Popskull

The Dog Days of Winter.

2011-02-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

So across the back alley from our house, right across from where we have to park our car, there is a yard. And in that yard there is a German Shepherd. He is a four-foot-tall dog behind a four-foot-tall fence. He is always outside, always barking his fool head off. Last summer and this fall, it was just annoying.

But now it's winter, and our neighbor has shoveled his driveway over and over and created a mound of snow that's as tall as the fence on either side. So the dog has a gently-sloping ramp over the fence. He can get out, and he's gotten out multiple times. When he does, he roams the neighborhood snarling and barking at anyone who gets within twenty feet of him. I don't know if he would attack me if I came closer because I'm not about to try.

Today, I got home from the grocery store with Ollie in the car. When I pulled up, the dog went into a barking frenzy, standing with his back paws level with the top of the fence on his side, and his front paws over the fence. So I grabbed Ollie out of the car and booked it into the house and called Animal Control. I guess you could argue that he didn't attack right then so he's not going to, but I don't buy it.

My conversation with Animal Control was yet another one of those Twilight Zone circular conversations. By the end of it, I learned that as long as the animal is currently behind a fence, the animal's lawfully contained. It doesn't matter that he's gotten out before under the same circumstances. It doesn't matter that all he had to do was move his back paws slightly to be out this time. It doesn't matter that there's a four-foot-wide section where there's a gently-sloping snow pack that covers the fence entirely. If the animal's currently inside the fence, and somewhere inside your enormous freakin' SNOW RAMP there's a fence, we're golden.

So I asked if they were just going to wait until the dog attacked someone to do something about it, and she pretty much said "yes." I asked if they would at least tell the owners to clear the snow away from the fence, and she said "no." As long as there's a fence, it doesn't matter that the dog can, will, and does climb over it on the handy snow mound provided for him.

It's a shame, because I don't blame the dog. I know it's his owners who leave him outside day and night, and I know it's in his nature to be territorial. But I don't like being scared for the safety of me and my family every time I park my car, and I don't think it's unreasonable for me to be scared of a big dog baring his teeth at my kid.

I almost wish the dog would just go ahead and bite me, so he could be taken away, and I could sue the city for negligence. But I definitely wish they would just remove the dog and put him up for adoption to a good home with a taller fence, so he can be someone's beloved pet instead of a half-feral, neglected animal.

Got You in My Sights.

2011-01-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

I heard a lot of rhetoric yesterday, and as usual, find myself unsatisfied with either end of the argument spectrum. Here are my thoughts, if you care. If you don't, I won't hold it against you if you don't read it.

My fellow liberals: the guy who shot the congresswoman was crazy. From what I've seen of his digital footprint, he was seriously mentally disturbed. Sarah Palin didn't convince him to fire those shots. He did it because he was crazy.

In the next couple of days, the media's going to be frantically searching for reasons why he did what he did. Just like with the Columbine massacre, they're going to keep digging until they find something they can use to desperately assign meaning to an inherently meaningless act. Since the target was a politician, a lot of them will stop when they see Sarah Palin's cross-hair graphic. But liberals, if we say that Sarah Palin is somehow culpable in this tragedy, we are also saying that Marilyn Manson and Doom are somehow culpable for Columbine. We know better than this. It's tempting, I know, to hang this on Palin, because it gives us a reason for this tragedy, and a reason that makes someone we dislike look bad. But the uncomfortable truth is there are no reasons. Dude was crazy. It's terrible, but there you go.

Now, my lovely conservatives (I still have some conservative friends, right?): it is beyond tacky for Sarah Palin to take down her cross-hairs graphic, and to post on Facebook "our hearts and prayers are with the family of congresswoman Giffords." Because here's the translation of that statement:

"All of last year, when I was using an extended gun metaphor to appeal to my gun-totin' constituents, when I was 'reloading' and 'takin' aim' and 'putting them in the cross-hairs' and 'firing a salvo,' and 'keepin' in my sights,' I never meant someone should actually go out and shoot them! All I did was call them enemies of liberty, traitors, communists, terrorists, people out to destroy our country, and then suggested we take them out!"

Now, keep in mind what I said to my liberal friends: Sarah Palin isn't responsible for anyone getting shot. But it'd be awfully nice if, now that we're living in a world where someone actually did literally put someone in the cross-hairs and take her out, that we'd stop talking about it metaphorically. That maybe we'd start talking about our political opponents not as frothing demons but as people who, just like us, want the best for our country, but disagree on what that best is. Maybe we could stop talking about politics like it's a combat zone, and talk about it like a partnership.

The war isn't liberal versus conservative or Republican versus Democrat. It's the sane versus the disturbed, the good-hearted versus the violent, the sensible versus the senseles. Yesterday, there were twelve casualties. So let's stop fighting in the ranks, okay?

All Is Quiet On New Year's Day.

2011-01-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

As the clock struck midnight, I didn't review the last year in my head like I thought I would. Instead, it occurred to me that this is the tenth anniversary of the start of what I will now think of forever as My Last Shitty Year.

2001: the last year I spent single, lonely, miserable, bouncing from terrible job to terrible job, always broke, always starving for affection. It began with the second half of my ridiculous attempt to make a living and/or become a rock star in Los Angeles. I lived in a studio apartment with my cat, had a fifteen-mile, hour-long commute to a boring dead-end job, and spent most evenings drinking alone at a karaoke bar, hoping my brooding would attract women. It didn't work.

So it was back to Phoenix, living with my parents again for a few months, a couple of temp jobs, another ghetto apartment. At least my attempt at selling cars for a living got cut short after 9/11 and a crisis of conscience, but quitting the salesman gig left me more broke than ever.

The end of 2001 was self-loathing and cigarettes, a couple of good friends trying to keep me sane, feeling somehow stuck and freefalling at the same time.

It's good to remember now, when the ceiling leaks in my awesome house, or I fight with my beautiful, wonderful wife, or my amazing child is being difficult, that there was an interminable amount of time where I was simply miserable with no hope of improvement. Before Jess began my life and saved my soul, before Kingdom of Loathing gave me a most improbable career, before I had a future, there was a vast, featureless expanse of gray. When I began 2001, I had no idea it'd be the Last Shitty Year.

Wonder what 2011's got?

The Last. . .

2010-11-28T18:32:00.000-08:00

This morning, after I had taken Oliver out of his crib and given him his morning change, I went back to bed and my wife watched him while I tried to sleep off whatever ridiculous cold/flu/plague I can't seem to shake. While I was sleeping, my wife watched Oliver climb out of the crib and almost fall to the ground. Just like that, it was time to switch him to a toddler bed.

So we hit up Craigslist, and we looked at some options, and we ended up with a nice little toddler bed. Oliver was thrilled to have a 'big boy bed,' and we laughed and clapped as we put it together in his room, and he jumped on it until he was dizzy and exhausted.

But then a thought occurred to me: last night was the last night I will ever put Oliver down to sleep in his crib. Even sadder, this morning was the last morning I will ever see him standing in his crib, smiling, holding out his arms and saying "Up!"

And I didn't know. This morning when I picked him up out of that crib for the last time, I didn't know it was the last. If I had known, would I have taken an extra second to smile back at him? Would I have cherished that weight in my arms as I lifted him? Would it have mattered if I did? Would I be more ready for this change -- all these changes -- all these little endings and beginnings?

Probably not. Life can only be perceived in the rearview mirror. Most of the important things we only recognize for what they are after they have passed. So we have to mourn a little, shed a few tears, and then move on, lest we miss the next big thing -- like our freshly minted big boy's first night in his big boy bed.

From the Left Wing.

2010-11-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

Twice in the past 24 hours, I've been caught in an argument against people who insist that voting independent is the only logical choice this election day. I've been called a mindless drone and a lunatic for my stance, and I'm done with it.

