A Young Congregation

My parents were here visiting over the weekend.  It went OK, although the visit was probably about a day too long and we had to struggle a little bit to find something to keep my mom occupied.  Keeping her occupied keeps her from continually suggesting that we work on our house.  In addition to that suggestion, she also suggested we:

1.  Send our child to a Catholic grade school that she knows nothing about. 
2.  Put a stick on our curtains so they're easier to close.
3.  Put our vincas in the sun, where they would thrive. 

But, aside from those suggestions getting a little annoying, it wasn't too bad.  Coulda been a lot worse.  And the visit was otherwise enjoyable.  It was fun watching my Mom and Dad play with Sam, and also fun that we were able to get a semi-major job scratched off our house-list with the help of my Mom and Dad. 

But they left this morning, and Jeannie and I are looking forward to life getting back to normal.  We had a meeting this morning with a woman who will probably be watching Sam for a couple of days a week when I go back to work in September.  We both liked her, and she's in the neighborhood, and relatively inexpensive, and Sam immediately started playing in her house and didn't really want to leave, so we'll probably end up using her.  It feels good to have a solution for that particular problem. 

Ok, gotta go.  Gotta take a car to the shop for a recall of the passenger airbag and other minor repairs. 

Big Brass Lamp Kinda Girl

What life looks like right now:

Sitting in this room drinking a G&T, listening to The National's latest album (Trouble Will Find Me) while the Jeanners works in the back bedroom and Sam sleeps the night away.  

Also:  I have rediscovered my love of hand-held electronic bathroom Yahtzee.  Although now I don't do any reading at all.  

Bubble Cocks

I must write fast because I must go clean up toys and books and pine cones out of the living room while J-Dog puts the Samsonite to bed. 

Over the weekend we went on a 24-hour vacation to stunning and tropical Frederick, MD.  We spent Friday night at a suite at the Courtyard by Marriott and ate Mexican food at a perfect Mexican restaurant and listened to Sam as he tried to go to sleep in an unfamiliar place.  He had a little trouble.  But once he fell asleep he slept through the night and Jeannie and I had a chance to watch "Orange is the New Black" and eat Newman's Own brand microwave popcorn.  Then on Saturday we hiked on Sugarloaf Mountain.  The highlight (for me) was singing a 45 minute long version of "Old McDonald" in the rain while we hiked down the mountain and pretended we were in the south of France. 

Speaking of "OitNB", J-Dog and I were in bed the other night and were almost asleep, and we were talking about "OitNB" and whether it was a book before it was a TV show, and who wrote it, and blah, blah, blah, and I told her that one day they were going to make a TV show out of my blog and did she know what they were going to call it? And she said, "Bubble Cocks."  Or maybe it was "Bubblecocks."  Anyway, I found it funny.  Why would they call a TV show made from my blog "Bubblecocks"?  You'd have to ask Jeannie.  She mostly didn't remember the conversation the next day. 

I went and helped with the strike for the summer shows today.  It's become quite a large operation.  Good to see how it's done so I can hopefully figure out how to do it next year. 

My folks are coming to visit this week.  Must straighten up the house.  And porch.  And yard. 

Stones and Gas

The title of this blog is going to be the name of the new cereal that J-Dog and I are gonna sell.  If you'd like to invest, PM me.  (PM means "private message.)

I have been having some very whack-ass dreams lately.  Like, every night.  One dream I had the other night featured the line, "The biggest turds come from the littlest buttholes."  In another one I was given a George Foreman Grill as an end-of-the-year PSR class gift.  (PSR stands for Parish School of Religion and was a class that I had to go to as a kid every Monday night to learn about the Jesus.  It was because I went to a public grade school that I had to go to PSR.  Actually, it was because my parents made me.)

The Jeanners' super crazy busy time at work is over, thank god. 

Sam continues to transform from a baby to a little boy.  He's running around and falling and jabbering and seems to be doing OK. 

We've been trying to get little things done around the house during the summer (we've made a list of things we want to get done by the time I have to go back to work in September) and I am amazed at how long each little job takes.  For example, in order to put the trim up around one doorway, these are the steps (and when paired with the hurdles of watching Sam and only working around Sam's sleeping schedule, each step takes about a day or two):

1.  Strip the door jambs.
2.  Put jamb extensions on the door jambs.
3.  Clean up and sand the door jambs.
4.  Strip the trim.
5.  Sand the trim.  
6.  Prime the trim.
7.  Paint the trim. 
8   Install the trim.

