Let's all go down to the...shi- let's just stay here

I'm currently deploying all of the known tricks of man to ward off this ennui that is bearing down on me like a locomotive. I know when I start wishing that the weather was colder that things have gone astray. I wander outside near sunset and try to identify the various colors and shapes of clouds. The clouds are puffs of smoke. The clouds are cartoon ghosts. The clouds are black cloth covering the bright blue body of the horizon. The clouds are a certain distance away from me that is actually identifiable, and it's almost impossible to imagine how much closer they are to me than the stars. The clouds are suffused with orange light. Planes drop through the clouds like water arrived down a drain into the vast underworld. None of them are entirely correct. Le mot juste escapes me, dear Flaubert.

I go through these periods as a plane passes through clouds. No, no, forget the clouds. I imagine that things should be different than they are. The thought itself is nebulous, it lacks any real substance like the ghosts of clouds that hover on the fading horizon of orange and blue. The clouds are the color of spent coal. A school of orange fish are swimming through the clouds. Is it so hard to imagine that the whole world exists as a figment in my imagination? Yes, I suppose so. Is it so hard to imagine it as God's?

I find myself unable to stay in one place. I wander around looking for something. I do not know what the something is, but I know that if I find it nothing will change. But the illusion of change keeps me wandering around on it's nonexistent trail. I wander in my mind in search of things. Time does not heal all wounds. Time makes a fool of us all.

5,000 monkeys slamming on the keys would eventually come up with Shakespeare, but it would take them a hell of a long time. I'd rather just get it from William along with the bed. The idea for the movie "Midnight in Paris" is sound. The illusory dream that one's life was meant to be lived elsewhere. That somehow meaning would be able to be crafted in a different place. Perhaps, perhaps not. The life span and drudgery of past centuries would perhaps leave those unhappy spirits in a better state, and if not that, dead, which tends to put things to rest.

I keep trying to come up with ways of forgetting. Okay, I was briefly distracted from the world by joining twitter and reading a quote by Elizabeth Warren. I would vote for Elizabeth Warren if she ran for the presidency. Anyhow, in the heady and intoxicating land of joining twitter and fretting over candidates I've overcome my desire to define clouds.

It was at that time in my life that I was given over to the sort of nostalgia that cripples a man, turns him into a piece of gd jelly. I was young and stupid. Those old two handmaidens that are inextricably linked. I loved a girl, and she didn't love me. At that point in time I thought that the difference was important. And so I'd walk the streets at night in hopes of running into her. I had no idea where she lived, just a sort of approximation of the neighborhood. I often mistook old women carrying umbrellas for her. It is the sort of mistake that a mind unhinged by love makes.

Sometimes I'd stop in at a corner bar and pretend to watch the television while unrepentant drunks smoked and talked about women at the bar. The bar was dark and smelled like all bars everywhere. Like old cigarette ash, spilled drinks, and failure. None of the regulars ever took notice of me. I suppose this is a longish way of telling you how I got the cat that is currently sitting in your lap, but I figured you and I had time. Not the sort of time that that gd younger version of myself did, squandering his hours in a corner bar, in aquarium light, looking for a woman to love.

Do you want tea? I can't drink the good stuff anymore, too many good things happen that turn out later to have been bad. Nah. She never came in, and after a few months I forget what she looked like. I came across her in the super market months later, she was wearing a beret, and she had an earring in her nose, really had gone to hell. I wanted to go back and kick that earlier version of myself in the face for spending all those hours on lonely streets, but then again, I wouldn't have found this boon companion if I hadn't loved that woman, so I walked up to her and shook her hand and thanked her for the cat. Nah. She didn't even remember my name.

It's been a while

It's been a while since I put fingers to keyboard and mind to blogging. If you're like me you haven't missed my blog at all. However...I suppose I don't really have a however. Writing a blog is like taking your dog out for a morning walk without a bag in your hand. Okay, so the metaphor sort of breaks down rather quickly, or you wind up w/ shi- on your hands. Unless the keyboard is covered in refuse it definitively breaks down.