Edit: First, there's the bizarre idea that a third-party candidate is somehow better than an establishment candidate just because of the third-party status. Just being a Libertarian or a Green Party candidate doesn't automatically mean you're some hallowed savior sent to fix the system; like Democrat or Republican, it's just a label.

I do not believe for a second, especially in the context of the last two years, that the Democrats are 'just as bad' as the Republicans. No, senores. The Democrats haven't been actively blocking any attempt at improving the quality of life of the poor and middle class, while whining about expiring tax cuts for billionaires. The Dems haven't demonized everyone from Mexicans to Muslims to stir up fear and hate. The Dems haven't whined about deficit spending and refused to pass job-creating legislation, while also holding on to the tax cuts that will cost the country billions.

Most importantly, the Dems haven't embraced a culture of lies, willful ignorance, hateful stereotype, manipulation through terror, and anti-intellectualism. The Republicans have done all of those things, and more. Never before has an agenda been so transparent: protect the wealth of billionaires above all -- if a poor person having health care inconveniences a billion-dollar corporation, let the peasant die. If people getting unemployment benefits means rolling back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, let the peasants starve! They'll still vote for us, because we'll tell them if they don't, terrorists and immigrants and commies will take over the country!

No, the Democratic party isn't perfect. Yes, they've done a few things I don't agree with. They lack the backbone to be truly progressive, to stand up to pressure and do the right thing. They lack the discipline to get the entire voting bloc moving in unison, which leads to stalemates and deal-making (see the health care reform bill. Republican smear campaigns led to polls which scared off conservative democrats, which led to horseshit in the back room, all the while Republicans were voting as a single monolithic bloc). They're dead wrong about copyright law, and they are beholden to special interests.

But a lack of perfection does not mean they're the 'lesser of two evils.' I think in this election we have one evil, one good-hearted but flawed, and one party you can vote for if you want the evil guys to win. So no. I'm not voting for some damn libertarian or green party candidate this election, when the very soul of the nation is on the line. Maybe if the moderate right wing retakes the Republican party from these Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck lunatics, then I'd consider risking them winning an election and cast a vote for a third party. But not this time.

You look Incredible!

2010-10-27T19:24:00.000-07:00

This has got to stop.

After another futile day spent shopping for a pair of jeans, I'm about ready to hit up the Goodwill and buy some dead man's pants made back before the world lost its damn mind.

Every pair of jeans now comes with the descriptor "sits just below the waist." This does not mean, as you might imagine, that the jeans go right under a man's navel, thereby covering the man's butt and allowing room for a man's genitlia in the front.

No, 'sits below the waist' means "sits so low that every time you so much as sit in a chair and stand back up, you'll be tugging them back up over your ass, and crushing your nuts when you do so because there's no room in there for your junk." Actually, that's giving these pants too much credit. Even with a belt, as you walk around throughout the day, they're constantly working their way over the butt and down the legs. So you're either hanging in the breeze, or constantly adjusting your pants.

Now, I can understand the necessity of indelicate wardrobe-adjustments if the tradeoff is a pleasing aesthetic effect. If these pants made me look like the bottom half of Brad Pitt, or something, I would happily put up with constantly adjusting them. But they don't. They ride so low that they erase your ass in the back and emphasize your gut in the front. Basically, they make anyone who wears them look like Mr. Incredible: a giant tub of pudding on top of two spindly li'l legs:

Look out, ladies.

I'm sure any woman who reads this isn't exactly overflowing with sympathy, because women have been putting up with this for years. Not only do they contend with the ass-erasing, muffin-toping, butt-cleavage pants, but so much more clothing that is ill-fitting, uncomfortable, and unflattering. But let's be fair, ladies: they sold it to you because you bought it.

And now, sadly, it looks like not enough men put on these ridiculous nut-crushing plumbers-butt pants and said "you may insert these trousers forcibly into your rectum, Old Navy and The Gap, because my self-esteem is not hinged upon dressing trendily when the trends are fucktarded, so I shan't be buying your bullshit jeans." Nope. Have we finally lost our common sense, men? Have we finally lost that dignity that kept us from wearing ridiculous clothing just to chase a trend?

Given how many dudes I saw in calf-length plaid shorts this summer, I'm guessing yes.

Maybe I'll take up kilts.

In a word: Peacemaker

2010-10-02T23:36:00.000-07:00

You pay too much money for tickets, even without the fees. You pay a little too much for parking. You pay a little too much for drinks at the venue. You stand in front of a stage and you get jostled a little too much, shoved a little too much, pushed a little too much. The music is a little too loud. You're gonna stay out a little too late, and morning will come a little too soon.

And you do it because when they play, they open a tap in your brain and release a flood of happy memories: how she came bounding back to you through the crowd to dance during Green and Dumb. How you sang "Mexico" in Mexico. How "Nada" saved your life in Los Angeles. How Charlie told you the band who played that Jean Luc Picard song was doing a concert, and you went and they played for four amazing hours. How you watched the pregnant hippie dance at the Sedona show. Justin, Charlie, Ted, Erin, Autumn, Shannon, Jake, Taylor. So many friends, and so many shows, and so many good songs and you know every single word.

And it's worth every single 'little too' to open that tap, to remember every good time while you're having a new good time, to hold up your bottle (and if your bottle's empty, help yourself to mine) and say: "Here's to life."

It Was Great When It All Began . . .

2010-09-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

The Rocky Horror Picture Show just turned 35 years old. Here's my thoughts on the subject:

I was fifteen years old, and I was a sheltered Christian kid who had somehow landed a girlfriend who was 1) a year older than I, and 2) one of two goth kids in the entire town of Prescott, Arizona. She listened to The Cure and Bauhaus and wore black lipstick. I listened to DC Talk and the Newsboys and wore shirts with a Jesus fish on them. Yeah. I don't get it either.

A few weeks before she let me touch her boobs (!), and a few weeks before she gave me a little vial of her blood to wear around my neck, she asked me if I had ever seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I hadn't. R-rated movies were forbidden in our household, and even if they weren't, the picture on the cover of the VHS box she showed me certainly would never have gotten in the door. There was a man dressed in women's clothes, with high heels and fishnets and a full face of makeup.

She invited a couple of friends over to her house, and put the movie on. I expected we'd sit and make out the whole time, as usual, but she was really into the movie. It seemed like she knew the script backwards and forwards; she knew where every pause in the dialog was, and she had something witty to say at every one. She and her friends even knew the Time Warp dance. For my part, I just sat and stared, transfixed.

The songs! I'd never heard anything like it! They had the sexy swagger of the rock music I was just starting to listen to, but the clever lyrics of a Broadway musical. Then there was the lingerie, the transvestism, the homoerotic undertones, the Susan Sarandon in a bra and panties . . . I was sold. Then, after I had thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, my goth girlfriend told me I *had* to see it in the theater to get the full experience.

Months later, after the girl left me to sleep with some dude at band camp (I felt a weird pang the first time I saw American Pie), I finally got a chance to drive the two hours to the big city of Phoenix to see the movie in a theater. I borrowed a leather jacket from a friend of mine (who told me that Rocky sucked, but I could use the coat if I wanted) and pulled together a half-assed Eddie costume.

I want to say that seeing Rocky with a live cast, in a theater full of like-minded drama nerds, was some kind of revelation, an awakening, a feeling of being in harmony with fellow outcasts -- I want to say that because that's what most people say. It was definitely a blast, and it definitely demonstrated that there were far stranger things on earth than a girl who wears black lipstick and listens to the Cure. It didn't feel like coming home, but it did feel like a much-needed expanding of my small-town mind. Queers! Transvestites! Boys kissing boys kissing girls kissing girls! Jokes about people masturbating in the back row! The girl playing Columbia wearing a thong! But at the heart of it was still that clever, fun movie, where the hero is maybe the bitchy queen who isn't so great at relationships, but really just wants to expand everybody's mind and have a good time.