So that's about 8-10 days of work for 1 doorway.  And really, it's still not done then because you have to go back and fill all the holes and caulk and then repaint everything with another coat.  So anyway, it's kinda sucky.  And the work isn't bad, it just takes a long time.

Sam seems to be taking craps about every 3 hours.  I'm getting very tired of cleaning up poopy butts, including my own.   I'm putting the boy on an all-cheese-and-bread diet.  

BJ Party

Today, myself and the fam will be heading to a BJ party, which does not stand for 'blowjob party,' but rather is a party for one Benjamin Joseph and his betrothed.  Should be a good time, although it's balls hot and there is potential for a storm this afternoon. 

Been a relatively uneventful week.  Jeannie's been busy at work, I've been watching Sam, we've been trying to get some shit done on the house in the evenings.  This week we got the door jamb between living room and dining room stripped of paint, and also the basement door sanded, primed, and halfway painted.  Tonight or tomorrow hopefully we will finish the basement door and get it hung.  We've got a schedule to keep, dammit!   Next up on the list is making a little built-in desk and bookshelves in the rear bedroom. 

I have no idea where Jeannie and Sam are right now, other than that they went there on foot.  I went in to take a poop and when I came out they were gone.  Was I in there that long?  I hope Jeannie has not decided to leave me.  My guess is that she has busted out the stroller and taken the little dude to the park. 

Been really enjoying the latest CD by The National (Trouble Will Find Me) over the last few weeks.  

I bought some new sheets for our bed, and they were supposed to be the good kind -- high thread count and all that -- and they feel like sleeping in a burlap sack.  I believe I also likened them to sleeping inside of a Treader Joe's bag.  Which, maybe it's not like this near you, but the Trader Joe's that I go to uses fairly heavy, rough brown paper bags.  Hence the humor. 

Today my severance period is officially half over. 

Good Times

Hi-lite of my day yesterday: lying on the living room floor amidst toys and books, listening to Jeannie feeding Samuel some dinner in the kitchen, listening to new-ish Greg Brown on the stereo, watching the ceiling fan spin, thinking of Seanyboy, and half falling asleep.

 Also, I forgot to mention in my last post that the groundbreaking ceremony was pretty danged awesome. Definitely in the Top 10 Days of My Life list.

"Blue Train, Bitches - Suck It" (or something like that)

The groundbreaking is over and went well. We were able to get the A/C in the building turned on an hour before the event started. The Mayor spoke. Nobody got hurt. Good press was pressed. Many people complimented me for doing an amount of work that I didn't actually do. That kinda seems to happen a lot. People say, "Wow, thanks for all your hard work! Everything went really well thanks to you!" when I really didn't do all that much hard work. Maybe 4 or 5 hours worth. But anyway, it beats selling Member Cards, fishing turds out of urinals, and chaperoning half-naked homeless people while they take makeshift showers in B&N's bathrooms.

Jeannie's older brother came for a visit for a few days, which was great except for the fact that Jeannie was working all of those days so she only got to see him in the evenings. But he had not met Sam before (he travels a lot), so it was nice that they got to spend some time together and get acquainted. I think they took to each other nicely.

 I'm expecting to not get to spend much quality time with my lady friend for the next few weeks. She's getting a little crazy busy at work, and probably will stay that way until the end of the month. So I'm resigned to it but not looking forward to it. Maybe we could sneak in a date night somewhere.

Jeannie's brother discovered a decent Indian/Nepali restaurant a mile and a half from our house that has free delivery and is relatively cheap. Score.

The title of this post was said by my wife last night while playing the family board game "Ticket to Ride."

The Talking Heads

Mayor McCheese

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written.  But weirdly, things have been fairly busy, considering I am smack in the throws of blissful unemployment.  Jeannie was out of town, and then she was in town but working a lot, and then Gena B. came to visit, and then the Schluetermetz' stopped in for a quick visit, and then we had the fourth of Joo-Luy, and then a couple of days that were actually free, and now Jeannie's brother will be coming in tonight for a visit.  And then tomorrow is the groundbreaking down at the new building and the Mayor and other biggus wiggus folks will be there.  And we've had trouble getting the air conditioning on at the new building so it might be warm.

