tired as hell when I got home from work, so I took a 1.5 hour nap while the J-Dog hit the gym, and as a result I am not tired as hell here at bedtime. So I am sitting in Futurebaby's room having a G&T (with gourmet tonic! [a christmas gift from a co-worker][actually a gift for the J-Dog because the co-worker heard from her doctor while she {the coworker} was pregnant that tonic was good for nightime leg cramps.] and trying to remember interesting things that might have happened over the last week. Let's see, we went to the annual 12th Night party of the Ches. Shakes. Co. and it was relatively uneventful. Ate lots of hors d'oeuvres (pronounced "ordervs"), chased some kids around, Jeannie cut some SBD's, and put some sort of strange lime sauce on everything we could find. Also, we have been wiring and hanging drywall in the nook off our kitchen. It now looks like this:




Yes, I had to google the spelling of hors d'oeuvre. Yes, my back still hurts. Yes, I love my wife. Yes, I am tired of reading Studs Terkel's Working. I get the point, Studs: people have to go to work and some people like their jobs and some don't.

Dick Diameter

Happy New Year. The Jeanners and I rang in the new year by heading down to Ian's house for a kickin' New Years Eve party that was dominated mostly by an extended guitar sing-along led by Kevin C. and Art. They know about a bajillion songs. I tried to follow along and lent a little rhythm guitar here and there. Anyway, I had a good time and it was a good opportunity for a little stress relief. I've just been super burned out at work lately. Even the people that I normally like I have grown tired of. I need to make some effort to try and get a little bit of fun back into that place.

Jeannie said that at the New Years Eve party the baby was moving around a lot and kicking and stuff during the sing along. Ha!

What else?

On my day off on Wednesday I'm going to make some homemade biscuits and gravy. I am thinking of little else.

Medium Whoop.

Merry Christmas.

This morning at about quarter to nine I got up, threw on some clothes and headed to church. See, there is a big old church near our house, and I've been wanting to see the inside of it because I like big old churches with stained glass and nice ceilings and all that shit, and the one time that I went to church there (while my parents were visiting a year or two ago), they had mass in some, like, conference room or church annex or something like that, probably because there aren't enough parishners to have church every week in the big church or something like that. So anyway, I figured the other day that they might have a Christmas service in the big church, and if I was awake and motivated I might check it out. So I did. And it only took like 2 minutes to get there, which was pretty awesome, and they sure enough were having mass in the big church. So I got to check it out, and it is nice and big and old and pretty, and I stayed for half the mass and then I jetted out. Don't worry, I said prayers for all of you fucking pagans out there.

And then I came home and fixed a delicious egg and bacon and biscuit breakfast for me and the J-Dog, which we ate at the left-over candlelit table from last night. This, by the way, is what our candlelit dinner from last night looked like:



And then after breakfast the Jeanners and I headed over to Robert E. Lee park for an outdoor stroll, and then came home and took a nap, and then ate dinner, and then worked on our kitchen floor. I'd say it was a pretty damned good Christmas.

Oh, and my brother-in-law, Jake, gave me some Superman underwear for Christmas. Sort of like adult underoos, with the S-symbol right on my junk.

Tomorrow: back to work.

Take This Job and Do You-Know-What With It

Ugh. Christmas shopping season 2011 is now officially over. At least where I work. It's been a crazy week. Made more crazy by the fact that our store was not adequately prepared and my boss kept stealing people out of my department (which was at least partially adequately prepared) to use elsewhere in the store. This morning I blew up at him in a not-nice way. He later called me back into the office to let me know that he appreciated that I stick up for my department but that I let him know about it in a less than respectful manner. That is probably true. But still, quit stealing my fucking people.

I got a call from the doctor's office yesterday that my x-ray looks normal. So at least I probably don't have lung cancer.

Anyway, aside from all the bitching about the job, I'm thankful that I at least have a job, and that I don't have to work in a dangerous or uncomfortable environment, and that I have decent insurance, and that I haven't had to like move to another state or anything for work. And when I got home from work today the J-Dog was in the process of cooking a delicious chicken dinner with roasted vegetables, and had set up a beautiful, candlelit table in what one day may very well be a dining room, and had a table cloth and everything, and had Christmas tunes playing (which I very politely and gently asked if we might switch to something else). And now we're just waiting for the chicken to finish cooking, and I am taking a long overdue poop, and typing this blog post.

Tomorrow I would like to:
1. Sleep in.
2. Give myself a haircut.
3. Go outside somewhere, if it's a nice day.
4. Maybe put up a door?

XXX-ray vision

I have had a bit of a cough for the last 2.5 months. So Monday I went to the doctor. And she asked me questions and listened to my breathing and stuff. And she said that it doesn't sound like anything super terrible is going on, but she told me to go get a chest x-ray and gave me a prescription for an inhaler that will help my bronchial tubes not constrict if for some reason my bronchial tubes are constricted. Constricting. One of the two. So yesterday on my pseudo day off work I went and got a chest x-ray. Which I had never done before. It was neither fun nor not fun. Also: using an inhaler makes me feel like Sean Astin in The Goonies.

Work has been pretty bad some days and not too bad other days. Today was not too bad. They have ok'd managers going overtime this week, so I'll probably work somewhere between 50 and 60 hours, but I don't care cause I'll be making time and a half. And that should pay for a lot of homemade sausage gravy.

J-Dog and I went to her work Christmas party last night. It was relatively uneventful. She won the "Richard Gere" award for being smooth under pressure. And as a result she had to wear a life-sized picture of RG's head around her neck for a good portion of the evening.