Even though people made fun of "I'm Coming Home," my favorite song, I still wanted to go back. I downloaded a script and studied the call-and-response lines and added a few of my own. For the next couple of years, my buddies and I made the trek down to Phoenix at least once a month, catching the midnight show and driving home as the sun was coming up. I bought the anniversary edition soundtrack, the karaoke CD, some posters, the VHS video, the DVD . . .and through the years, I saw the live show as often as I could.

The last time I went to see Rocky live, I was in the cast. There I was, 30 years old, my wife eight months pregnant, and I strapped on the high heels, the fishnets, the bodice, and performed an energetic (if imperfect) rendition of Frank N. Furter. I'm sure some people were embarrassed on my behalf. I know my wife was -- she still mentions it occasionally.

But for me, dreaming that character and being that character, running around a theater dressed like Frank N. Furter, felt like a last step from that small-town kid to a grown man who knows his place in the world. And for that, I will always love the Rocky Horror Picture Show, one of the many guides through the turbulent passageways of growing into myself.

Hey. I belted out "Sweet Transvestite" while DANCING on four-inch heels in front of a hundred people. I fear absolutely nothing after that.

In a Word: Security

2010-09-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

With a deep bow to Lore Sjoberg's One Word comics, here's what I hope is a recurring feature on what I hope will be a continuing blog.

Security

Today, I got a call telling me that I needed to pay my car payment. Money's been tight, so I had been putting it off. The woman on the phone was sympathetic, even friendly, until the time came to end the call. "So when will you be making a payment? Will it be today? I can take a payment right now, if you'd like . . ."

I declined. I don't like making payments over the phone. I told her I could just log in to the website and pay it, like I do every month.

Would that were the case.

I opened the leaseholder's website and put in my login. It kicked back an error -- either my login or password was wrong. Then I remembered that for increased security, they had made me change my login from a gmail address to a unique login name.

I chose, of course, a login that I use for at least four other sites. It's just easier to remember that way.

They also insisted I make a new password that would be longer and harder for a bot to brute force.

I chose, of course, a password I use for at least four other sites. It's just easier to remember that way.

My memory jogged, I put in the correct login and password. Then, for added security, the site fed me a question I had, apparently, answered at some point: "what's your favorite TV show?"

What is my favorite TV show? What was my favorite show a month ago, when I put in the answer? Was it the X-Files, a rediscovered gem? Star Trek: The Next Generation? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Did I capitalize, or did I think it'd be easier to remember it was all lower-case? Why didn't they serve up the question about what model my first car was? At least I could have looked that up online.

After several attempts to read my own mind, I was locked out of the account. For my security, I had to re-enter my account number to get back in. The account number that's on all of the paper bills I don't get since I switched to paperless billing.

So I called the help number again. After several prompts to enter my account number, I banged on 0 until the computer hung up on me. I called back and played along until I got a person.

Like the woman who called to urge me to pay the bill, this woman was friendly and sympathetic, until I asked her to give me my account number.

"We cannot give out that information over the phone, for security purposes. I can mail the number to you."

"Can't you just send it to my email?"

"No. We are unable to send email outside our intranet. Do you have a fax machine?"

"No, I do not, because this is not 1975, it's 2010. Please transfer me to someone who can help me."

So she kicked me up the call-center ladder one rung. The next lady was a little less polite to start, and even quicker to shut me down. She would be happy to mail or fax the number, but absolutely could not give it over the phone or email.

"Why won't you let me give you money? I'm trying so hard to give you money. I really don't care if someone else gets my account number and pays my car payment for me. Let's do this."

No dice. I demanded to be kicked up another rung in the responsibility ladder. She said she'd happily transfer me to someone else who would tell me 'no.'

While I waited on hold, I went to a fax-to-email service online. I gave them a credit card for a free trial, and they generated a junk phone number that could receive faxes and email them to me. When I spoke to the next woman, I grumbled about archaic technology, suggested she send it by carrier pigeon, and finally gave her the fax number.

Minutes later, the fax showed up -- as a PDF file in my email.

Here's how tight the car company's security is: in order to get my super-sekrit account number, I gave them the last four digits of my social security number (easy enough to find online), my home address (ditto), and a random fax number. Rather than sending an email to the address they had on file that was associated with the account, they sent a fax out blind to a number that, for all they knew, was in Leroy's Den of Money Laundering and Thievery. It was none of their doing that the fax went where it was supposed to -- my freakin' email.

I've decided that any organization that insists on using a fax machine gets the same double-barreled red-eyed rage usually reserved for companies that don't take credit cards, and people who insist on writing checks for groceries. This is outdated technology that has been replaced by something easier and better, and was replaced over a decade ago.

For my security, next time just text it to my phone, okay?

New Look, New Thoughts.

2010-09-24T18:53:00.000-07:00

So I figured it's about time I stopped wasting hours refreshing metafilter and boingboing, and spent a little more time writing on my own blog. Which meant a long-overdue facelift.

This blog will now focus on my curmudgeonly rants about politics and pop culture, my observations of human behavior, and the occasional adorable story about my adorable child.

Hopefully, it will also go on longer than a couple of posts before I taper off again.

Fun With Anachronisms!

2009-10-29T11:48:00.001-07:00

Today I went to a Hollywood Video for the first time in at least two years. Since technology's gotten better at delivering streaming video or downloaded video, it just seemed like too much work to go to a video store. If I couldn't get it on Netflix, Netflix streaming, or certain illicit methods, I just didn't watch it. But today, we needed a movie for Jess to watch for a class tonight, and all of my legit and less legit methods failed. So, the video store.

Walking through those shelves of poorly-alphabetized DVDs was like going back in time. I got hit by little snippets of memory and blasts of nostalgia: renting R-rated foreign films as a teenager, hoping for nudity; running through the video store with Jess while we were in college, picking three dumb movies and watching all of them in a night; picking a movie with three or four friends, bickering and laughing until we settled on something we'd all seen before. Just being in there made me happy. I grabbed the movie we needed, chatted with the clerk, checked some release dates, and walked out.

There's something about that whole transaction that's inherently more satisfying for me than dowloading or streaming a movie. For one thing, there's a finite set of films in a video store. Sometimes, limited selection is the only thing that gets me moving -- usually, Jess and I decide to watch a movie, then we spend an hour looking through Netflix's streaming selections, and then it's too late to watch a movie.

So a limited selection actually helps, and so does the physical arrangement of movies on a shelf. The DVD art can catch your attention, make you pause and consider something you might not have heard of. You can also just wander the aisles, just browsing, letting your eyes fall where they may, surrounded by hundreds of DVDs just waiting to entertain you.

Sure, I can browse movies online, and can even see tiny pictures of the box cover. But it hits my eyes the same way all information does these days -- with me sitting on my ass, perched over my laptop or lounging in front of the desktop computer. That time spent doing a physical version of something I usually do online, and how happy the simple chore made me, illustrated that my other four senses are starving for input.

Maybe we need some physical transactions and human interactions in the world, after all. Maybe it's not a good thing to have every movie ever made available at our fingertips. Maybe there ought to be a place in the world for the video store. I suppose video stores are doomed, but after today, I'll be sad to see them go.

What's "enough?"

2009-09-14T20:23:00.001-07:00

Tonight, my son fell asleep downstairs while we were watching a movie. I watched him sleep for a while, and felt a little choked up. Nothing new there -- seeing him so helpless, so beautiful, so wonderful, it usually makes me a little emotional.

But then I picked him up and carried him upstairs, and I thought to myself, 'wow, he's getting heavy.' And then I wondered how much longer I'd be able to hold him. And I began to cry. This is the flip side of the joy of watching him turn into a person. Every day, there's more there there; he can crawl! He can stand up! He can almost talk! But that other side is that every day, we mourn a little the baby he was yesterday. We love him and only love him more and more, but we'll never see that baby again. That's the joy and that's the tragedy.