So anyway, that's what's been going on here.  All of the visits were fantastic, it was great to see Sam getting to interact with folks other than me and the missus, and of course getting to catch up with long-term friends.

Also, I built a set of the game 'Washers.'

Only 7 weeks left of free money!

Time for dinner.

This Is Why I Love Jack Kerouac's Writing

THIS IS AN OLD DINER like the ones Cody and his father ate in, long ago, with that oldfashioned railroad car ceiling and sliding doors - the board where bread is cut is worn down fine as if with bread dust and a plane; the icebox ("Say I got some nice homefries tonight Cody!") is a huge brownwood thing with oldfashioned pull-out handles, windows, tile walls, full of lovely pans of eggs, butter pats, piles of bacon - old lunchcarts always have a dish of sliced raw onions ready to go on hamburgs.  Grill is ancient and dark and omits an odor which is really succulent, like you would expect from the black hide of an old ham or an old pastrami beef - The lunchcart has stools with smooth slickwood tops - there are wooden drawers for where you find the long loaves of sandwich bread - The countermen: either Greeks or have big red drink noses. Coffee is served in white porcelain mugs - sometimes brown and cracked. An old pot with half an inch of black fat sits on the grill, with a wire fryer (also caked) sitting in it, ready for french fries - Melted fat is kept warm in an old small white coffee pot.  A zinc siding behind the grill gleams from the brush of rags over fat stains - The cash register has a wooden drawer as old as the wood of a rolltop desk.  The newest things are the steam cabinet, the aluminum coffee urns, the floor fans - But the marble counter is ancient, cracked, marked, carved, and under it is the old wood counter of late twenties, early thirties, which had come to look like the bottoms of old courtroom benches only with knife-marks and scars and something suggesting decades of delicious greasy food. Ah!

The smell is always of boiling water mixed with beef, boiling beef, like the smell of the great kitchens of parochial boarding schools or old hospitals, the brown basement kitchens' smell - the smell is curiously the hungriest in America - it is FOODY insteady of just spicy, or - it's like dishwasher soap just washed a pan of hamburg - nameless - memoried - sincere - makes the guts of men curl in October.

-Jack Kerouac
From Visions of Cody

Home Alone 3 (or, SHOWERPUFF DOWN!)

The Jeanners has left for the day, and she will be traveling to Atlanta, where she will be spending the next 3 days.  So I am home alone with the little dude, left to fend for ourselves with no feminine assistance.  Here's what I am predicting:

1.  A decent amount of time at the Y.

2.  Lots of Civilization III playing after the dude has gone to bed.

3.  Probably not a lot of leafy greens goin' on. 

4.  Attempts to clean the house and get it ready for a week's worth of visitors that will be commencing on Thursday. 

This morning I made a mosquito trap.  It will hopefully decrease the number of mosquitoes in our yard as the number of mosquitoes inside the trap increases.  I am skeptical, but hopeful. 

I think I have been settling into unemployment nicely, thank you very much.  Although to be honest, being unemployed from B&N doesn't feel all that different than being employed at the B&N.  In a weird way.  I just don't have to go there anymore.  But really, for a good chunk of the week I didn't have to go there during the day, anyway, and then there were lots of nights that I didn't have to go there, either.  So think that my schedule there was just erratic enough that it makes the absence of the schedule seem not that different.  Don't know if that makes any sense. 

It's taken me like 4 hours to finish this blog post.  I hope the time and effort shows in its well-craftedness. 

Separation Anxiety

Been working on getting Sam to be OK with being away from Mom and Dad for any period of time.  There's a little daycare at the YMCA and he pretty much just screams and cries the whole time he's there.  And then when I get back there after a 20 minute workout or run he comes tear-assing over with tears streaming down his face and gives me a look that says "How could you leave me like that?  Don't you like me anymore?"

So that's what we've been working on.

Aside from that, having a Y membership has been awesome.  Totally gives me something to do with him every day, if I want or need to.  Cause he really likes the pool, and being in the pool with him is easy and fun, and kills an hour or an hour and a half.