King James Bible
"And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry."

5:58 A.M. Having gotten roughly four hours of sleep a night over the previous three nights I was not as excited as I could have been to hear the lil miss going nuts. Apparently S decided she needed a diaper change and lil s actually wanted to eat...the story goes on. I guess mom's just aren't okay with a kid sitting in poop even if it is waking up the whole dam- house.

6:40? S starts to relay information about what I'm to do with the child on the day, which includes a trip to the swimming pool for a class. I hear none of it.

8:30 A.M. This is why I love my daughter. She knew that I needed more than eight hours of sleep, so she probably just played in her crib quietly for two hours because she loves me. Either that or it's because she's been a bit ill and had trouble sleeping.

8:30-10:00 A.M. We spend the morning eating breakfast together/lying on the floor playing with toys. S calls and claims we need to go to swim class today and reminds me that she'll be upset if I don't.

10 A.M. By this point in time both s and I are getting grumbly so we take a nap. Her grumbly involves more crying and mine involves more grumbly. It's complex. I got to bed secretly hoping/knowing that she won't wake up for swim class and that I'll be off scot free because I am secretly scared of swim class and life in general.

11:22 A.M. Lil s decides to get up in just enough time to allow to attend swim class because she loves the water. However, I'm a bit groggy and struggle to really get things in order. Lil s is not bothered and spends a good deal of time playing with her toes. I put on her bathing suit inside out, the thing looks too small anyway. I forget to bring my lock for the locker room. At the car door a swarm of mosquitoes, fifty to seventy hang out while I put lil s in the car seat. She's already got three bites on her forehead, one on her cheek, and two on her legs. Knowing that, despite the fact that we're running late, I smack mosquitoes around in the car and lil s, who apparently doesn't know the favor I'm doing for her, laughs hysterically, as if I were a clown and clowns were actually funny. By the time I've completed the massacre the child is as happy as can be.

12:05 We're at baby swim class. Amazingly the class is comprised of three dads, counting me, and two moms. That's right. Screw you sexist America always claiming that women have to do most of the house and child work. I don't care what the stats say I've been to one swim class at an aquatic center in D.C. that indicates that all statistics are made up on the spot. As it turns out, sixty percent of dads are teaching their kids to swim on Tuesdays. Yay dads!

12:05-12:35 Swim class. Lil s initially enjoys splashing in the water but after a few minutes she just kind of peers around at everyone and everything. I did not say pees around. And I blow bubbles and generally behave in a manner that is dorky except that I have a little baby around as does everyone else, so it's cool.

12:35-1:00 Being a derelict dad I don't even change her out of her bathing suit. An Australian dad changes his twin boys while I'm at least drying lil s off, and the two little boys take turns screaming and crying and saying that they want a bagel. It is observed that kids don't have the greatest patience/sense of temporality. I walk past with lil s bundled in a towel and get the heck out of dodge.

1:00-5:45 I feed lil s lunch. She's a big fan of cheese and a big fan of smearing avocado on her left leg. It's weird that I have the exact same eating habits. Usually I sweep up after a meal because if I miss a little bit of food lil s puts herself on the clean up crew and enjoys cheese a la floor. This reminds me that earlier in the day, seeing that I was still in a sleep deprived state, lil s crawled around on the carpet picking up lint balls and putting them in her mouth. While I commend her for trying to save us money I did decide that the nutritional value was probably lower than we hoped.

The afternoon is a little blurry. I think lil s was tired but sort of refused to nap. So she's just crawl over to the couch, pull herself up, and cry while I said, "What's wrong baby?" Obviously everything. I think while I was out of town her mother must have told her about there being no Santa Claus. She's taking it hard.

One of the main tricks that I've learned works with a pretty crabby baby is actually paying attention to them. Listen, I've got a fantasy football roster to manage and a few football blogs to read about as well as periodically exchange e-mails with old friends, but it's okay once in a while to get off the computer and play with your child. I promise they'll enjoy it long enough to stop crying, and they'll probably also quickly remember what a dork you are and go back to "reading" a book or frantically chewing on a stuffed animal.

