Conversations

Conversations About Snuggling:

M: I just don't think that you enjoy snuggling as much since you got pregnant?

S: No. It's just, I don't like being touched.

M: Are you sure you still understand what the term snuggling entails?


Some typical conversations:

S: If you could find my cell phone. I think I saw it floating around somewhere earlier.

M: If it's floating around it should be easy to find.

Science Wednesdays:

S: Our baby is the size of a shrimp.

M: It’s the size of a sperm.

S: You can’t see sperm, they're invisible.

M: Well, you haven’t seen this one. (Includes typical male posturing voice).

S: No you.

M: Do you see what I did there? You "haven't seen" this one, thereby seconding the whole invisible thing.

S: Oh.

M: I’ll just go ahead and handle both sides of this conversation.

S: That would be easier.


Related conversations:

Any time a promo for the television show Grey's Anatomy is on.

M: I'd like to see her anatomy.(You literally won't believe how old that joke has gotten after five years three times a week, but it's a commitment I've made to making that joke, and I'm sticking by it. It's stripped of meaning.

While playing Mexican Train dominoes:

Be careful, it's really easy to lose your train of thought while you're playing.

I'd hate for me to de-rail your chances at winning.

Baby Size Conversations:

S: Yesterday it was the size of a blueberry but next week he’ll be the size of a raspberry! (Said with excitement).

M: Aren't those about the same size? Like could you really distinguish between the two offhand.

S: You're ruining this for me.

Uncle Andrew:

Watching my tiny little nephew claw his way across the floor with a look of unabashed glee on his face.

M: What's he up to? He looks so excited.

He arrives with an insane grin on his face and puts his mouth over the top of my hand.

M: Oh, I see. He was coming over here to eat my hand. I guess babies get smarter as they get older.

Random conversations:

M: Hon, so, how soon can we start messing them up?

Others:

M: That dumb little thing can't understand anything that I'm saying.

S: You can't say that in front of the baby.

M: He doesn't even have ears yet....Does he?


Tangentially related NYT article that is probably 100 percent true and certainly 100 percent true of me as I detailed in an as of yet unpublished essay.

Trip Planning...to Canada?

Do you know what sucks and isn't rewarding? Trip planning. You know what is rewarding? Travel. It's the first time I've been faced with the paradoxical nature of making travel work. Up until this point S has been the engine that has pulled the Little Caboose that wouldn't on trips to Paris and Italy. Now I'm faced with hours of determining from six small photos whether I prefer a hotel room with exposed brick and oriental rugs, or one with a small balcony that opens up over a leafy street. For some reason the travel guides I purchased really love to describe streets in Montreal as leafy. I really can't wait to see what it looks like. I'm hoping something along the lines of the rain forest, so I can get two trips in one.

Anyhow, after looking at hotel rooms for three hours or so you don't get excited about the trip, you get kind of depressed. I don't know why I ever switched duties with S, I had the great job all along, showing up at the last minute, enjoying the fruits of her labor and planning how we were going to spend our time while we were there. Huge mistake! My advice to anyone not currently attached is to marry someone organized who can plan all your trips. Then, when you get there, you can whine about not being involved in the process and feeling marginalized and such. This will in turn allow you to subtly guide the trip once it has actually started like a great ship's captain. I just didn't realize how smart I was until now.

Relatedly, if anyone has ever been to Montreal or Quebec City and has a suggestion of things to do please feel free to offer it up. I'll likely disregard it, but at least I'll feel like we have something in common the next time we talk to each other. Hell, maybe I'll even lie about doing it.

M: "Oh yeah man, that museum was great! I loved the unique forms of architecture that really seemed to compliment the art. It was mind-blowing."

P: "Huh. I recommended the circus."

M: "The tent's structure was mind-blowing is what I'm saying. And the "art," for me, was those guys swinging from trapezes. That was amazing!

P: "Are you lying about going to the circus?"

M: "Why would I ever do that to you?"