Jeanners has entered her busy season at work and has been putting in a lot of hours this week, so I've been on Sam patrol more than usual.  It hasn't been too bad.  Tomorrow I've got a meeting down at the building, and I'll be taking him with me, so I hope he stays calm and quiet.  I'll have to bring some books and tows and stuff.

What else?  I'm currently watching Pretty in Pink, which I have never seen.   I think I was pretty much Duckie in grade school and junior high.  The whole "riding your bike by a girl's house a hundred times" really rings a bell.  I think I had graduated to Blaine by high school, though. 

Not working has been fun so far!  I feel like Jack Kerouac, except with a kid.  I guess the kid kinda ruins the whole free-wheelin', On the Road vibe, though.  Oh well. 

All Done

No more working at the B&N.  End of chapter.





We joined the YMCA last week, and took Sam for his first swim this morning.  He seemed to like it a lot, splashing and shrieking and occasionally trying to drink the pool water.

Now it is nap time!  Where's Jeannie?  Doesn't she know it's nap time?

The Beginning of the End

3 more shifts left at work.  Tonight's my last closing shift.  After tonight I will never again say:

Attention, B&N customers.  The time is now 9:45 and B&N books, music, and cafe will be closing in 15 minutes.  We ask at this time that you bring any final purchases to the registers on the upper or lower levels.  Once again, the time is now 9:45 and B&N will be closing in 15 minutes.

 I was always pretty good at that.  I've got a good voice for overhead announcements.

The Jeanners and I have joined the YMCA.  Gonna try and have a healthy summer and get the lil' dude exposed to some poolin'.  Also, as I told Jeannie this morning, the Y is the "perfect place to lick d**ks."  

What else?  Not much.  Just counting down the days.  Sam is cute, and walking more.  Sometimes across the room.  He's also been pooping on the floor when Jeannie lets him crawl around without a diaper. 

We've been getting a lot of rain.  Before we got all the rain, we used our rain barrels to water the garden, and it worked perfectly.  Which is nice, because if it didn't work I would've been sad because the rain barrels were expensive and, really, if you can't water your garden with them then they're kinda just useless and ugly.

Thassall for now. 

Changeover

Worked my last changeover at the Nobes today.  That probably means nothing to anybody who hasn't worked in the music dept. of the Nobes, but changeover is like the one day a month when I actually had to do work, when I had to be organized and move quickly and tell people what to do.  So I guess I've done about a hundred of them over the last 10+ years.  No more for me, and I might miss them a little bit but not too much.  I'm guessing the new job will have many more opportunities for me to do work, be organized, move quickly, and tell people what to do. 

Not much else going on.  I had another dentist appointment yesterday, and I took the magic drugs that feel like they're not doing anything, and then you go home and sleep for 4 hours and when you wake up it seems like everything that happened at the dentist was a dream that you had 5 years ago.  It's pretty nice.  It sucks that it makes a dentist visit waste an entire day for me and for Jeannie (who has to drive me around and then take care of the kid all by herself on a day when we're both off work), but awesome that I can now 1) go to the dentist, and 2) go to the dentist without freaking the fuck out or feeling like I would rather die three painful deaths than go to the dentist. 

 I don't have a plan for tomorrow, which sometimes makes for a bad Sam-watching day.  The days always seem to go more smoothly (i.e. less whining) when there is a plan and an activity and some get-out-of-the-house time. 

Jeannie's reading in bed next to me.  I just ate some cheese and crackers.  We just watched an episode of Paul and Jamie, and I just drank a G&T.  Life feels pretty good. 

Home Alone 2

The J-Dog is in Chicago (well, she's not there yet, but she's on the way) for work until tomorrow night, and the Sambone and myself are left alone to hold down the fort.  What is on the agenda?  Perhaps a trip to Robert E. Lee State Park, a trip to the bank, maybe T. Joe's,  Anything to keep the boy out of the house and non-whiny, really.  Tonight I'll be dining on chicken breasts and scalloped potatoes made from a box. 

11 days of work left at the Noble.  Woo-Hoo!  Can't wait.  Yesterday I gave my official letter of resignation to my boss. 

I'm about midway through 1Q84 and still enjoying it.  For awhile I was reading so much at work that it was giving me headaches, so I've had to slow my pace.  Now I'm only reading when I take shits. 

