sounds familiar

Happy Thursday.

Another tearful pregnant moment tonight. Sharaun again expressing her intense searing hatred for our new wood floors. If anything on earth would motivate me to invent a time machine, it would be the chance that I could go back in time and choose a cheaper, more durable laminate over the more expensive, more easily marred, hardwood. A year of the old “I hate this carpet” stuff… that’s what I’d trade for one evening of this hormone-intensified hardwood drama.

But onto things more random and less self-pitying.

Sometimes when I’m in bed at night drifting off to sleep I’ll try and “seed” my dreams. In other words, I’ll spend those last few minutes of my waking day daydreaming about something in an attempt at establishing continuity from my conscious thoughts to the subconscious ones that come unbidden once I’ve submitted to the Sandman. I don’t think I have much success, but it’s hard to tell.

I do know that, for whatever reason, since I was a kid I’ve always thought that the quality of my pre-sleep daydreams can be impacted by how I’m physically laying. That’s right. As a kid I could’ve sworn that laying to one side or the other was more or less conducive to keeping my fantasy thoughts on-theme.

For example, if I was trying to kickstart a sleeping dream about being at the beach I’d do some closed-eye beach daydreaming in bed. Thing is, I found that laying to one side or another made that easier or harder. To the left – beach thoughts swirled and coalesced nicely; to the right – I couldn’t keep my mind on-task.

I still do this today, so many years later. I’ll flip and flop around until I find just the right spot and can vividly picture the elaborate treehouse I’ve moved our family into. We’ve got all the Swiss-Family style mod cons and we’re setup to enjoy the essence of living tucked away together in some forest or on some island. If I turn my hip just so and get it to not dig into the mattress at that odd angle I can even smell the pine or ocean. Maybe I can parlay this into some fantastic dream about the future of our life together in this place. If I can just manage to get a pinch of comforter between my two knees so the hard bones aren’t resting on each other, I’ll be able to see the cloudless sky. C’mon subconscious… do this for me.

Before I go, let me ask you guys a question: Is the text on the blog too tight? I mean line-spacing, is it hard to read? Would it be easier if I put a little more space in there? Aesthetically, visually, I like tight text. I think blocks of words look better without all the whitespace but I don’t want to lose readers because of it. OK thanks. Oh before I get off the meta-blogging, I’ve added support for threaded comments (i.e. you can reply to others’ comments now), which is kinda cool. It should make the overflowing comment situation a little more manageable. Sarcasm.

Goodnight.

Halfway mark again.  Halfway to Friday over and over again makes it feel like you’ll never ever really get there.

Gym still filled to bursting with the new-year converts.  Got there and realized I’d forgotten my headphones.  Wrecked my whole plan.  I had the iPod on “all songs” for Radiohead and was planning one hell of a shuffle.  Was gonna bliss out to Radiohead and read my vintage 1950s “masterpiece” about junkies and junkie life, Burroughs‘ The Naked Lunch.  Got turned onto the book from some hipster messageboard.  Those guys may be too cool for anything but they have some good taste in literature.  Decided to abbreviate the workout, put in 500 calories worth and called it a night.  I’m under count today anyway.

Let’s write.

Remember when you were a kid and you assumed that everyone did the same things you and your family did in the same way you and your family did?  From early gradeschool through just before highschool kids go through one long period of social sensitivity training.  During this time a kid finds out, experience by experience and person by person, that the world is a whole lot bigger and more diverse than their tiny family, the things they do, and they ways they do them.  I remember being confused when people didn’t understand the slang my family used, the special places we knew or why they were special, or even the things we didn’t know or hadn’t done.  It’s hard on a kid… finding out things are different than what you know, finding out people might think something that’s all you’ve ever known is “weird.”

I went over to a friend’s house to spend the night once.  I thought it was so odd that his family made a kind of chocolate milk drink but instead of using chocolate syrup they used regular old pancake syrup.  “Syrup milk,” my friend called it when he introduced it to me.  “Weird,” I thought.  But that stuff was good.  My friend knew what he was about.  Back around the same time I used to go with a group of kids to a certain house after school.  The mom there ran a sort of after-school care thing for about ten local neighborhood kids and my brother and I were two of them.  Also in the group was a set of twins.  The twins came from a christian family, matter of fact they had model christian names, prophets I think.  These kids were fun; good kids.  I liked them.  But man I couldn’t shake the “off” feeling I got when they kept on about Jesus this and God that.  See I wasn’t exposed to that.  Wasn’t normal for me and was thus foreign.