And then I thought -- and here's where the tears really came full force -- "did I hold him enough when he was small enough to hold?" And the answer, of course, of course, is 'no.' Not even if I clasped him to my chest non-stop day and night. And I didn't, of course -- I had websites to look at and meals to cook and movies to watch. We should always and ever spend more time with those we love, but we can never spend enough time, and that is another joy and another tragedy.

I could never, ever hold him enough for me. I could never love him enough for me. And I realize that this pain is not the barest tip of a very, very long knife, and I am afraid and amazed. I think of my mother and father, and I know they wonder if they held me enough, if they loved me enough. And they probably feel like they didn't -- how could they? But you did, mom and dad, you did, and I hope I can, too.

This is learning how to celebrate and mourn, to love a hurt that will only hurt deeper with time. This is learning to sing while your heart bleeds.

Is it enough? It never will be, and always has to be.

Only human . . .

2009-06-15T06:51:00.000-07:00

Here's another one of those weird thoughts I have from time to time.

Ollie is a little person. We call him an angel, our golden boy, perfect baby, but the truth is, he's just a person. I'm not demeaning him by thinking of him that way -- quite to the contrary. It's actually better for me, Jess, and him if we don't idealize him or our family dynamic.

This morning, Ollie woke us up at 4:00 a.m. to eat. He did this because he didn't eat enough last night before bed, and then he woke us again at 6 to eat, and wouldn't eat more than a couple of mouthfuls before becoming disinterested. Now, our primary impulse is dismay: "Why is our perfect angel doing this? Why is our perfect baby acting this way? What's wrong with him? What's wrong with us for being kind of annoyed at the lack of sleep? What kind of monsters are we to be annoyed with our angel?"

But if you think of him as a little person, that perspective changes. He's a human being. He has needs, and wants, but sometimes, he's just going to be a jerk. That's the way people are. And so long as we don't shout at him, or display our annoyance, it's okay to be annoyed when a person is being a jerk. It doesn't mean we love him any less -- it just means we could have done with a little more sleep.

Loving someone unconditionally doesn't mean you're blind to their flaws. In fact, I don't think you can really love someone all the way if you *are* blind to their flaws, because then you don't really know them well enough for love that strong.

I guess we ought to get used to the "wanting to hug and strangle at the same time" kind of love. I mean, soon he's going to be a terrible two's toddler, and a teenager, and a grown man telling his dad, "you're wrong about everything." Best get used to the idea that he's his own person, and sometimes his desires are going to run absolutely contrary to our own, but that we won't love him any less for it.

You Did This To Me!

2009-06-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

Some day, Ollie will be a teenager. He'll want to stay up until 3 a.m. partying with his friends and sleep until noon. He'll wonder why Mom and Dad insist on going to bed before midnight most nights, and why they get up at 6 or 7 even on the weekends. What kind of strange people are these? Don't they know that all the fun stuff happens at night?

And we'll try and tell him that we used to be exactly the same way. We'll talk about those nights where we didn't notice it was late until the sun came up, and the days we rolled out of bed groggy to have breakfast at noon. But then we had a baby.

That baby was an awesome baby, and he slept through the night, which meant he went to bed around 9 or 10 and got up at 6 or 7. No matter when Mom and Dad went to bed, he got up at the same time, so they started adjusting to his sleep schedule. They found that when they got up early, they got to spend more time playing with him and having fun -- that the morning was actually good for something. Since most of their friends were having babies, too, most of the fun stuff quit happening before midnight.

So the answer to "why are Mom and Dad so lame?" is "you trained us to be this way."

Somehow, I don't think he'll get it, though. After all, it took me fifteen years to understand it :-).

Life in the Kinetoscope. . .

2009-05-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

So a few people have said, "your blog for Ollie is great, but we want to know what you think about being a parent, not just what he thinks about being a baby." I've resisted posting my thoughts, just because I was afraid they weren't new or insightful. Y'know, "my baby's cute," "I love him," not exactly ground-breaking material.

But, I do see the value in recording some of these thoughts, if not for posterity, then for myself. What's life with Ollie like?

While I know it's a radical departure and a complete change in every aspect of my life, it doesn't really feel that way. It feels more like another puzzle piece slipping into place, rather than a boulder dropped in a lake. It's the same way I felt when Jess moved in, or when we moved to Minneapolis -- there's this process of turning my life into what it's supposed to be, not giving up what it was. Caring for Ollie is sometimes easy, sometimes hard, but it always feels exactly right. Like there *should* be challenges in my life, there *should* be responsibilities, and frustrations, there *should* be this purpose. Jess filled a void that I didn't know was there until I met her, and so did Ollie -- he made one more set of restless, empty feelings go away.

That's probably why for the most part I don't reflect on the ongoing miracle of him. It's not often that I step back and go, "this is my son. He has half of my DNA. He went from an embryo to this little person who can almost stand up and talk. This is part of me, and part of Jess, and yet totally his own person." When I do think that, it blows my mind, of course, but for the most part I'm just enjoying his company.

There are rare moments when the whole truth of the matter threatens to burst forth and make me dissolve into happy tears, though. Last night, Jess read Ollie a few books and got him sufficiently sleepy that it was time to put him to bed. I cradled him in my arms and sang him a lullaby that my grandmother used to sing to me. It goes, "close your sleepy eyes, my little buckaroo, while the light of western skies is shining down on you . . ." When I hit the next verse, a lump rose in my throat and my eyes filled with tears: "don't you realize, my little buckaroo, that t'was from the little acorn that the oak tree grew / and remember that your dad was once a kid like you . . ."

I had a brief flash of my father, about my age, holding me in his arms and singing that song. Then of his father, about my age, holding my infant father in his arms and singing. Then flash forward to Ollie, 25 years old, holding his baby son and feeling that same connection to all the fathers and sons that came before him. It made me think of a kinetoscope, an ever-repeating loop -- the father cradles the son, the son grows up and become a father who cradles his son.

Now I can see that a father is not some different kind of person -- a different species, like I thought when I was a kid. A father is no more or less than a son, imbued with no special knowledge save that he has become part of that recursive loop, doing his best to transmit the earth-shaking love he feels by rocking his son to sleep.

And remember that your dad is still a kid like you . . .

The imminent arrival...

2008-11-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

So this weekend Jess started having some seriously strong contractions. I looked up what she was experiencing in that essential pregnancy guide, "All the Things You Should Freak Out About When Pregnant," and all signs seemed to point to actual labor rather than pre-term labor. The contractions weren't regular, but that was the only missing piece. We called the OB/GYN on call and he told us to come in to the hospital immediately.

So we calmly got dressed and got ready to go to the hospital. I said, "it's okay if the baby comes now. We have the crib and the co-sleeper and the pack 'n' play and the carseat and bottles and clothes and everything -- and my god, the house is so messy," and started to cry. Then we got in the car, and it had a bunch of trash in it, and I actually hyperventilated a little. I think that's a good taste of what having a baby will be like -- everything that's been good enough for me and Jess will not be good enough for our child.

These feelings are like messages from another planet. I wasn't even aware that I was freaked out until I started hyperventilating, and then the panic threatened to swallow me. I didn't even think about the house being messy until it was in the context of imminent baby arrival, and then I just wanted to collapse on the floor. That's a really scary amount of love to feel for someone I haven't even met yet.

Thankfully, the contractions were just a bump in the road, and they're under control now. Still, we are probably looking at having a newborn before Christmas. All the time in the world wouldn't be enough to get ready for my child, but I still can't wait to meet the kid.

Here's hoping we'll be good parents. I know that's a moving target, being a good parent -- it's easy to not be an evil parent (don't hit the kid, provide for the kid's needs, show love and provide boundaries), but being a good parent? That's tricky. All we can do is the best we can.

The only solace is knowing that every parent will fail in some regard, and will be blamed by the kid for some grown-up neuroses. Because let's face it -- we're all neurotic. I've met people of every conceivable background, from super-conservative to crazy-permissive, and we're all screwed up in our own special way, and on some level we all blame our parents.