I'm also looking forward to traveling Quebec because it will give me a chance to practice my French, which I've picked up by watching the French open. I no how to say, "quiet please." I don't know why you'd need to know anything else when you're in a foreign country.

W: "What will you have for dinner sir?" Note: Convert that to Frenchy.

M: "Quiet please."

W: "I'm sorry sir!"

M: (Wave him away)

Granted I'll never get service, but I'm pretty excited about the amount of respect that I'll get from people when I keep telling them to be quiet please. Besides which, I can also use the phrase and then gesture to S's belly, intimating that the In Utero child is trying to get sleep, and that their voice is bothersome. I know that I always loved to be shushed when babies are around. Or do I hate it? Hard to remember.

I'm traveling to Canada primarily so that I can cross another country I haven't visited off my enormous list. Otherwise, why would anyone go to Canada? Sure they're good at churning out good people and pretty fine hockey players, but what else has Canada done? To be honest, I don't really know. And unless you're from Canada, I bet you don't either because the history books we grew up with as children weren't too gig on our neighbor to the north. In fact, I grew up in the eighties when were mainly concerned with Russia. Why we didn't see the similarities between Canada and Russia is really beyond me. Two giant blogs of country that are way too big on the globe because no one actually lives in the center of iceville. A strong separatist movement. Uhm. Those people who wandered over the land mass to colonize Canada were Russians. You don't get much more Communist than that. They're pretty much the same people groups. And I used to encourage my classmates to create a great deal of animosity towards that ice locked country, but really to no avail. Primarily they said things like, "Oh, I though that was just a made up country on the risk board. Kind of like Middle Earth."

Of course I say this all in jest. We all know that Canada has been the heart of the cultural and artistic revolutions that have been central to the development of our nationhood as a whole. Anyhow, I'd write some more, but I've got to go do some ice fishing and then check my trap line to see if I got any mink pelts. Those are fetching a mean price down at the general store.

Urinals

I'm just going to be up front about the topic of this blog post. It's about urinals, and urine. Ergo; if you're reading it and you don't fancy spending the next one to two minutes of your life thinking about urine then it's okay to discontinue now...still here.

The territory that I'm covering is not really groundbreaking. It's sort of been covered in every sitcom dated after about 1990. (Insert joke about keeping the toilet seat down/implication that perhaps the rim of the toilet has received some incidental damage). Side note: The most interesting story I ever heard about innocent bystanders (read toilet bowl) came from an old co-worker of S's who had instructed his son to actually bend down and take a knee before dispensing yellow justice at anyone else's house. Apparently this method is highly successful in reducing the innocent bystander sort of damage.

I've not established, rather clearly, that we're in the realm of urine. (Insert joke that says "you're in trouble.") Anyhow, I have. Typically when I arrive in a situation like this, where my intended blog topic seems a little too fraught with revealing details I immediately delete the preceding paragraphs and track down some quotes by writers that I love. In this case I'm just going to change mid-stream. (I promise that will be the last joke of that ilk).

Anyhow, I've developed an intimate relationship with the good old urinal in the lower level bathroom in the public restroom. Note: I don't use the staff restrooms for a couple of reasons.
1. For a long period of time there was only one public restroom, which means the odds of having someone else using the relevant bathroom facilities were almost exponentially increased.

2. When I am using any sort of private bathroom when other people are around no matter how clear the locking system is I become convinced that I've somehow failed to lock the door and that a co-worker is going to walk in and that somehow this will cause the universe to end.

Aside related to Garrison Keilor
The last two years we've attended "A Prairie Home Companion" shows at Wolf Trap in Maryland. Last year, upon my arrival I realized that I needed to utilize the facilities, and I walked up to the bathroom and opened the unlocked door to discover a family group of five all women, three of whom were pants less and one well over the age when that sort of general pantlessness is regarded as somewhat understandable. Why they had an entire family of pantless people was unknown to me, though vaguely brought back memories of family vacations or school gatherings where no child is allowed to be left alone. Thus, I hastily backed out of the restroom and told everyone I was with to be on the look out for groups of urinating women appearing behind unlocked doors.

