At the very least, she could have buzzed out the winning lottery numbers
May 31, 2007 (12:01 a.m.)
It was apparently the night for vivid dreams. My wife dreamed that a coworker had a baby. Another coworker dreamed that they'd adopted a child. Yet another coworker dreamed that someone in our department poisoned all of us with tainted potato salad.
Me? I dreamed our baby was an insect. Not a massive, baby-sized Metamorphosis-style insect, but a regular-sized insect. But she was going through all of these larval-style changes, mutating from one type of insect to another. Ultimately, she turned into this black-winged variety, and I remember looking down in the basinet, incredibly peeved.
"The books didn't cover this," I remember fuming. "How am I going to keep her in her basinet? She's got wings, for crying out loud. Her mom's going to kill me."
I talk a lot about how quickly our girl is developing, so I figure that's the basis for the dream. She seems to have a new skill every day, so it's only natural to translate that into a dream like mine, I reckon.
When the devil came, he was not red. He was frosted...
(With apologies to Wilco's "Hell is Chrome")
May 28th, 2007 (11:37 p.m.)
My inlaws' fondness for sweets is remarkable. Especially to someone like me, who isn't much of a sugar junkie (apart from my beloved sweet tea, and part of the appeal there is the caffeine). If I'd ever gotten to write a Star Trek episode, I'd have paid tribute to them by concocting a race of beings who subsist purely on sugar water and chocolate.
I still remember travelling to their home for some holiday, and someone had prepared a rich, moist, layer-laden chocolate cake. But they couldn't tear into it for a couple of days. And it was driving them crazy. Someone was always talking about how they couldn't wait to get into that cake, about how they were looking forward to their cake, about how they were going to eat a ton of that cake.
I really don't mean to sound like I'm picking on them. They're wonderful folks, and their preoccupation with that cake mirrors my own obsession with spicy seafood dishes. So it's not like I can talk.
But whenever there's dessert available, they like to construct this gauntlet through the kitchen that I call the Diabetic Corridor. On a big holiday like Christmas or Easter, they leave desserts laying out all day, covering every surface in the kitchen, so that you can't help but graze on sweets whenever you pass through the kitchen. Even this past weekend, which was for a birthday, the cake stayed out there right on the edge of the counter, where it was always in arm's reach as you passed through, day or night.
Even I succumbed, and I don't even really like sweets.
If you can't steal ideas from your family, then why even have family?
May 28, 2007 (11:22 a.m)
My sister posted this on her Flickr page, since she's apparently
abandoned those of us who depend on her blog for news of her life, to reports of
last year's buck-dancing festivals. The horror. I mean,
where will I go now to hear about mulletted buck-dancers breaking the sound barrier
with their twirling legs?
Anyway, my mom found the obituary for a relative who died in 1918, and the text -- under the heading of "Ripe Old Christian Passes" -- is pure poetry:
"After lingering for months with a broken hip caused from a fall, Mrs. Mary Ann Gilstrap, eighty eight years old, a sweet old soul who had ripened to perfection in the Christian life, laid down the cares of the world and took up her harp and crown in that other and better world, last Tuesday morning just as the light was breaking in the East."
"Those who knew Aunt Gilstrap most intimately know how truthfully we write when we say that she was an almost perfected saint before the cords of life were cut and she went away to a better home. Her whole self was covered in goodness. She loved everybody and hated nobody."
"She had been a member of the Methodist church for seventy six years, and as the end of her way on earth came into view she saw it joined on that bright way that leads to the throne of God. There was no doubt in her mind; there was no hesitation in her step; there was not a cloud to obscure the Son of Righteousness as she gazed forward to eternity..."
"...and then the body was laid to rest beside the remains of her husband who had proceeded her to the house of clay."
You just don't get obituaries like that anymore. I especially like "house of clay." That's positively Medieval in its imagery and ability to load a ton of meaning into a short phrase.
"When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem."
(Edward Abbey)
May 26th, 2007 (12:34 a.m.)