Heading down to TN

Maria came from Nashville...



I pulled into Nashville, Tennessee



Girl named Tennessee



The original

Pictures and Things

Don't worry, I don't understand binary either. I think the joke is in there somewhere though. It has to be.

Also, this for anyone who grew up in the 1980's/taught school children that having typhus or dysentery was problematic for oxen.

Sometimes

When you're a bit down because of the cold and the way the trees are already changing it's probably best to just turn up some music.



Okay, now that we've done that let's move on with the day. Signs you've gotten yourself a degree that can't pay for itself.

S: Stop saying that word.

M: No I think jackass is just a colloquialism for donkey.

S: No jackass isn't the colloquialism, ass is.

M: I was just seeing if I could get you to misuse colloquialism. I baited you into it... I may also be depressed. I'm not sure that trying to bait people into misusing colloquialism is a good thing.

MSN article: Are aliens sending messages via black holes?

I'll save you the trouble. Probably. That being said, Morgan Freeman does narrate this vid, and that's reason enough for watching. I'm kind of thinking of becoming a physicist, parallel universes, multiverse etc, or maybe just doing lots of drugs and living in a van. I'm not sure that my ideas would be that dissimilar from a physicist. No wonder people watch reality television instead. This shi- is crazy. At least reality tv makes sense. Don't click on this MSN article because you'll find yourself watching a video about how long the sun is going to last, and you'll end up worrying yourself about what we'll do in a few billion years, and it's just not worth it on a Friday night. Unless Morgan Freeman narrates it w/ his bad ass earring.

Sorry, I got distracted when I went over to MSN and discovered Wonderwall. I don't know if you know what Wonderwall is, but it's amazing. It's kind of a dumbed down version of Entertainment Tonight for internet goers, and I think what we need more of in our lives is a dumbed down ET. I want to go on a real rant here, inspired by this Lindsay Lohan thing I saw today on the facebooks, but I just don't have it in me. Okay, let's try. It's weird to now have all these "stars" who are held in such contempt. I mean, what does that say? Does it say anything? It's not so much that we are trying to tarnish stars, but rather, the contempt seems confusingly wedded with the adulation. I don't know. It's creepy. That said, I'll be tuning in and betting on The Bachelor per usual.

S: What would you say is your love language?

M: Listening.

S: What do you think mine is?

M: Acts of service

S: (Mops the floor)

M: You're good at being busy.

S: I'm the best at it. No I'm not. I just want to sit around and play video games.

M: I guess there are better things to do with your time than play video games. But it's certainly better than some things, like cleaning.

S: (Mops the floor).



We drove down the highway in the dark. Neither of us were talking. The night sounds of insects came to us through the thick folds of the dark. Actually, I'm recalling it with the sort of imprecision that is characteristic of me. She was saying something, but I wasn't really listening. The ribbon of headlights show the dark road, wreathed by bits of horsetail and grass. But that's neither here nor there. I was thousands of miles away from there anyhow. I was walking down a cobbled street in a slight drizzle, mid-morning, grey clouds low slung and thin, in the distance comes the sound of a violin. Just now she is sipping her coffee and reminding me how nice it is to get away.

What does Walker Percy think?

If you're like me, you're wondering what Walker Percy makes of all this nonsense that we call day to day life. Or, at least what he thought circa 1960's when he was writing The Moviegoer.

"The Specific character of despair is precisely this: it is unaware of being despair" Kierkegaard


"What is the malaise? you ask. The malaise is the pain of loss. The world is lost to you, the world and the people in it, and there remains only you and the world and you no more able to be in the world than Banquo's ghost." (No joke Banquo's ghost came up twice in things I was reading today. Old timey people were serious about their Shakespeare).