This year at Wolf Trap when I went to use the multi-gender facility I stepped inside to the single use occupancy bathroom but was followed closely by a gentleman of about age sixty. Well, I didn't wait a moment I clearly had the right of way. However, rather than stepping outside as the urinal situation dictated he stood behind me whistling or something, which created a kind of anxiety in me that leads to an inability to actually perform the desired task. Well that's all well and good except that he inexplicably left the door unlocked after tailing me into the restroom and people are walking in and seeing me, back turned thank God, standing over the toilet in the posture of one peeing. This did nothing to help my performance anxiety. And, after the first person walked out, the old man, who by this point I was regarding with the sort of disdain that I usually only muster up for other drivers, does not proceed to lock the door. Thus, another man stumbles into the restroom, observes me not peeing, and then exits. You'd assume that after two random entries my comrade in urine might consider utilizing the rudimentary locking system on the door. However, he does not, and just when I'm finally able to overcome my very natural shyness when it comes to eliminating with other folks standing watch over you I hear the voice of a woman talking to a young girl who says, "Oh. And then, Oh!" This is followed by the door slamming and my face achieving a sort of lava like redness. All the while the older gentlemen stands by with a bemused look on his face as if he cannot believe this comedy of errors over which he apparently has no control. And, in my embarrassment over the whole scenario I'm not able to rattle off something like, "Hey thanks for the help there buddy or Did you grow up in a house without locks? Were things that different back then? or Did you enjoy the show?" No, I sort of half-smile at the old codger, who was probably the devil himself, on my way out of the bathroom and back into the park thinking to myself, at least I had my pants on.

3. Sort of related to the above anecdote. Whenever I attempt to use the bathroom and someone else is in there, if I happen to try the door only to learn that it is locked I feel a sense of mortification so deep that I generally leave the premises for about twenty minutes, so that I don't run into the person who has been using the bathroom. Note: This policy applies double when someone calls out with the agreed upon classic, "Someone is in here." Note 2: This sort of discomfort about the usage of bathrooms is entirely revoked in bars where people regard each other with a general sense of goodwill, which is probably mostly attributable to the alcohol and one of the few unquestionably good things that comes with drink.

3a) Relatedly, when I'm using a one person bathroom and someone else tries the door I rarely say, "Occupied, or someone is in here." Rather, I always assume that the lock has done the work of discouraging the person, and I don't want them to feel that mortification at having tried the door, though this occasionally backfires with people who assume that a locked door is a chance for them to use their shoulder/locksmithing skills to open it in total disregard of the bathroom etiquette out that I've provided them. And to those folks I say, screw em'.

This post has been sufficiently long, such that I no longer feel any need to extrapolate on the intended post involving my relationship with a favored urinal. Except to sort of wonder whether other people who routinely utilize public restrooms, if they develop a go to spot, something that sort of feels like home. And if you'd consider changing that spot if complications arose. But really, I've already said too much without saying anything at all. Adieu.

A post in which it becomes clear that I need to purchase a new Louisville Slugger

The nights are too hot for anything except regret. We slip out of our clothes and lie in the dark not wanting to touch each other. At 2 A.M. a car alarm starts blaring, and I run to the window, pull up the blinds, and stare down into the street. "It's not ours," I say, sliding back into bed, pushing a wayward foot onto the assigned side. The truth is, I don't even know what our car alarm sounds like, or whether we have a car alarm. But every time I hear the noise I stand up and look out the window into the dark, at our car bathed in sickly yellow light to see if it is being stolen as if that look could change anything. "I have the license plate number," I could say, "it's definitely ours."