What's also heartening is for all those people I know (and myself included) who are screwed up and blame their parents, we all love our parents deeply and know, deep down, that they're not the reason we're screwed up. They, like us, like everyone, were screwed up to begin with, and they did the best they could.

My highest goal is to combine all the wonderful things my parents did right, and all the things Jess's parents did right, and maybe we'll end up with a neuroses-free child. Or, at least, we'll give the child an open space to screw him or herself up in new, interesting ways, for which they will blame us. And then they'll stare down the barrel of an imminent baby arrival, and they'll realize that we did a pretty good job, after all.

Election fatigue...

2008-10-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

You know, every time I watch the candidates debate, I find it harder and harder to believe that anyone buys what John McCain is selling. Thank goodness the Democrats are branching out from their time-honored, "roll over and accept smears" tactic, and actually fighting back. But the end result is Obama has to spend more time correcting McCain's lies than talking about the issues.

Then Obama screws himself by giving complex, well-thought-out answers to the questions posed, while John McCain goes for crowd-pleasing, empty answers. "Sure, we can fix social security, it ain't hard, and we're going to. Sure we can work on all of my priorities at the same time, while cutting taxes, freezing spending, and spending $300 billion so the government can own your home mortgage, while regulating Wall Street more, while making sure the government isn't too involved in your life! U.S.A!" And the crowd goes wild.

It's something I noticed with the Bush administration: no one pays attention to whether the Republican candidate's claims are true, plausible, or even possible: when a Republican says they're going to do something, they get the credit as if they had already done it. It's weird and off-putting.

It's like Bill Maher says: Republicans are very good at winning elections. They're willing to lie, dumb it down, use scare tactics, and pander to people. They're good at this game. What they suck at is governing. I just can't believe people seriously think that John McCain is going to "go on up to Washington and straighten those corrupt politicians out." He IS a corrupt politician. H8is campaign is run by lobbyists. He's been there for 30 YEARS and hasn't made anything better, how is he going to start now?

And then the people who decry Obama's 'elitism' and root for Sarah Palin because she's so down-home and folksy. People, when did those two things become qualities of a good leader? We TRIED voting for the guy we'd want to have a beer with, and how did that work out for us? Palin's a moron, and a dangerous moron at that.

You know, even after all the crap McCain has spewed in this election, I think the nation could do okay with him. We'd hvae to be better off than we were with Bush, if only marginally. He wouldn't really change much, but at least he's been around and knows his stuff. We'd be all right. But when McCain dies two years in, and we get President Palin -- oh good Lord. She's Dolores Umbridge -- self-righteous, utterly convinced in her narrow world-view, and determined that everyone share it. *Shudder*.

I just hope Obama can get enough reasonable people to the polls to counter all the ignorance I've been seeing. I just got an email forward that's been circulating in the uber-conservative camps, and it scares the pants off of me. People really believe that Obama's a white-hating secret terrorist who wants to overthrow Washington with his liberal agenda?

I know the answer is that it doesn't matter if these fundies believe that or not -- they won't vote for Obama because the Republican party has convinced them that the Republican party is the decent Christian party. Hell, I know Christians who are voting for Obama, but feel guilty about it. They have to hide it from their friends and loved ones, and they still secretly feel they're selling out God by doing so.

Like I said -- Republicans are really good at winning elections. They're just terrible at running the country, and that's never more obvious than now. I wish people would look past the rhetoric and look at the state our country is in after eight years of clueless Republican rule.

The cool.

2008-09-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

So when I turned 25 or so, I remember thinking, "it's going to be weird not to be in the most-coveted demographic anymore." I mean, most advertising at that point was aimed squarely at the high-school kids or college kids, those with either their parent's money or student loan runoff to spend. I thought it would be kind of nice to not have advertisements constantly crammed down my throat; thought this was the time where one breaks free from corporate-sculpted personas and begins to cultivate an original style.

Now that I'm 30 and have a baby on the way, though, I've discovered that there's no such thing as being outside a targeted demographic. Case in point: we spent our teenage years obsessed with being cool, and now we're at the age our parents were when we thought our parents were the least cool people on the planet. So we're freaking out, and we want to start families and whatnot without turning into our hopelessly square parents. I thought I was alone in, for example, wanting to dress my infant in hip, groovy ways that showed I wasn't into the whole pink-and-blue, lace-and-butterflies thing. Then I saw all this:

Cool baby clothes
Punk rock baby clothes
Retro Baby

Yup. Now instead of worrying that I'm being too square or too trendy, I can worry if my baby's too square or too trendy. And all I wanted when I started that google search was a onesie with a skull on it, for Baby Skullhead. Now I'm wondering when we get to stop worrying about being cool. I'm guessing when I turn 80, there'll be an entire product line of walkers, depends, and pill counters with flames, skulls, and rock band posters on them. Funny ol' world.

Diary: You had a baby in the Wal-Mart.

2008-09-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

So this weekend me and the missus ended up at Wal-Mart. We promised ourselves we'd only go in, look for the cleaning product that Target didn't carry, and get out before we got tainted by the skanky Wal-Mart vibe. But we failed miserably -- we left with a cart full of stuff, including a new table and lamp for the basement. We also will probably be returning for a crib and a TV in the near future.

This caused us no end of stress, because -- well, to be blunt, we feel like we're better than Wal-Mart. Which, disconcertingly, means we must think we're better than the people who *do* shop at Wal-Mart. We're too cool, too eco-conscious, too globally-minded to shop at such an evil corporation. If we buy a crib there, our fellow hipsters will surely judge us. Well, maybe the Prius will buy us some points.

Thing is, I don't really know any of these fellow hipsters who would judge us for buying a crib at Wal-Mart. Everyone I know thinks we're stupid for not shopping at Wal-Mart, because they have the lowest prices. And I've always judged them for that -- surely anyone who is well-informed about the world around them would gladly pay an extra hundred dollars here and there than go to Wal-Mart, right? Right. . .

I'm not saying Wal-Mart's going to be my first stop for goods and services or anything, just saying that as I get older, my smug superiority gland seems to be shrinking. Not even the Prius purchase can make it swell up again. Maybe that's a good thing.

Linguistic politics.

2008-09-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

"Maverick presidential nominee John McCain has chosen an equally maverick vice president, Sarah "maverick" Palin. The two mavericks promise to blaze new maverick trails in Maverickton, D.C., provided McCain wins the national maverick in November. McCain is scheduled to speak tonight on maverick care, national maverickurity, the maverickonomy, and overturning Roe Vs. Maverick. John McMaverick is then expected to rip Obama a new maverick for using the word 'change' too much."

Look, guys. THIS is maverick:

I swear, if you do a shot every time someone covering the RNC says 'maverick', you'll be dead in an hour. Even if you're listening to NPR, who ought to know better.

Lies, damn lies, and politics.

2008-09-03T08:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I have to hand it to John McCain for running a campaign that's slightly atypical of the Republican party. There's not the terrorism fearmongering that you usually get -- nothing as bad as Hillary's 3 a.m. phone call ad. Instead, McCain's retreated to the traditional Republican stance: the other candidate is a left-wing liberal who wants to raise your taxes and spend all the money helping welfare mothers by crack. That tactic's a little less odious than the Homeland Security rap, because at least it's one that's clearly, patently, provably false.

Lies: Obama will RAISE YOUR TAXES OMG OMG.

The truth: Obama's tax plan would reduce the average tax bill by at least $1,000 in every income bracket except the very tip-top. It's true he doesn't support the extension of Bush's tax cuts, but his plan does include cuts, rebates, and credits for the middle class. If your income's below $200k a year, your taxes are going down.