"You say it is a simple thing surely, all gain and no loss, to pick up a good-looking woman and head for the beach on the first fine day of the year. So say the newspaper poets. Well it is no such simple thing and if you have ever done it, you know it isn't--unless, of course, the woman happens to be your wife or some other everyday creature as familiar to you that she is as invisible as you yourself. Where there is a chance of gain, there is also a chance of loss. Whenever one courts great happiness, one also risks malaise."

Later

"A good rotation. A rotation I define as the experiencing of the new beyond the expectation of the experiencing of the new. For example, taking one's first trip to Taxaco would not be a rotation, or no more than a very ordinary rotation; but getting lost on the way and discovering a hidden valley would be." Come on tickets to Europe, get cheaper. I want Slovenian valleys.

Later

"When someone made a spiel, one of our somber epic porch spiels, she would strain forward in the dark, trying to make out the face of the speaker and judge whether he meant to be taken as somberly as he sounded. As a Bollling in Feliciana Parish, I became accustomed to sitting on the porch in the dark and talking of the size of the universe and the treachery of men; as a Smith on the Gulf Coast I have become accustomed to eating crabs and drinking beer under a hundred and fifty watt bulb--and one is as pleasant a way as the other of passing a summer night." Indeed, my friend.

Later

"It was not my conscience that bothered me. What I am trying to tell you is that nothing seemed worth doing except something I couldn't even remember. If somebody had come up to me and said: if you will forget your preoccupations for forty minutes and get to work, I can assure you that you will find the cure of cancer and compose the greatest of all symphonies--I wouldn't have been interested. Do you know why? Because it wasn't good enough for me?"

Later

"The poor fellow. He has just begun to suffer from it, this miserable trick the romantic plays upon himself: of setting just beyond his reach the very thing he prizes. For he prizes just such a meeting, the chance meeting with a chance friend on a bus, a friend he can talk to, unburden himself of his terrible longings...He means that he hopes to find himself a girl, the rarest of rare pieces, and live the life of Rudolfo on the balcony, sitting around on the floor and experiencing soul-communion. I have my doubts. In the first place, he will defeat himself, jump ten miles ahead of himself, scare the wits out of some girl with his great choking silences, want her so desperately that by his own peculiar logic he can't have her; or having her, jump another ten miles beyond both of them and end by fleeing to the islands, where, propped at the rail of his ship in some rancid port, he will ponder his own loneliness." Preach it brother.

Later

"I am not ashamed to use the world class. I will also plead guilty to another charge. The charge is that people belonging to my class think they're better than other people. You're damn right we're better. We're better because we don't shrink from our obligations to ourselves or to others. We do not whine. We do not organize a minority group and blackmail the government. We do not prize mediocrity for mediocrity's sake. Oh I am aware that we hear a great many flattering things nowadays about your great common man--you know, it has always been revealing to me that he is perhaps content to be so called, because that is exactly what he is, the common man, and when I say common I mean common as hell. Our civilization has achieved a distinction of sorts. It will be remembered not for its technology nor even its wars but its novel ethos. Ours is the only civilization in history which has enshrined mediocrity as its national ideal."

Good times. I love some Southern rambling about decaying moral fiber. Who doesn't?

Wednesday-Homo Sapiens sleep around and BSG predicts the past

Signs you're probably listening to a senior or grad student:

Guy: I'm going to fix my cover letter.

Other guy: Eh.

Guy: My cover letter is going to be the shi-.

M: This isn't quite how I remember college. Thank god for the recession, these kids are actually worried about cover letters instead of kegs. It's beautiful.

In that vein, I read an interesting article about human origins. When I say human origins, I hope everyone understands that I mean roughly 400 years ago when Vishnu created man and woman in a painting made from whale's blood and fire. Point being, the article was interesting.

Synopsis for non-clickers-Basically, human beings have long been thought to have sort of bred neanderthals out of existence. I mean, the book I've been reading of late posits the idea that homo sapiens amazing ability to wean early and populate the world was the overriding factor in our rise to prominence. However, it has long been thought that homo sapiens also may have found ridged brows very attractive. This article, stunningly reveals that homo sapiens apparently slept around with other non homo sapien type folks. Including homo erectus, (the jokes just write themselves on this one) and homo hobilis as well as some others.