Speaking of taking shits, I think Sam is doing exactly that right now.  Also, he (I'm assuming it was him) pooped on the floor yesterday during his "naked time," but Jeannie didn't find it until a few hours later.  Ha!  The downside of having a heavily-patterned living room rug:  you don't find poops until several hours later.  They never tell you that sort of thing in the store....

16 days

16 days left at the Nobes.  Still weird.  Still exciting. 

I should really just stp now and go to bed.  I don't really have anything to write about, and I have to work tomorrow morning. 

Today I was outside pushing Sam in his swing, and one of our neighbors asked me if I was on vacation.  I've had a feeling that our neighbors wonder what in the hell our worklife situations are in our house, because I'm always home during the day at weird times, and then Jeannie's home during the day other times, and it all probably looks weird from the outside.  So I explained that Jeannie goes into work during the day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and that I go into work in the evenings on those days, and that I worked during the day on other days.  I also explained that I would be switching jobs at the end of the summer and that I would have a bunch of time off this summer. 

Sometimes when I get off work at night and I'm walking to my car, I imagine our little dude asleep in his bed and it makes me feel like everything is right with the world.

I should go poo and then go to bed.

18 days

18 days left of working at the Nobes.  Weird, weird feeling.  I have worked at the Nobes pretty much the entire time I've been in Baltimore, minus a month at the beginning.  Another weird thing is that I'm feeling tremendously excited to start working for ChesShakes.  Like, so excited that I'm not really even thinking very much about the delicious, paid, two-and-a-half months where I don't have to work at all, I'm just thinking about when those delicious, paid, two-and-a-half months are over and I get to dive into this unknown job for which I am probably totally unprepared and unqualified, but which I get the chance to do anyway.  Some things that frighten me about the job:

1.  The skills that Lesley and Ian think I have (designing, building, organizing, etc) are actually skills possessed by my wife and not by me.  My guess is that there is probably some truth to this fear, but not as much truth as my head is currently assigning to it.

2.  The fact that I've never really had a job that required me to put a lot of myself into it.  I've always been happy working not-very-hard jobs for not-very-much money.  And then going home and focusing on the stuff that I really enjoy, i.e.,  LIFE OUTSIDE OF WORK.  And this job has the potential to be a job that I will actually enjoy, and WANT to put a lot of myself into, and WANT to put a lot of time and effort into.  Which I think could have the potential to be tough for the Jeanners, and maybe tough for Sam, and maybe tough on me.  Because none of us are used to having to share/split my attention or interest.  So there might be a period of adjustments at the beginning, and figuring out how everything needs to work in order for everybody to be happy.

3.  This third one is both the biggest fear in my head right now and kind of the easiest one to think away:  I WILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING.  AND IT WILL BECOME EMBARRASSINGLY CLEAR RELATIVELY QUICKLY.

Enough about jobs right now.

After a brief attempt at another re-read of Infinite Jest,  I have decided that I might be done re-reading it for awhile.  I was kind of missing the language and mood of Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, so I decided to pick up another Murakami book at work and started 1Q84.  So far I have found it to be more engaging than W-UBC and have been really enjoying it.  I worked all weekend (and tonight), and ended up getting over 250 pages of it read.

Was there anything else I've been wanting to write about?  Probably, but I know some of it is work-related so I'll save it for another day....

Magooby's Knuckle Masks

Saturday night, as a little pre-mothersday activity, and thanks to the generosity of my co-worker Abbey who last-minutely agreed to come over and babbysit, Jeannie and I went to Magooby's Joke House (worst name for a comedy club ever?  Or best?) to see Paul Reiser, aka Paul of Paul and Jamie (aka Mad About You, aka Jerns' favs TV shows).  It was weird (cause he's basically the same wacky, nice dude that he was in the 90's but in an older man's body), and funny, and we enjoyed it.  We were, however, definitely on the younger end of the age spectrum of people in the room. 

The board of ChesShakes has voted to go ahead and start construction, which means that I am now 98-99% sure that I will have a job come September, which is pretty darned good. 

Today I am off work, and have numerous errands to run with toddler in tow ( I think he's maybe a toddler now -- he definitely toddles...).  Grocery stores of all varieties except health and halal, liquor store, who knows where else.  He is currently hanging out in his playpen cooing to himself. 