Lies: Obama IS TOTALLY LIBERAL LEFT-WING COMMIE OMG OMG.
Obama's positions on those hot-button issues are decidedly moderate. He opposes late-term abortion. He supports civil unions for homosexual couples, not a legalization of gay marriage. He has a moderate take on gun control. Sure, if you think gay people should be put in concentration camps, that everyone has the right to have a tank in their front yard, then Obama looks liberal. But don't we all, in that case?

Lies: Obama's fiscal plan will INCREASE THE DEFICIT OMG OMG.

Truth: Obama's economic proposals are decidedly more fiscally conservative than Bush's. He actually plans to pay for the programs and changes he proposes by cutting spending and increasing corporate taxes. I don't want to get into all the details, but the truth is out there. Check out http://www.barackobama.com/issues/fiscal/ for details.

Lies: Obama IS SOFT ON SECURITY AND DOESN'T SUPPORT THE TROOPS.

Truth: Obama is not averse to using military force. In fact, he supported sending more troops into Afghanistan to actually finish the job there. He wants our troops to be deployed only when necessary, and to have the equipment they need, and to be treated well when they return. He cares far more about the military than the Republicans have for the past eight years.

Lies: Obama LACKS EXPERIENCE.

Truth: If experience = time spent in Washington, then maybe. But if you look at Obama's real-life experience, what he's done in his home state and in his brief time in the Senate, you can see that he knows what he's doing. Let's face it: no presidential candidate has all the knowledge he needs to do the job. W certainly didn't; he relied on people like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld to advise him. Obama will do the same, only his advisors might possibly be less... oh ... EVIL. What's more, McCain just chose a VP, someone who quite possibly would end up being president, given that McCain is slightly older than God, who has less than two years' experience as a governor and no experience in Washington. Clearly, experience isn't everything.

Lies: Obama is secretly a MUSLIM TERRORIST OMG OMG.

Granted, McCain hasn't leveled this charge; he's let the 527's speak for him. The truth is, if it matters to you, Obama's a Christian. He attends church regularly and talks candidly about his faith.

Oh, and one more bonus lie:

McCain is a MAVERICK W00T.

McCain votes with W 90% of the time. Do we really need 10% change in this country?

Look, if you don't want to vote for Obama because he takes a moderate pro-choice position, or he doesn't favor abstinence-only education, or Republicans are just somehow more Godly, that's your choice. But don't cast that vote for McCain -- that vote for 4 more years of Bush's failed policies -- based on the lies we're being told. Check out Obama's stances for yourself, and if you have an hour, watch his acceptance speech. I guarantee it's an eye-opener.

Lies: Obama is SECRETLY A MUSLIM TERRORIST.

I want my baby-back baby-back baby-back ribs.

2008-08-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

We had the sonogram today. I was expecting it to be an emotional time, but was unprepared for the ways in which it was emotional. There was the first rush of joy and love when the baby first appeared on the screen, and then I would get all choked up at odd moments. It went like this:

Tech: here's the baby's hand, and you can see there's all five fingers...
Me: Huh. That's really cool.
Tech: And here is the spine and the ribs...
Me: My baby has ribs! (sniffle sniffle).

For some reason, just seeing the intricate, delicate bones that make up the spine and the ribs really brought it home -- this complex, impossible organism is really and truly developing right now, and it's a combination of me and the woman I love, and it has RIBS!

It also has my chin, which is sad for the little guy/girl. Though my sisters look pretty good with the chin, so if it's a girl we're okay, and a boy can always grow a beard.

You can see the pictures here:
http://flickr.com/photos/skullhead/2805727313/in/set-72157606319204394/

Colander sweet colander.

2008-08-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

So we had a wonderful rain storm last night, complete with peals of thunder and flashes of lightning. It was absolutely beautiful. Me, Jess, and almost-baby snuggled in bed, safe and warm under the covers, and listened to the rain tap on our roof. Since my dad and I repaired the roof, we could actually enjoy the rain instead of fearing it!

Then when we woke up, we went to check out the nursery (the room directly under the roof repair). The good news is that it's not leaking where we fixed it.

The bad news is it's still leaking on the same wall, it just moved over a little bit. So now we're looking at maybe replacing the whole roof.

You know, when we bought this house we thought it had a newly repaired, non-leaking roof, a dry basement, and adequate drainage systems. Since then, we've shelled out nearly $7,000 to make the house live up to what we were sold, and we're nowhere near done.

I'm trying to keep positive about this, but I honestly don't know where the money will come from to fix this. I don't really want to outfit our baby with fins and a SCUBA suit so it can sleep in the nursery.

Diary:This is for reals.

2008-08-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

I have now felt the baby kicking in Jess's belly. Since it's still a little early, I could barely feel it: it was like a gentle tap on my fingertip, almost imperceptible, my kid telling me "I'm still putting myself together."

We've been lying in bed with the baby monitor, just listening for kicks and the occasional snippet of heartbeat. I can't believe that this is happening to me -- it seems so improbable that I get to be a father. I'm slowly realizing that my father probably felt like this, too -- like a kid in a costume, pretending he knew what he was doing, faking it until it became real.

This is going to be fun.

Rant: Gay marriage.

2008-08-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

I figure I'll just use this blog for reviews, rants, and diary, and just label each entry thus. That way hypothetical readers will know what to skip.

Gay marriage. The only reason we keep having to debate it in this country is that the morally bankrupt Republican leadership -- those guys who will sell out our children's education, our environment, and our health to the highest bidder -- have established themselves as the moral compass of the nation, because they hates them some gays and some abortion. The great lie, which has worked very well for them, is that they represent the interests of the middle and lower classes because of this religious platform. Anybody who is paying attention can see that the Republican leaders couldn't care less about the poor or the middle class -- just look how we've fared with eight years of Dubya.

Nevertheless, the Repubs have gotten a lot of mileage out of the idea that opposing gay marriage, and legislating against it, is something our government should be doing. And in typical fashion, the Democrats have fought the debate on the Republicans' terms. No one has the stones to say what should be said, which is this:

The government has no business legislating what gender of people can enter into this government-recognized union. None. There is no other contract that the government ratifies in which you're allowed to exclude people by gender. The movement in this country has ever been toward equality and more rights for more people, not selectivity and fewer rights for fewer people. It's madness. It's not even Sparta.

The confusion comes from the fact that the word "marriage" means two things: a union that is blessed by a religion, and a union that is recognized by the government. Thus some religious types think that if the government recognizes same-sex unions, that means somehow their religious covenant is tainted, because their God isn't down with gay folk. The obvious solution, then, is to separate the two: say, "look, any two people can have their marriage ratified by the government. If you want your marriage blessed by a deity, that's none of the government's business. That's the way it should be.

Of course, those who oppose gay marriage don't see it that way. The subtext of every argument against gay marriage is basically, "my God says you can't do this, make it illegal." But that doesn't work with how our government is supposed to operate, so they have to make other arguments, which are pretty easily debunked, should any politician have the huevos to actually address them. Breaks down like this:

Argument: Marriage is for procreation, therefore gay marriage violates the spirit of it.

Rebuttal: The government recognizes unions of people who either won't or can't have children: infertile couples, elderly couples, couples who just don't want kids. Moreover, plenty of people have children outside of wedlock. If you can have marriage without children and children without marriage, where is this inherent link between procreation and marriage?

Argument: Marriage creates the ideal, stable family unit: man, woman, and children. (This is the Catholic church's stance, and I saw it parroted by someone who is usually smarter than this. Kids, never let your church do your thinking for you)

Rebuttal: Half of these 'stable, ideal family units' end up in divorce. Not to mention the obvious fact that many family units are neither ideal or stable -- for every wonderful perfect nuclear family, there are dozens of abusive relationships, loveless marriages, etc. Two men, or two women, are equally as likely to be in a stable, loving relationship as are a man and a woman. As far as raising children goes -- well, it's a peripheral issue, but studies have repeatedly shown that children with gay parents end up just fine -- no more prone to neuroses than the rest of us, and no more likely to be gay themselves (almost as if you can't nurture someone to be gay or straight, like it's hardwired biologically).