How about from the other direction?  Remember the first time you realized not every family prayed before they ate?  If you ever ate at my house you would.  We’d dig right in, not a word of thanks to God.  Food comes from the grocery store.  I thanked the produce man for the firm broccoli; put a dollar in the Jerry Lewis thing too.  Don’t call me heathen.  When these revelations of youth coincide with religion I bet it’s particularly stark for a kid.  What do you mean you don’t do Family Home Evening on Mondays?  Don’t you know your sleepover is on the weekend I’m being confirmed?  What do you mean you’re not going to be called up to the Torah?  What do you mean “What’s the Torah?!”  How can your church not believe in having a kitchen?  It’s not a “bracelet” it’s a kara.  You mean your God doesn’t require Wednesday night worship?  Gotta miss the first part of band practice; salah.  But don’t you guys use the same Bible?  Wait.. there are different Bibles?

I can remember being embarrassed the first time I called a mosquito a “gaboo” in front of friends.  I knew it was called a mosquito.  I just though everyone called them gaboos.  Apparently not.  Gaboos was some baby-speak invention of mine, appropriated into family parlance at some point and further legitimized by my folks’ frequent usage.  How was I supposed to know it wasn’t a real word?  I’d heard it all my life and just assumed it was.  What other words should I question?  What more lies had my parents fed me in order to humiliate me in front of my peers?  Is that thing between my legs really a “bosco?”

I don’t know, I’ve just always put ketchup on my macaroni and cheese.

No.  My folks don’t make me wear a helmet.

My mom says God said pork is unclean.

You can watch PG-13 movies?!

A shower?  At night?

Yes a kid’s worldview can be shattered and re-arranged on a daily basis as they start to absorb the world around them.  Gets even more complicated once you get old enough for overnight trips to friends’ houses.  Talk about getting a firsthand view to some of the stranger of folks’ daily rituals.  Watching another kid’s bedtime routine, another family’s mealtime choreography, TV preferences, household policies.  It can be quite the experience to realize things aren’t the same as, to you, they’ve always ever been.  A critical part in the culturing of a person, defining moments for future tolerances and interaction.

Think about it, you know your family did something “weird”…

Growing up.  Goodnight.

I know “they say” you can’t catch-up on sleep. But Monday’s lack of writing is because I tried to do just that. Went to bed around 9pm on Sunday (hence no blog) and had one wonderfully blissful sleep where I awakened a couple times to revel in how rested I was feeling.  Perfect sleep.

In just over a week Sharaun and I find out the sex of the little life currently steeping in her womb. And although it sure felt like it was a long-time coming, the pregnancy has, so far, been speeding by in a month-by-month blur. Sharaun’s been feeling mostly well, a few bouts with migraines (she suffered from this with Keaton as well) and an overall malaise at points, but by and large she’s been top-shape. With her condition in good shape our brains are free to wander: dreaming up names for both boys and girls, contemplating how to best deal with the space constraints of our current house once the baby is here, and generally trying to remember what it’s like to have an infant (funny how fast we forget).

When asked, over the past few years spent “trying” for number-two, what I “wanted,” I always responded “a boy!” Which is true, really… I always have wanted a boy… for a bunch of different reasons. Now that the time is near, however, I find my feelings on the matter a bit less simple. Sure I’d still like a boy for all sorts of reasons – carrying on the family name, father/son bonding, Star Wars, etc., – but some part of me is a little more nervous about it than before. I mean, I know how to do girls… I’ve done girls already. A boy is a whole other thing, and there are some things about that thing that truly inspire some sort of nervous fear within me.

For instance, as a man I feel there’s an increased potential for me to “mess up” a boy. I mean, young men look to the older male role models in their life for guidance and to pattern their behavior (consciously or not). I know young girls are equally shaped by their fathers, but the “weight” of my role as a father to a boy seems greater than that of a girl.

Maybe this is because I feel like, at some point in Keaton’s life, what she’s going through will become foreign to me. I never got my first period or had a crush on a boy or grew boobs or needed to shave my legs before I was allowed. I simply cannot relate to those experiences, and that’s where Sharaun will step in and become a trusted companion. I hope to still be there and still be important, but I can’t play like I can relate.

On the other hand I know firsthand what it’s like to get your first wet-dream while spending the night at a friend’s house. I’m well-versed in the spontaneous erections of middle school and know the conflicting feelings that swirl as you’re cheered on by friends to drink that that first beer or smoke that first cigarette. I know the tension before a first kiss and the teenage gravity of “being cool.”