Relevant portion:

provides evidence that homo sapiens not only interbred with Neanderthals in Eurasia, they also had sex with several species of our ancestors across the African continent. And they did it often. "We think there were probably thousands of interbreeding events," said Hammer. "It happened relatively extensively and regularly."

The object lesson here is that homo sapiens enjoy breeding. This probably comes as a shock to you. I know it did to me. I'm more the type to spend the evening knitting and talking about how great it was to go fox hunting when I was a little boy. However, apparently other folks, dirty sinful folks, enjoy breeding. The article then makes a two pronged type thing.

1) The ending to Battlestar Galactica was just based on sound research, so no more whining about what exactly was happening with Starbuck. The plot twist was solid and possibly the truth. Maybe it was just a documentary about human origins thinly veiled as a fictional space story.

2) I'm going to build a time machine and go back in time to preach the ills of sleeping around to homo sapiens and maybe distribute some prophylaxis if it didn't encourage further sin. I think old homo sapiens need to hear some fire and brimstone. There is probably also a joke in here about home sapiens literally meaning knowing man and something about the Biblical sense.

3) When was alcohol invented? Did old timey man go to raves in caves. Yes, that sort of rhymes. I patented that shi-. Rave in the cave, my basement, two weeks from next Thursday.


4) What kind of a bender to you have to be coming off to go outside of your species/to a subspecies depending on your scientific take. The point is, home sapiens apparently used to have some long nights where they made some poor choices and then had to do the shambling walk of shame.

Tuesdays with Sadie

I've started this thing with lil s where I sort of growl at her and kind of rough her up a little bit. However, she's picked up on the growling bit, and now she's taking to growling at people like her nanny as she grabs their face and stuff. I think this sort of behavior is more acceptable from a little boy. However, I do sort of love it when she comes up to me and growls as she attempts to pull my face off. It's cute. But probably only because she's under three feet tall, such behavior will probably have to stop before she hits pre-school, or she'll have some issues. Today as she came in for the kill, growling like a little monster, she somehow managed to get her finger inside my nose and scratch it hard enough that I had some blood. I suppose she owed me one after while I was watching her the other day she took a fall on the floor and has a bit of a black eye. I'm assuming she blamed me for it because I was also watching the Steelers get destroyed and didn't notice entirely that she was playing with a bit of our futon that falls off at random. Anyhow, the point is, that with the black eye and the food stains all over her shirt, when that little growling urchin comes for you, you'd best run. I'd put up a picture, but you'd probably be too frightened to keep reading.

6:50 A.M. Who the hell needs an alarm clock? I have a baby. Lousy baby.

I spend the first part of the morning blockading the stairs because the stairs are scary. I do it with her boxes of toys though, so it's a real thrill for her to be able to rummage through the baskets and pull out random stuffed animals and plastic packaging that she'd like to play with. For the record, it's not the sort of thing that would suffocate her, and I think if the child wants to play with the plastic rather than the blocks, then you let them play with the plastic.

7:30 Breakfast. I feed her at the same time that I eat. I do this because lil s now has a tendency to crawl over to you and attempt to eat whatever you're eating and look up at you with street urchin eyes. The real joke is on her though because I giver her over ripe bananas. She's too little to realize how awful they are. Maybe she isn't. Either way, that will teach her to not fall down the stairs. I'm pretty sure she had a bigger breakfast than I did, but she still complained. I tried to tell her that it wouldn't be that hard to just ship her off to China where she could have a life full of pulling e-waste from her small villages watershed, but she just growled at me. The kids these days.

9:50-It's nap time. I include myself in this nap because I had been up late the night before maturely monitoring Monday Night Football. I mean, football doesn't just watch itself. Someone has to turn on the television and stay up late watching it. That person might as well be me.