And my favorite argument:
Marriage is a sanctified tradition -- its sanctity isn't tied to a specific religion, but to its status as an institution.

Rebuttal: Newt Gingrich, who spearheaded the Defense of Marriage act, is on his third marriage. Bill Clinton, who signed it into law, was notoriously unfaithful to his wife. Britney Spears was married for 24 hours. Yet no one (sadly) is arguing that politicians and pop stars shouldn't be able to get married. No one's arguing that anyone who gets divorced shouldn't get married again. No, we're only denying marriage to, say, lesbian couples who have been together for twenty years. The very fact that I could have met someone in a bar and married them the next day says a lot about the supposed sanctity of marriage.

So let's be real: the only reason people want to outlaw gay marriage is that they think their God isn't down with it. We don't make laws based on dieties' preferences, or the first Mormon president could outlaw Coca-Cola. It's not the way our country works.

So if you're an anti-gay marriage type, and you're still reading for some reason, just think about it: if you cast your vote for a politician just because they match your 'family values,' you're only fooling yourself. Jesus said to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and care for the sick. Do you see Mr. Bush and his cronies engaging in any of those things?

Confusion!

2008-08-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

Almost a month without a post -- my, my, my. I know exactly why, too: I can't decide whether this should be a blog to review movies and music and whatnot, or a blog about my personal life, or a ranting blog about random issues. Maybe it can be all of those things, since I'm not exactly trying to appeal to a specific audience.

So on a personal note: Jess is still progressing nicely with the pregnancy, and the nausea seems to be done for the most part. Pregnancy looks like extremely hard work, what with the fatigue, the body changes, the mood swings -- I think any guy who complains about his part of it (fetching random food cravings, doing housework) deserves to be kicked sqwah in the nuts.

My parents were here for about four days this past week, and it was a wonderful time. It's the first time I've been able to entertain my parents in my own house and feel like it was properly put together -- the first time they were here, we didn't even have the furniture in.

I felt like it put us on equal footing, somehow. Well, except that my dad knows way more about home care than I do, and I was perfectly happy to let him show me how to do some of this stuff. Looks like we might have actually fixed the leaky roof (knock wood). With that and the drain tile in the basement, there's a possibility our homestead is water-tight for the first time. Yay! And boo to the previous owner, for making us believe it was always thus.

To my fellow straight men out there who are scared by the prospect of marriage or baby-having, know this: the feeling you get of love and security when you're spooning with that girl you love? It doubles when you get married. And it explodes exponentially when that belly your arm is wrapped around has a baby inside of it. Give it a shot. Dumber people than you have made it work :-).

This.

2008-07-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

Barack Rebuttal.

2008-07-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

So I got an email from the Obama campaign after I sent them an angry letter. Looks like they were anticipating many an angry letter on this topic, so they had a boilerplate response. I think it looks pretty good -- I mean, I'm still annoyed at the politics of the thing, but less so at Obama. By the way, doesn't "Barack Rebuttal" sound like someone with a hideously fake asian accent saying "Brocolli Butter?"

Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.

That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.

After months of negotiation, the House passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act. Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future.

It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I voted in the Senate three times to remove this provision so that we could seek full accountability for past offenses. Unfortunately, these attempts were unsuccessful. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.

It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people.

Business as usual? Yes we can.

2008-07-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

Sigh. So Barack Obama is a regular ol' politician after all. Sure, he's still a politician with better ideas and viewpoints than his opponent in the presidential election, but the brief moment when we believed he wasn't politics-as-usual has passed. That carefully crafted image of a guy who sticks to his guns and crosses party lines to defend the common folk is just that: a facade. Underneath there's still that same ol' cynicism.

What I'm talking about is Obama's vote in favor of renewing the FISA act. That bill expands the government's ability to spy on us without warrants, and grants retroactive immunity to the companies who helped W. break the law before. It legitimizes and codifies some of the more heinous civil liberties infringements that this administration has perpetrated upon us and gives truly scary powers to the executive branch.

Obama's "yea" vote is stunningly cynical, the opposite of the personable, deeply compassionate facade he puts forth: those who find this vote repugnant, like me, aren't going to vote for McCain, so we'll still vote for him. And now he can appeal to those who were worried he's not tough on "the terrists," not committed to "MER-ka." I mean, way to go if it helps him get elected, but the stench of having voted yes to George W.'s Orwellian wet dream isn't going to go away soon.

Worse yet, those who favor the bill are still using the old "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" defense. And people are still buying it. Even a tiny little bit of thought would give the lie to that argument: once the government has the right to spy on you without cause, they always have it, and they can use it against whomever they like. The enemy du jour is the terrorist, which is already problematic (due to the notion that anyone who doesn't genuflect in front of the flag 24/7 while praising W. is a terrorist). But what if the next folks they go after are environmentalists? Or vegetarians? Or Christians? We've given the government a big ol' gun, and people are fine with it because at the moment it isn't pointed at them.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on water.

2008-07-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

We don't need no fire, let the motherf***er leak!

I have some cautious hope about the state of the roof today, after a visit from yet another contractor. He's the kind of contractor I like: a sixty-year-old dude who has been fixing roofs for years and isn't interested in milking every last dime out of a young guy who is starting a family. Looks like he might return an estimate that's substantially lower, for the same amount of work. Go, old dudes!

Now if I could just stop my cats from believing that the entire basement is a litterbox, life would be grand.

My leaky little boat...

2008-07-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

So after the last rain, we noticed some sizable bubbles in the ceiling in our bedroom. As they dried, they cracked, and the next rain will start the dripping. This makes me nervous, as I'd like to be shoveling money into a "Baby Dagmar Provision Fund," but all the ready cash (and a lot of credit) is going into just keeping our heads, feet, and furniture dry.

I think there's a song in all of this, and I'll have to take a day and write it up. I can feel it percolating in the back of my brain; something along the lines of Blues Traveler's "The Mountains Win Again," called "Water Always Wins." Knowing me, it'll start with the futile hopelessness of trying to keep it out, and end with a celebration of how water will always find a way. I try to be pessimistic, but it just doesn't work.

I'm currently cherishing in my mind the image of my wonderful wife on the 4th of July. We spent most of the day kicking back under a tree in a public park, and as it got dark, we broke out the sparklers. She was tired and had a headache and was feelin' the pregnancy, but she took a sparkler in each hand and danced around, lit by a gentle green glow, her face radiant. I looked at her and my heart leapt and I fell in love all over again. You'd think that two years of marriage, plus two more years of co-habitation, plus two more years of being together, would mean we could stop acting like newlyweds, already. Personally, I hope we'll still be baby-talking each other at Baby Dagmar's high school graduation.

As I said to Jess the other day, "it's a good thing that we love each other. Because that means all these other problems we come up against, we can solve. Most of them boil down to money, and money comes and goes pretty predictably. If we didn't love each other, we would only have one problem -- but it'd be the one problem that can't be solved."

Friends, I'm no genius, but occasionally I say a true thing. Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while.

The Quotable Ethan...

2008-07-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

"I respectfully disagree with your post-apocalyptic baby room decor."
--Ethan.

A pulse...

2008-07-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

So we go to the doctor's office for Jess's checkup. We jitter in the waiting room, thankfully not for too long before we're called back to the exam room. The doctor tells Jess to pull up her shirt and pull down her jeans to "Britney Spears levels," so that she can use the Doppler machine.

The doctor spreads what can only be described as blue goo, or possibly smurf ectoplasm, on Jess's stomach and pulls a wand from a little machine that's mostly a speaker. She switches on the machine and we hear white noise: static, ocean, a seashell that aurally reflects the blood rushing in your ears. She moves the wand over Jess's slowly expanding stomach, searching for the heartbeat. We know we might not hear it; we might not hear it because sometimes you just don't hear it on the first visit, and we might not hear it because it might not be there.