Years ago now, when I was ten or so, I would walk home from school by myself. And even though I was old enough to do so in our small Northern California town, I would always sit in the brown wide-backed chairs, now pockmarked by the claws of cats, dead and returned to life, with a baseball bat in my hands, watching cartoons and waiting for an intruder to appear. The mind is a strange thing. Fear will have nothing to do with rationality. Even on the best of days they sleep in separate beds. Strangely, those distended afternoons, the sun a virulent yellow, cracking dirt and wilting grass, and me, watching cartoons with the door open, afraid that someone was already in the house and that I would need to run out into the street. I am certain that an open door through which a main character always wants to escape should be used as some sort of metaphor. I don't use metaphors.

Occasionally I would stand up and walk across the white linoleum floor, streaked with grime and dirt from years of playing football in the back yard, and look out the back door expecting to see a face to meet my face. The door was made of a thick double paned glass, but I feared every time that I would look out the window and see someone. A person specially created for the express purpose of ending my life. After I had quelled my fears I would open the cupboard and pour cinnamon sugar into my mouth and screw back on the top so that no one would ever know.


After an hour or so had passed I would cross the room and close the front door. I knew that my older siblings would be returning home soon and would find it strange that I was sitting in the living room with a bat across my knees watching a dressed up duck foiling crimes. Eventually, I would end up on the floor eating cinnamon graham crackers and starting raptly at the screen. Those years I didn't have any sort of guilt complex associated with watching television. My mother doesn't even keep her television plugged in anymore. Every time I see my family they tell the story about how I threw a knife at my brother and my sister is quick to chime in with the ruler incident. Man is not peaceful it seems, unless peace is thrust upon him. It's strange the stories they don't even know enough to tell. Those endless afternoons waiting for someone to appear so that I could run and the sweet rush of cinnamon sugar.

In the evening she wakes me up with a push. "I think I hear someone downstairs," she says. I sit up, try and tell her that she's crazy, and that we'd be better served to go back to bed. "If neither one of us moves," I say "he'll never know we were here. This is probably the best way to avoid getting killed."
She tells me that I need to check the house. And as my feet hit the warm hardwood floor, I think back to childhood, how I used to carry a bat across my knees in preparation. I walk downstairs empty-handed, hoping that someone has just stopped in for tea. It is dark downstairs, and I keep the lights low. I stand in the living room, warm light pushes through the blinds from the front porch, and I notice that all of the doors are closed. There is nowhere left to run. I wish I knew how to use metaphors, doors seem to make such good ones.

Kafka: "Oh, plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope--but not for us"

Suggestions while you're working

Unfortunately, I've started to run out of web sites to check while I'm, ostensibly working. This is a tragic occurrence, rivaled only by the Peloponnesian War and the ensuing crisis, which though terrible in terms of human lives lost, contributed to a real growth in philosophy. Although, the greatest tragedy of reading something like the Pelop/War is seeing the great historian, Thucidyes recording the events. Do you know why Thucidyes wrote about the Pelop/War? Because his name was Thucidyes. What the hell else are you going to do? Fix chariots down at the tracks? Hell no! Your name is Thucidyes. You probably need to have a job like imminent historian or philosopher extraordinaire. Life is pretty much decided for you.

I think I had a point like a paragraph back. Anyhow, here is a reenactment of my day on the computer. Working....I wonder what the weather is like? Checks weather at 20016. Continues to work. Working...I wonder when the season finale of Glee is? Resists the urge to check in favor of continuing work. Working...I wonder if someone has e-mailed me in the two minutes since I last checked my e-mail? Oh. no. What if I update it now? No. And, now? No. Huh. I wonder if espn.com has an update about the Finals posted. As I'm reading the article I realize how incredibly vapid it is, and I mentally beat myself up, I say things like, "how is this furthering your career as a writer? (Though inexplicably, despite its appropriate usage, I don't use the word furthering. I say something more like, "How is this helping you to become a better writer. If I had used furthering in the first place I'd be a better writer).

Working...I wonder if someone has updated their facebook status and said something incredibly, mind-alteringly funny. Huh. No. Just the usual stuff. Maybe if I check it now. I wonder what N. is up to. I haven't seen them in seventeen years. The kids look well. Unmarried though. Tough break. Working...Oh, someone commented on my wall post. "I removed my name from your wall post." Well, at least I have that comment. Can I like my own status? What if it isn't even good? Is it good? Is it funny? Will people read it, and say to themselves, "What a clever bastard?" Will they chuckle? If it's really funny will they read it to someone else in the room with the tag line, "You're going to love this?" Is this much self-consciousness even necessary? Thank God I generally write fiction.