We bought a new camera which arrived yesterday. We took our picture to test it out, and this is what we look like:



The neck beard is coming in nicely, thank you very much.

+ gravy

So much has happened, so much has happened.

Last weekend, a bunch of people (I think like 10 or 12 total) from Jeannie's work came over and helped us work on shit at our house. And since they are all from Habitat, they were all pretty skilled. So they were able to get a lot done in one day, probably stuff that would've taken Jeannie and I a week or two to do by ourselves. So that was pretty awesome.

And then Sunday night, Jeannie's brother Jake came in for a visit and stayed with us until yesterday (Saturday) morning. He spent much of his time here up n our roof, helping us put some new shingles on a section of the roof that's been leaking. So hopefully that's been taken care of. He also helped with some floor framing and electrical work, too.

And, perhaps most importantly, he helped me take my biscuit game to the next level. He taught me how to make homemade sausage gravy. It's deceptively simple. I think that this will probably change my life in a big way.



Thanks, Jake!

In other news, today at work was pretty crazy busy. My feet hurt. I'm tired. I'm tired of people. I need a couple days of peace and quiet. Wish I didn't have to go back tomorrow.

Next up: read through the blog to find out when I last served on jury duty to see if I can get out of the new jury duty summons that I got in the mail the other day. Shouldn't have to go if I've served within the last 365 days. And by 'served', I mean 'sat in a room and watched The Pursuit of Happyness.'

Ultrasound (Light My Way)

I'm a bit worn out this morning. Had the day mostly off from work yesterday, and spent it prying up layers of flooring, underlayment, and adhesive off of the kitchen floor. It was a bit tough on the knees, back, and hands. Today I go into work in the afternoon, so I'm taking Jeannie's advice and having a relaxing morning. As soon as I'm done writing this, I'm gonna start on a tasty breakfast and listen to some car talk.




Monday morning we had an ultrasound appointment, where we got to see the little bambino. Everything looked good. I was expecting to be not very impressed or moved by the ultrasound, but I gotta say that seeing the little bugger moving around was pretty cool.

Just took a break from writing to go up into the attic and do some leak checking.

What else? Been catching mice, been watching CHEERS, been listening to the CD's I bought last week. I remember when I first bought Wilco's Summerteeth many years ago I didn't like it. Probably cause it didn't sound like AM, and I ended up giving it to Sean or selling it or something. Anyway, this time around I am totally in love with it. I guess things just have to hit you at the right time.

The other day Jeannie was trying to say "a bag of fake vomit," but instead she said, "a bake of fag vomit."

Jewdy Blewm (or The Potato, the Ladle, and the Hammer.)

Whew! I'm takin' a break! Just did a little painting on the ceiling in a closet. Good times. I'm going to take a dinner break (the Jeanners has given me permission to get Chinese food. She's at a dinner for work.) and then I hope to get a ceiling fan installed before it's time to turn in for the night. I have a day off tomorrow (planning on starting to clean out the attic) and I am very much looking forward to it. I stopped by Joe's (Trader) on the way home from work and picked up some biscuits and bacon in preparation for it. My day off. When we were in St. Louis at the beginning of November, I was having bacon every morning at Jeannie's folks' house and I have once again ignited the flame of my love for the stuff. And then the other day I had a little bacon and egg on a biscuit and damn if it wasn't like the best day of my life.

The other day at work I bought a bunch of stuff (it's the time of year when we get an extra 10% added to our employee discount), including but not limited to:
1. a french press
2. the second in a series of five Bloom County books. I already have volume one and three. When I have all five I will have the entirety of the comic strip Bloom County. Bloom County is one of my top 7 or 8 favorite pieces of art in the whole world.
3. Many CD's, including (but not limited to): Tom Petty, Sam & Dave, Wilco, Dione Warwick, Andy Williams, Sonic Youth. Oh, also Rosemary Clooney.

I'm getting a little light headed from the paint fumes in this room. Don't worry, I won't let Jeannie come in here when she gets home. Maybe I'm just hungry.

I've had a cough for about 2 months now. Some days it's better and some days it's worse. Now that I mention it, though, I haven't really been coughing very much today. When I watch Breaking Bad, it makes me think I have cancer. I probably don't have cancer, though. Knock, knock.

That's all I got for now. I need to go call the Chinese people. It's the place that Jeannie got food poisoning from when we last ate there. Fates be damned!

You Can Stop Blaming BJ Now

BJ finally called me back. Which means I was able to tell him the news. And I heard back from Spiff, which means that he has heard the news. So now that most of the people that I needed to tell the news to have heard the news, I guess I can post the news on the blog. The Jeanners and I are expecting a baby in April. I think that everybody who reads the blog already knows, so it's not that much of a revelation, but I think it's more of like a place marker in the life of the blog. It has been weird to know for a few months and not tell other people, including our family and closest friends, and just keep it to ourselves.

Anyway, it's getting late. The Jeanners is pretty much asleep next to me on the couch. Black Friday was today. Not a big deal. Another Black Friday on the books. Work felt annoying all night long, even though it wasn't particularly annoying.

For Thanksgiving we headed up to Katie's farmhouse outside of Gettysburg. Spent a lovely day taking a hike, cooking up tasty grub, playing games, and listening to music. Really relaxing, really wonderful day spent with a good friend.

That's all I've got for now. Work tomorrow morning, so we should hit the hay.