I had a dream the other night that featured knuckle masks, a concept that, I'm pretty sure, nobody has ever thought of before. 

Mr. Wind-Up Bird

Just finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.  Weird book.  But I liked it.  And strangely enough, it seemed to fit perfectly with all the stuff that's been happening in my life recently.  It's a book that feels a lot like a David Lynch movie, with shifting identities and seemingly random pieces and stories running through it.  And at the moment, being a relatively new parent who's about to end a 10+ year job and start a new one, I feel like I'm going through a somewhat major identity shift -- I think when I'm old and look back on this time I will mark it as the beginning of my adulthood.  Is that good or bad?  Probably bad!  Ha Ha.  Who knows.  Probably neither.

Oh, I should mention that I spoke to Lesley the other day and we set a starting date for me at ChesShakes for the beginning of September.  Which means I will be leaving B&N on June 15th, taking the severance package and getting paid through the end of August, and then starting the new job in September.  So really, it all is working out pretty perfectly, or at least it seems to be at this point.  Tomorrow I'll probably find out that the ChesShakes building has burned down or that B&N has yanked away the severance offer or something like that.

The lil' dude was a bit annoying this afternoon, but in his defense he was sick with a fever and highly snotty and, by all appearances and signs, just not feeling very well.  But I was very happy when Jeannie got home from work and was able to take over and I could go in the other room and fold laundry and not listen to him whine.  Luckily, days like this a few and far between.  I guess that's why humans have lasted this long.

It is very very weird to me to think that I won't be working at B&N in just a little over a month.  I feel a lot like a passenger on the Titanic who has just been very politely offered a lifeboat.

I kinda feel like Wind-Up Bird has gotten me in the right headspace to re-read Infinite Jest.

Big Fucking Q

I'd write more, but I'm too busy flushing the toilet, brushing my teeth, and drinking all of this Nyquil. 

G'night!

Change!

Tonight at work I was told by my boss that, as of June 15th, the company would be eliminating my position company-wide.  This is a move that I've been expecting, but I didn't think it would happen quite this early.  I'm not really panicked, because the CSC job is waiting in the wings, however the timing of things could be a little tricky, depending on CSC's fundraising and construction schedule.  Although, actually, it's also possible that the timing could work out quite perfectly and I might end up getting a severance package that I wasn't expecting to get.  So we'll see.  I always try not to worry about things until I have to worry about them, so I'm gonna try and keep on the sunny side of this one. 

In other news, it is just about time for my little boy's first birthday.  Sam, please allow me to be the first to wish you a very happy birthday, and congratulate you on your many accomplishments during the past year.  Seriously, though, I can't imagine having a child that I like more than I like him.  I am a very lucky and a very grateful man. 

Labor Day

I heard When in Rome's "The Promise" on the way home from work a little while ago and it made me think of Eric and Catherine. 

Also, I just caught a whiff of something that made me think of steak and now I want a steak. 

One year ago, right around this time of night, just as we were getting into bed, Jeannie started going into labor with Sam.  Wow!  Who would've known that he would be as awesome as he is.  Today he and I were running errands, and I would look back at him every now and again, and he would just be chillin' back there in his car seat, head turned to the side looking out of the window.   He's a fun kid. 

The wind seems to be picking up outside. Rain in our future?

The Drugs Don't Work

I went to the dentist yesterday for the first time in a long time.  And I took drugs (legal, prescribed) in order to do so.  When I got out of the dentist office I said to Jeannie that I didn't think that the drugs actually did anything, that they just made me stumble around a bit and that was it.  Today, however, as I look back on the events of yesterday I'm realizing that there are large chunks of the day that are missing and that there are times when I remember that I was talking about something but I have absolutely no idea what I was saying or doing.  I am fairly certain, though, that I didn't do or say anything that was inappropriate or embarrassing to anyone, and for this I am thankful. 

I think that the drugs were probably the equivalent of drinking about 5 or 6 of my homemade G&T's, but not nearly as fun as drinking 5 or 6 G&T's.  Much more boring. 

Time to watch some Paul and Jamie.  That's Mad About You for all the non-initiated out there. 

Turd flinger

I accidentally dropped one of Sam's turds on the floor yesterday.  That's why I'm a turd flinger.  Luckily, it was pretty damned solid and only flattened a little bit, rather than splattering.  Splattering would have been bad.