Working....Do you think Mgoblog has updated something about Michigan Football? Gobluewolverine.com? UM Hoops? Maybe in the mean time ESPN has put up an article that is going to change the way I think about basketball. "Kobe says the game is going to be hard fought. The Celtics are good, and they really want to win. I also want to win," said Bryant. How quickly can I scroll? Maybe the next one is going to be great.

What is the relative measurement of engagment between "liking" something and posting an actual comment. Because, I like to like things, but am I really just copping out? Should I be doing something more? Why haven't I read Moby Dick or any Chekhov? Can anyone recommend "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie?" In the end....Wait, what else. HTML giant? The Atlantic.com? ???????

Because earlier I linked to the Pelop/War and used the word philosophy.

Yup

Oooohhh it's pretty. And no, I haven't ever seen the OC. I'm 30. And, even if I had, I lived in Southern California at the time and Chino was nothing like that. Also, if you're from California you don't call it Socal or Cali. It is California and Southern California, those water stealing bastards.

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Now let us all praise fiction: DFW style.

"Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved. Drugs, movies where stuff blows up, loud parties -- all these chase away loneliness by making me forget my name's Dave and I live in a one-by-one box of bone no other party can penetrate or know. Fiction, poetry, music, really deep serious sex, and, in various ways, religion -- these are the places (for me) where loneliness is countenanced, stared down, transfigured, treated."

"If what's always distinguished bad writing--flat characters, a narrative world that's clichéd and not recognizably human, etc.--is also a description of today's world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then [Bret] Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we'd probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it."

"This is another paradox, that many of the most important impressions and thoughts in a person's life are ones that flash through your head so fast that fast isn't even the right word, they seem totally different from or outside of the regular sequential clock time we all live by, and they have so little relation to the sort of linear, one-word-after-another word English we all communicate with each other with that it could easily take a whole lifetime just to spell out the contents of one split-second's flash of thoughts and connections, etc. -- and yet we all seem to go around trying to use English (or whatever language our native country happens to use, it goes without saying) to try to convey to other people what we're thinking and to find out what they're thinking, when in fact deep down everybody knows it's a charade and they're just going through the motions. What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny part of it at any given instant."

Some things we should probably talk about over a glass of lemonade on the front porch with our feet swinging through the daylight.

The one issue that I have with the title is that it is too long. Titles should be short and to the point. Think Dickens. David Copperfield, excellent book and you already know what it's going to be about. It's going to be a wonderful story about a hot ass illusionist in Vegas. But oh wait, Dickens, in classic Dickens style, trumps the readers expectations by writing about some lowly kid who rises to greatness. And I think it's safe to say that 95 percent of people who have read David Copperfield are pretty pissed that they didn't pick up some neat biographical details about the illusionist, or at least a more effective way to pull off a card trick.

A really boring/illuminating conversation about how people go about filling their ice trays.

M: I like the ice trays to be filled halfway.

S: Stop! Can you at least do it in this tray? I find it impossible to (Wait. Are you quoting an extended passage about ice cube trays? You're damn right I am!) get them out and I end up having to wash it frequently.

M: To clean up all that dirty water, with, you know, water.

S: (Switches trays with me. Pours the water in and tips the tray)

M: What are you doing?

S: I'm making them even.

M: Who cares? Do all of our pieces of ice need to be symmetrical? (Incidentally, go ahead and read in a little. Ie me=artsy. Non-conformist etc/lazy.

S: I just hate these ice cube trays. I feel like they don't work.

M: I feel like they do work. We put water in the little spaces. Then we put it in the freezer and it turns into ice. I'm not looking for a lot more than that from my ice cube trays.

S: (Sighs).