Yes, to these things, I can relate. And because of that I feel like I may be more “relevant” to a boy in those key adolescent years than I might be to a girl. This could be wrong, but it’s something I think about. If I give bad guidance to, set a bad example for, or simply can’t relate correctly to my kids (girl or boy) it can have a big impact. Something in me feels this responsibility more keenly when it comes to raising a boy, however. Maybe this is a fleeting thing… something brought about by the anticipation of the unknown. I guess I won’t know until we find out; or maybe until each kid is a teenager; or until they’re grown and are proven adults; or maybe never.

What’s funny is I feel increased responsibility not only because I might be able to relate to a boy a little better, but also because I’m scared there are some “traditional” boyhood things to which I won’t relate well at all. Let me explain: This past weekend I was talking to a buddy of mine and he was telling me how he’s teaching his kid to swing a bat. His son is five. He explained to me, expecting recognition in my eyes, “You know I tell him to drop his elbows, get his feet right, bend his knees, and swing with his belly button.” I nod, not because I understand but because the logic sounds fine to me. I have no idea how to swing a bat, so these tips sound fair. In the same conversation my confidence was further shaken as he got into how to kick a football.

I just don’t know how to do those things. What does the secondary do? What’s a pivot foot? How do you throw a curveball? Wood or iron? Where should the sweeper be? I have no idea. “So what?,” you may be tempted to say. Yeah, I know… so what. Say it’s silly if you will, I would too… but it’s something I think about. I won’t be the little league co-coach for my son’s team, won’t be much good pitching around with him or setting him up with practice grounders or pop-ups. Where should you be if the other team’s in the paint? I don’t know. I can’t help you there. Who played slide on Cowboy’s 1971 album? Oh no worries, everyone knows that was the incomparable Duane Allman.

So yeah, part of me is worried I’ll stink at some archetypal dad stuff more with a boy than I would with a girl.  I tell myself not everyone can be good at everything, and that I won’t be able to teach my kid much about Eskimo folklore either… but it doesn’t help much.

Yes I still want a boy, but both Sharaun and I are convinced we’re gonna get another girl because of it!

Goodnight.

Thursday night already.  Early this week I said I was trapped in amber.  More like quicksand.  Time is fickle; my perception of it changes depending on the viewing angle.

Man the wind is really whipping the rain into the windowglass.  It’s cold out too.  Walking to the car after the gym reminded me of when I was a kid and I had a fever.   My mom used to bring me a damp washcloth and I’d fold it in perfect thirds and lay it across my forehead and eyes.  The coolness felt so good.  After physics brought it slowly to match room temperature I’d hold it by the corner and spin it around in violent circles for thirty seconds or so to get it ice-cold again.  That was me tonight walking.  Sweat-soaked like that damp rag and wind-whipped into iciness.  Dang it was chilly.

Let’s skip ahead and write, shall we?

People probably know I love data. Well, I love organized data. Data by itself is, ostensibly, crap. Organized data can tell stories or support facts or win and lose arguments. Statistics. It’s all about statistics.  In one manner or another I’ve written about statistics again and again and again and again and again and again.  Wanna know how important statistics are?  Did you know that the magnitude of computations required to launch an orbiting satellite is about equal to what McDonald’s does in determining how to advertise a new hamburger? OK, I’ll admit I made that last bit up. But it’s OK because 57% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Certainly it would be ignorant to downplay the role of statistics in our lives, they run everything from the stock market to the insurance industry to how much the stamp you use mail a postcard is going to cost you.

I mention my statistics fetish as a lead-in to a link I wanted to share. I don’t do a lot of link-sharing on the blog much anymore. I used to. Back in the early days I would share links all the time. Now I think I’ve gotten somewhat pretentious and I aim to fill an entry with some sort of introspection or interesting novel content. There’s nothing wrong with linking though, I don’t look down on it or anything, I guess the way I treat the blog as an “outlet” has changed. Or I’ve perceived my audience to have changed (those I know about and can safely “count” as somewhat regular readership). Uh-oh I’m writing a paragraph about nothing again. I completely blame the last book I read. A good 50% of it was all internal-monologue asides to the story arc. I better get to the point here…

Here’s a really interesting statistics-filled post on the internet dating site OkCupid’s official blog.