M: (Earlier) I need to watch the U.S. Open Final. Tennis doesn't watch itself.

S: What did tennis do when we didn't have cable for the last five months.

M: I'm pretty sure it watched itself, but it's somehow lost the ability. It's complex.

Anyhow, we wind up taking this amazing two hour nap and the one of us who still poops the bed didn't even have an accident. Although, I guess at 9.5 months it's still less of an accident and more just babies being babies.

We go back downstairs and within a half an hour she's ready to eat because she's a little monster. I feed her creme brulee and lobster and steak. The child eats like a Middle Eastern dictator. Topical humor is always best. She throws half of it on the floor because she can, and because kids are inherently sinful.

R: Why has Michigan been so bad?

M: Manifold sins and wickedness. Also some weakness at wide side defensive end.

I'm not really sure how time passes with lil s. It just does. At one point she stars pulling her books on the floor, so I sit down and read every book on the shelf to her. She manages to remain interested for the first eight, but tails off after I deliver an off key rendition of Baby Beluga. Everyone is a critic. Crummy baby.

She pretends like she's sleepy around 3:00 to try and coax me into putting her down for a nap only to wake up shortly thereafter and cry. I go in the room and slap her a high five for putting one over on me. The kids got smarts.

For dinner she eats chicken, avocado, toast and pretty much a bunch of good stuff while I have an old burger. The point is, she's a princess, and I love her.

Light Bulbs and tanks

Let's talk about light bulbs. Why? Because light bulbs are the most interesting thing in the world. Can you remember how many dam- times you heard the name Thomas Edison? Me too. That's because Thomas Edison ate light bulbs and excreted beams of light when he went to the bathroom. You don't believe me just check the Wikipedia entry I just changed. Anyhow, I read an interesting article about light bulbs that you should also read. Remember, if you're like, why the hel- should I read an article about light bulbs that somewhere Thomas Edison is watching, and he is probably angry and maybe the Norse god of lightning. Hey, this article just points out another reason that government is awesome. Government is awesome because it allows us to legislate things like climate change and fuel efficiency standards, which are important to legislate because as we've proved in American we'd all like our houses lit up like Christmas trees with classic light bulbs, and then we'd like to drive our Ford F-150 forty miles to work and then bitch about gas prices. Ie, we don't make good choices. Hell, I don't make good choices. I wouldn't be caught dead with that crappy compact florescent griming up my reading space with its low quality light, and I'd trade in my hybrid in an instant if someone would trade me a tank for it.

Yeah, that's right, when you're a mayor in Lithuania, and you don't like where a car is parked you can run that shi- over with a tank. I'd also like to take the opportunity to announce my candidacy for mayor of Lithuania. A lot of people are probably thinking, wait, Lithuania has towns or hamlets or some shi- like that, you can't just run for mayor of Lithuania, Andrew. Guess what? You're either with me or you're getting run over by a tank.

Sick

When I'm feeling down I just link to posts from The Guardian. Brits are funny, but they don't always love Americans now do they? To be fair, they sort of set the highest bar possible for colonial interference and general malfeasance, such that, critiques, though warranted, may in fact be heightened by the embarrassment of their own prior ills. What we need is a nuanced defense of American imperialism. I say we turn to an American. Hey, at least I'm not quoting Harper's again. I eat sleep and drink terror alerts. However, that being said, perhaps it's time to wind down all those pesky foreign wars and maybe get out of Korea for a while. Are we really still fighting there? I think the main government program we should taper back on is foreign occupation. However, this would require us to get rid of a lot of military bases in places that we are not welcome. And what would those places do without us? Probably stop resenting a little. Lord knows with all the secular humanists out there we should be able to get this done? I thought it was all those pesky right wing Christians keeping our country at war under Bush. But, huh, it turns out under the new guy we still don't mind ramping up troops and firing off some missiles. As it turns out, people are not rational and our foreign policy is complex. However, it's probably time to take our complex foreign policy and put it work domestically. Also, I am sick.