I'm experimenting with a two-nap day today.  Lately, he's only been taking one nap a day, and it's been going pretty well -- he's been sleeping through the night for about 12 hours at a stretch.  But he's been sick with a little cold for the last few days, and he seemed really tired this morning, so I put him down at around 9:30 rather than his usual 11:30-ish slot.  He just went down a little while ago for nap #2, and hopefully we won't sleep very long and it won't screw up his nighttime.  We'll see.  Enough nap talk.

By Thursday evenings I'm usually tired of not getting to hang out with my ladyfriend very much, and I'm usually a little depressed.  Today seems to be no exception.  Work tonight could suck, although I have work to do to keep me busy, and also the manager that I think I'm working with tonight is one that turns a blind-eye to Wind-Up Bird Chronicle reading.  The book has gotten better, although it seems to be more of a simmering pot than a boiling cauldron.  Not that I prefer boiling cauldrons or anything.

Been trying to get our garden started lately.  Also, we put up a swing for Sam in the front yard.  I think he's going to love being outside this summer.  Also, if you stand him up in front of you, he will totter 1 or 2 steps to get into your arms.  I think he'll be walking very soon.  When he stands up on his own in front of me, it makes my heart beat a little faster and makes my breath feel short for a breath or two.

Candy Beans

The Jeanners and I have returned from a week-long trip to St. Louis that, in my opinion, was pretty great.  The highlights for me include (but are not limited to):  

1.  Meeting the family of Jeannie's long-lost cousin, as well as the relatively new husband of Jeannie's aunt. 

2.  Running into, entirely by chance, our old friend J. Sparks.  She was Jeannie's best friend growing up, and I dated her briefly in high school, and we haven't seen her in about 12-13 years.  

3.  Getting to hang out with Eric and Catherine, who were thankfully available without much notice, and who entertained us with their discussion of nocturnal foot-position. (mine stick out to the sides, by the way, like a very wide "V")

4.  Taking a solo day trip up to Kirksville to hang out with Ron and Randy and visit the past a little bit.  I was mildly surprised by the few things that have changed and greatly surprised by the many things that haven't.  But it was great to see Ron.  Also enjoyed the drive.  Through Columbia, Moberly, and Macon on the way up, and then back down through Edina and Hannibal on the way home.  Had some CD's of  Car Talk, This American Life, Prairie Home Companion, Taylor Swift (no joke), Tegan & Sara, and Trixie Whitley for the ride.    

5.  Getting to hang out with Uncle Rico, who was also thankfully available on short notice (I guess we like to spring things on people), and who I am sending positive refi vibes to.  And you should, too.

6.  Getting $850 worth of Southwest Airlines travel vouchers for agreeing to let them bump us off our flight and taking a later flight.  The nice thing is is that the later flight left only 20 minutes later and only added maybe an hour and a half to our travel day.   Which means we made $566.67 an hour.  Which is more than I make at the Nobes. 

During the trip, Sam had some exciting foods for the first time.  Ice cream, soda, cake, and probably others that I'm forgetting.  All given to him by grandparents.  He seems to be a lot older than he was just a couple of weeks ago.  Very curious, into everything, very close to walking, and his hair is growing curly in the back.  Lets listen to him laugh:

Shamu Jr.

On Cheers, after the cold open, the opening credits and theme song would play, and then there'd be a little 5 second shot of, like, some buildings somewhere in Boston, and then they'd start the show inside the bar.  During that little 5 second exterior shot of Boston, there'd be a short little line of music, maybe 5 seconds long or so, just long enough to play over the shot, and it would be snappy and jazzy and usually bass-heavy with a melody played on clarinet or saxophone.  I want to start a cover band that plays only those little 5-second jazzy numbers.

Tonight I wanted to make my Facebook status this:  'Oh, my poor bottom.'  But I didn't. 

Shamu Jr. is a Mexican wrestler mentioned on a This American Life episode from 1998. 

There is no greater joy in my life right now than when Sam wakes up in the morning and gets his diaper changed, and then I put him in his playpen and he picks up books and looks through them, chuckling and cooing to himself while I go about my morning business of making eggs and pooping and starting the laundry. 