When I was “dating,” which was a very small period in my life, online dating sites weren’t around. I’ve never needed to use one. I don’t have anything against them, I suppose it’s as valid a way to whittle the prospects as any. Heck perhaps it’s even a smarter-than-average way if “average” means going to the bar every Friday and Saturday night. It’s just that since I’ve been with the same woman now for something like seventeen years (yes, really) I’ve never had the opportunity to have to choose to either use, or not, a site like OkCupid. That being the case I’ve never even thought about what a labor it must be to make some of the seemingly simple decisions around how to “market” yourself to a potential mate online.

But think about it… it’s a non-trivial thing. In my mind I liken it somewhat to writing a resume or an annual “self review” at work. Here I have a single sheet of paper and on it I am supposed to give an accurate representation of myself. My skills, my accomplishments, my attitude, my ethic, etc. All of this must be distilled into a very limited amount of space. Same with an online dating profile I’d assume. Here I have this little plot of internet to communicate who I am, what I’m looking for, and why you should be interested in me. Stopping to consider it for a minute I can see why there might be fair amount of apprehension in putting oneself out there.

So back to the OkCupid blog. What a great article! If you didn’t click and read it yet, it’s just talking about the various ways a person’s dating profile picture impacts how “successful” their online dating “return rate” is. They do a great job digging the meaningful and interesting nuggets out of what is likely a mountain of data. Some of the charts are really insightful, and could just as easily (I bet) be applied to how “successful” folks are on any kind of social-media website.  I’ll tell you, when I decide to make the move into the fast-paced world of online social interaction I’m gonna take me one humdinger of a profile picture.

Goodnight.

Several people lately have told me I should dispense with any hesitations and shave my head. These admonitions are usually accompanied by an insistence that my refusal to do so is because I am somehow loath to admit I’m actually balding. Let me try and address that for the here and now: I am clearly balding; I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Oh and I must admit I’ve been tempted at times to give the whole thing a high-and-tight that’d do a boot camp barber proud, I’ve just never gone the distance. Mostly, I think, because Sharaun has discouraged me. Second-mostly, I think, because I have a really hard time envisioning what I’d look like sans hair. Well, sans all hair, that is. In some way I think shaving the dome would be nothing short of luxury. I could cease worrying about hats in summer and instead slather the entire bald thing with sunscreen. I could throw away the old hairbrush I keep at work for those days when I do a midday gym. I could save money on shampoo. I might look younger. Then again, I might look older.

I had this discussion with a friend of mine from work who was visiting. We run into each other every few months it seems, but when we do I always enjoy our conversations. Ten years ago I worked with this guy before he moved onto a different job at the sawmill, in another sawmill location that is. And no, I think I’ve mentioned before I don’t actually work at a sawmill. In the non-blog world it’s an international technology company; personnel-wise a huge stable of nerds slaving away in front of computers. Anyway he’s had a shaved head for years now, did it sometime after he left where I work and went to work where he works now. He was encouraging me to do so, even while admitting his stubbly head shreds pillowcases.

His argument was compelling, not because his head looked so magnificent or he’s a gifted salesman, but (I think) owing to his current situation. See, this buddy of mine is on the precipice, about to make a large-scale transition in his life. About to leave his career at the sawmill (a quite successful and well-run career thus far, additionally). He’s weeks out from moving into a winery in the desert and taking over lock, stock, and barrel. He and his bald head are trading the shoulder-high cubicle maze and HR reps for days under the sun in the grape rows. Looking at the light in his eyes as we talked varietals, soil conditions, acreage, and supply/demand, I began imagining his head shining under the harsh desert sun as he tallied sugar content in the chardonnay. In every way I romanticized his current lot…

Somehow the allure of working the earth to produce something even Jesus deemed an “upgrade” to water, a substance already molecularly perfect and life-sustaining, transferred onto the discussion of whether or not I should shave my head. So it was that I found myself sitting there contemplating if liberating my skull of its furry covering might not also liberate my soul from its corporate prison. I doubt it… but the subconscious connection was made. Maybe my thinning crown is holding me back from my own desert winery… from my own hours toiling in the hot sun or down in cool dry cellars smelling of oak. How much might I gain by casting away so little? Look… I’ve turned it into a parable.

Yeah, I know, and I’ve written before, I have a good gig at work. It’s not too hard, just stressful; I’m compensated well for what I do and the demand on my time is far from unreasonable. It’s just fashionable to denigrate your job, right?

Maybe if I just shaved my head…

Goodnight.