Every day that I log in to my e-mail account I briefly encounter a barrage of stories. Little micro-stories presumably written by chimps after they've finished Shakespeare, which are generally about guys and gals. Not a term I'd ever use. You get to read secrets of what men and women really think about each other during sex, or relationships or whatever. I think I can speak for at least 3 percent of the population when I say, who the hell cares? What does this have to do with me? Nothing. So I'm going to lay it down for you straight. I think the kids might say dope at some point. I'm not sure. And, if my blog doesn't get as many hits as MSN I'll take to the streets and interview like five of my friends who can then say vacuous things about members of the opposite sex.

The straight dope. (I did it).

Here are things that men don't like.

1) When you're doing the laundry and you take every last thing downstairs in preparation to be washed without replacing the towel on our door. Why? Because if it's the dead of winter then it's freezing when the shower shuts off and you're standing there sans clothes shivering like a little puppy because you don't have your towel. Secondarily, we are now faced with the prospect of walking across the bathroom floor, perhaps even the hardwood floors to retrieve a towel. And the problem is that we know that you hate it when we get the floor wet. So we're faced with a conundrum, though it's more like a double bind. And so now we are in strict violation of your no wet floor policy all the while crossing the room sans clothes past the windows that you can sort of see into from the street. And now, I'm (yes I went ahead and made the switch) down on the floor mopping the dirty floor to get up all that perspiration, and I'm late for work and cold and irritated. I mean, just put the towel on the door.

2) Whenever I'm driving anything that I choose to do should be regarded as sacrosanct. I like to be regarded as a four year old regards her dad. Like a superhero. If I decide to blow through a red light nearly sideswiping a biker on my way, under not circumstances should you ever make a peep or a rush of breath, or say something like, "You almost hit that guy." Because you know what the answer is? "If I had wanted to hit that guy I would have. But oh look, he's doing just fine." The only way this rule can be violated is if I'm actually about to kill us in a head on collision with a train, and even then, it's probably best to just let it happen and sneak in a prayer for good measure.

Also, whatever I do on the road should be regarded as someone else's fault. If someone takes a right turn into their driveway, and I call them a beep for buying a house where I'm trying to drive, the right answer is to insist, in slightly more vulgar language that the candy ass bastard shouldn't have bought a big house on Nebraska when he damn well knew people would be driving on it. At this point it is proper for the sig. other riding shotgun to suggest coming by later to vandalize the person's house. Why? Because then I, as the driver can laugh it off and think to myself, "she crazy." This then allows my heart rate to drop down to a reasonable level, which is beneficial for you because I have a job and make some amount of money. It's a win, win, win.

Note: As I was getting a glass of water before the blue ice cube tray did prove to be a little problematic. Aka useless.

I'm certain that I have like ten other things.

I'll give you the Reader's Digest Version of MSN stories, so you don't have to slog through that drivel like I do.

Story: 11 foods that help you shed pounds.

1-11-Insert a fruit or vegetable here. Exercise while you're doing it.

Story: What guys wish you'd wear on a date.

A sun dress. Any other answer is both wrong and hurtful.

Story: Why you should get an internship.

Because after you leave it they'll offer you a job. Alternatively, don't because they don't pay you.

Story: Strategies to help you stop snoring.

Willpower. use it.

Story: Ten things you should have in your car.

That list is too long. blanket. Uh, phone. Back seat. Am I at ten yet. Glove compartment gun that shoots out one of those things that says pow for laughs on the road.

Story: 12 Things Guys wish you knew in bed

When it's hot stay away. The location of my book. The location of my book mark. Why do we have so many non-utilitarian pillows? etc.

Story: Whey he hasn't proposed yet.

He doesn't want to. Alternatively: He has bought the ring but is freaking out about it.

Seven is pretty much ten.

Some evening conversation.

S: I'm a failure at life.

M: We all are. But you know what we're not going to fail at? Death. We're all going to die.

S: Andrew, you know how to cheer a girl up.

M: I do what I can.