Our original plan was to wait till our daughter was five or
six, and then let her pick a puppy out at the pound. But like a friend told my wife,
pets usually end up picking their owners. Just ask my mother, who's had up to a
dozen cats at a time -- not because she's some crazy cat lady, but because she lives
in the country like we do. Things tend to just wander their way to your yards out
here.
A puppy showed up at the house the other night. About midnight, I heard some howling and, when I turned on the outside lights, I saw a puppy bouncing around the yard. Didn't think too much of it. It takes at least four, five stray dogs to warrant a second look around here. I still remember the night I took the trash can down to the bottom of the driveway, only to find about four of the neighborhood dogs sitting there in the dark, silently appraising me.
But anyway, the next morning, the puppy was still there, camped out on the front porch. And after we got back from work, the puppy was still there, in the exact same spot. So for formality's sake, we had our discussion about whether to take it to the pound (we wouldn't have the heart), whether to search for its owner (we don't really live in an area where you go knocking on doors, even those of your neighbors), and then I promptly went out and bought some puppy chow.
It's a cute little mutt, with one brown eye and one ice-blue
eye that's a little unsettling when you look into it. It reminds me, especially
due to its gigantic paws, of a couple of dogs my sister used to have. Those things
grew up to be massive. And this one looks like it has the same genetics.
Cute little fellow, if a little skittish (he's probably been chased away from houses, or struck at some point). But he's learning to trust us, and pretty soon we'll be able to get him to the vet to get him checked out.
So does Angelina Jolie get something like this every time she travels abroad?
May 19, 2007 (1:10 a.m.)
A
friend and his wife are currently over in China, adopting a little girl. They've
had the baby for a few days now, and are taking chances to see the sights before
they have to head back on that hellish-sounding, long plane ride full of nothing but parents and their adopted babies. They've had some fascinating tales to tell,
of traditional "gifts" to adoption officials, of paperwork and bureacracy, and of
hotels where every room comes equipped with a baby crib.
It's been a hard road for them, both in the adoption process and in the process of letting the baby get acclimated to them. But they'll be fine. They're nice, caring people, and the baby couldn't be adopted into a better family.
There was this interesting item, though. The hotel where they're staying also gives each family a Mattel-produced Barbie doll that comes with its own Chinese baby. I don't think it's a bad idea. My mixed feelings about Barbie dolls aside, I can see the value of a child having a doll that approximates their own situation. But on the other hand, you have to tip your hat to whoever came up with the idea. That's some fine target marketing.
This month's self-pimpin'
May 07, 2007 (12:20 a.m.)
New column up on PopMatters, "Collective Impulses."
So if you detect a note of fear in my voice when I ask, "Is she teething yet?"...
May 07, 2007 (12:06 a.m.)
For some reason, one of my childhood's lingering images is the movie poster for It's Alive, an early '70s horror movie about a human baby that's actually a mutant/monster with razor-sharp fangs and claws. The poster depicts a cradle, but from an angle where you can't see the baby -- only its claw-like hand reaching out.
The movie (or at least one of its sequels, It's Alive III: Island of the Alive) is also at the center of a truly sad and embarassing college-age story that I can't tell publicly until my parents have either passed on or given up their Internet access, but that's neither here-nor-there. Suffice to say that it's right up there near the top of my list of sad and embarassing dating stories, and that's saying something.
Anyway, I've taken to thinking about the film these days because we have the baby's basinet beside our bed. By the time I get to bed, our daughter's usually fast asleep. So before I get to sleep, I'm able to spend a little bit of time listening to her breathe.
People like to give the impression that everything babies do is quiet and gentle, and practically butterfly-kissed by the wings of angels. Well, lemme tell ya, when you're laying there in bed, staring at the side of a basinet, you'd swear that someone had dropped a troll baby in there.
She constantly breathes, sighs, snores, wheezes, passes gas, fidgets, and mutters things in a strange baby language while she sleeps. And she makes this weird smacking sound with her mouth that would make you swear said troll baby was feasting on a deer carcass. Some nights, you honestly expect to see a little claw raise emerge from the basinet, reaching up to eviscerate the stuffed elephants on the mobile hanging just above.
Really, at this point, the only sound that makes you the least bit concerned -- and keeps you up at night -- is silence.