Last week Jerns and I bought a bird feeder, and put I put it up last Friday or so, and we've been getting excited whenever we've gotten birds come eat at the thing (mostly cardinals, because we are proud St. Louisans at heart), and today there was a damned squirrel that discovered it and ate a good bunch of the bird seed out of it.  And I felt a lot like my dad, because he used to become infuriated by the squirrels that would violate his poor bird feeder on a daily basis, and he would sit by the back window with a BB gun, waiting for the squirrels to come out so he could shoot them if they went after his bird feeder.  I always used to think he was a little bit nuts, and I still do, but now I understand that squirrels stealing birdseed from lovely, innocent, hungry birds can make you a little bit nuts. 

Jeannie Doesn't Mind the Corners

Another week over.  A good week.  Got to hang with the Beej twice, got to hang with A-Train, got to hang with Pat, got to play geek games.  Also, of course, got to play with my little boy (this week we got him his first balls to play with [no comments, please]) and my lovely wife.  She made a funny joke about not minding the corners that only BJ and Aimee got to hear and if you missed it, well, you should come over to our house and hang out more often and you wouldn't miss things like that. 

I also went to the dentist this week for the first time in over a decade.  At the behest of my wife, because my mouth is turning into something that looks and smells like this:

You can thank E. Elz for bringing that picture to my attention, by the way.  Anyway, I hate the fucking dentist, and I'm sorry for the profanity but there really is no other way to say it that gets the point across.  I hate the fucking dentist more than I hate anything in the world, and to be honest I really think there might be something wrong with people who want to stick their hands in peoples' mouths all day.  And then, like, poke at their gums with sharp tools.  Doesn't that seem wrong?  So anyway, I'm going back to the dentist in approximately a month and they're going to drug me up and then do all the shit they need to do, and for the sake of my wife and son I am going to try and be a good example and see the dentist with some regularity (but probably not frequency), or at least not be such a big baby about the dentist so that my kid isn't a baby about the dentist and hygiene and going to the doctor and all that baloney. 

I tell you what, it's a good thing that we don't keep doritos in the house because if we did I would eat about a bag a day, and the poops that eating a bag of doritos causes are not something I want to be dealing with all the time. 

Blinker

Tonight as I drove home from work I was stopped at the light where I turn from Perring Parkway onto Echodale, and a car pulled up behind me that had the brightest blinker I've ever seen.  Seriously.  You could've used the thing to guide ships in the harbor on foggy nights.  It lit up the whole intersection and all the houses and apartments and stuff that are around the intersection. I hated it, and it also made me feel proud of my little humble blinker that seemed to have downcast eyes and lit up maybe the area 2 feet in front of it. 

And then I got home and went in the bathroom to take a leak and saw some of Sam's clothes on the floor left over from when Jeannie must've given him a bath tonight, and it made me miss him and wish he was awake so we could play.  And then he woke up a little bit (on his own, I didn't have anything to do with it) and I heard him cry out in his crib and I immediately started praying, "Pleasegoddon'tlethimwakeup, Pleasegoddon'tlethimwakeup, Pleasegoddon'tlethimwakeup...," and so far it has worked, he hasn't woken all the way up.  I think it might be the light from the bathroom that lights up some of the hallway, and then because there isn't trim around his bedroom door yet, the light in the hallway must go into his room a little bit.  Cause he seems to stir a little whenever somebody goes into the bathroom, even quietly.

I finished re-reading The Lord of the Rings, and I enjoyed it.  I think I enjoy all the info that is part of the story but isn't in the actual story most of all.  I mean, all the stuff that's in the appendices and of course all the related material in the Silmarillion and stuff.  And I also watched the movies, which I did not enjoy very much.  Too much CGI, of course.  I don't understand why people like movies with really blatant CGI in them, because to me they always look really really bad.  Just awful.  And I guess I just can't get past that.

So I'm currently without a book to read, and that hasn't happened in awhile, and I even don't feel like re-reading Infinite Jest or any Kerouac again, and that hasn't happened in, like, forever.  So I need suggestions on what book to read next.  I would like something big and life-changing and something that has the power to define my thirties the way IJ seemed to define my twenties.  Thought about trying some Murakami but I read a little bit of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at work and couldn't really get into it.  So, suggestions?

"Your Bag of Poop Smells Like Poop."