The silence in the room is only amplified by the ocean sound coming from the machine. My wife and I stare into each other's eyes and I squeeze her hand tightly. Scratch-thump. Scratch-thump.

We both turn pathetically hopeful eyes to the doctor, but she shakes her head. "That's your heartbeat," she says, and goes back to searching for that other heartbeat that is (maybe should be we hope) hiding there. Scratch-thump. Scratch-thump. Jess's heartbeat again. The tension is unbearable.

And then, overlaid on top of Jess's steady Scratch-thump: scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump, exactly double-timed to Jess's heart, syncopated, a mad little drummer pounding out life, a beat you could dance to, and I feel like dancing and crying and Jess is crying, too.

scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump i am here i am building myself out of pieces of both of you i am here i am going wild just wait until you meet me scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump

Nothing else in the world is as important to me as that wonderful, beautiful, kinetic techno drumming of my baby's heart. As soon as I hear that sound, it's over for me, man. I don't care what happens as long as that beat keeps going; I'd throw myself under a bus, I'd take a bullet for that scratchthumpscratchthump.

Do it, child, do it -- bang those skins, pump that blood, make yourself. I can't wait to meet you because I already love you more than anything.

Dear god, the realization that this is just the first in an endless series of casual every day miracles to come.

I love you, Jess, and I love you, baby.

You know what's awesome? Bein' a dude.

2008-06-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

So my lovely wife is ten weeks pregnant, and I am feeling vague twinges of guilt. She gets nauseated; she doesn't have much energy; her boobs are giant and painful, and it's all only going to get worse. Even worse, she can't relax, put her feet up, and have a beer or a smoke or something to take the edge off. I know she's deliriously happy to be growing a little person inside of her, and once the baby is here we can both take on the responsibility, but for now she has to do all the heavy lifting. To top it all off, she's the one who works full-time outside the home. I mean, she's not putting together cars or anything, it's a desk job, but she still has to get up early and come home late.

As I sit around writing blogs and smoking my hookah, I do wish there were a way for me to share in the burden of pregnancy. I try -- I try to get her anything she needs, be very patient and groovy and anticipate what will make her more comfortable, but in the end, I'm still on the outside. So all I can do is make sure she knows how much I appreciate her.

C'mon science, there ought to be a way for us to trade off. Like, "you take the uterus for a month, and I'll party like a rockstar, then we'll trade off." Lego pregnancy, that's what we need. Pop the belly off and snap it on somebody else, and just keep tradin' off.

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'...

2008-06-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

So every time I look at a calendar these days, I get a little jab of slightly queasy surprise. This year has been a procession of -- 'holy shit, it's February. Holy shit, it's March. Holy shit, where'd March go?' Even though there have been plenty of events that stand out and mark each month -- March was the trip to Vegas with Matt, Gretta, Zack, Aliah, Erin; May was the trip to Phoenix; April we spent remodeling the bathroom of death and despair -- it's amazing that this year is already half over.

Of course, looking back to the first of the year, at the New Year's Eve party, that seems like a lifetime ago. Time goes by quickly but has gone by slowly -- memories of moving into our house eight months ago have the same sepia-tint of nostalgia as memories of my high school graduation.

I'm not sure how to go about siezing each day and living in each moment and all that stuff that's supposed to keep time from sliding by. The unfortunate truth is that the things that make life easy are the things that make time go poof -- routine, for example. Spending hours on the computer, for example. It's amazing that someone with as little to do as me -- someone who works from home at a job that requires a maximum of two hours a day -- always feels crunched for time.

One of my college professors, after continued frustration at my last-minute papers and constant tardiness, told me "do not be a slave to time. Sieze it and use it or it will use you." Which is all well and good, but I'm not quite sure how to start. Maybe this blog will help - having something to distract me from all of the other distractions up in this piece.

Must See: The Fall

2008-06-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

So there's a new movie out this week by Tarsem, the director of The Cell and many music videos. You probably won't find it playing anywhere but groovy, small independent theaters, which is a shame, but if it's anywhere near you, seek it out and see it. If you enjoyed the trippy visuals of The Cell, but didn't enjoy the Jennifer Lopez parts of it, you'll definitely enjoy The Fall. If you enjoyed Pan's Labyrinth and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, you'll definitely enjoy The Fall; it splits the difference between the two.

It's set in California at the beginning of the motion picture industry. A young girl, a migrant fieldworker, is hospitalized with a broken arm. At the hospital, she meets a twentysomething man who was injured on the set of a movie -- though she doesn't understand that his injury was actually a suicide attempt. The man tells the girl a fantastic, Arabian nights/american tall tale story, and we see the story as it's filtered through the girl's imagination. As the story progresses, we learn more about the girl and the man and the way they relate to each other.

The movie has absolutely stunning visuals, but they're not just an end unto themselves: the fantasy sequences are absolutely in service of the "real-world" story and the characters. This is no sterile parade of images; it has a vibrant, beating heart that breaks and mends itself through the course of the narrative.

The reviews for this film have been frustrating. Like The Fountain, Lady in the Water, and Donnie Darko -- all movies I thought were incredible -- you get two types of reviews. The first is the cynical, hip reviewer who doesn't know what to do with a movie that is equal parts batshit insane and incredibly sincere. If it were just batshit insane, they'd praise it (lest they be found wanting in their cool hipness) -- witness the praise heaped on the sterile nonsense of Mulholland Drive, for example. But because The Fall actually has compassion for its characters, and dares to make big statements about heroism, love, and healing, it simply isn't cool to praise it. Instead, you have to rant about how the filmmaker's ego runs rampant on the screen: how dare Tarsem think he can tell us anything about the human condition? How dare he take big risks with image and story, even if those risks pay off? How dare he bring tears to my eyes? What a bastard. These reviewers are people who are burned out on movies in general, if you ask me. If you're unable to surrender yourself to the experience of a movie this masterfully crafted, you need a break.

The other type of review that pisses me off for a movie like this is the lazy review. For example, take this genius critic: "It doesn't make a bit of sense. And after a while, even pretty images become boring when there's nobody in them we care about." I remember similar criticism for Donnie Darko, and all that means is that the critic is unconscionably lazy. Folks, if it's your job to review movies -- if you're the lucky douchebag who gets PAID to do so, it behooves you to pay a modicum of attention to what's going on on-screen. It's not a hard story to follow, it's just slightly unconventional, and it heavily rewards the merest bit of attention paid.

Roger Ebert doesn't always get it right, but his review is spot-on; see for yourself.

The film is rated R for a few gory scenes -- this isn't the kind of fantasy where someone gets shot with an arrow and doesn't bleed. It's not as scary or as violent as Pan's Labyrinth, though, and of the same caliber. Go see it if you get a chance -- like Pan's Labyrinth or The Fountain, you'll kick yourself for missing it on the big screen.

Anniversary goodness!

2008-06-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, so last night the missus and I celebrated two happy years of marriage. It was a great day, full of little wistful smiles as I remembered our wedding on the beach, our honeymoon in Jamaica, and all the little reminders that I am lucky beyond belief to be with this woman for the rest of my life. My mother-in-law found us an amazing restaurant in Minneapolis called The Cave Vin -- It's basically the same restaurant we ate at in Paris, a little hole-in-the-wall that serves fresh Frenchified food, different every day. The only difference is that it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to eat there. We had delicious, delicious frog legs (slightly fishy, slightly rabbit-y, very garlic 'n' buttery), king crab gnocchi, and a rack of lamb, and topped the whole thing off with a tiny, almost unbearably rich dessert called a "Pot de creme," basically super-concentrated dark chocolate pudding. Wonderbar. Jess surprised me with a beautiful card that brought tears to my eyes, and we basically acted like newlyweds the entire evening. We ended up going to see a movie afterward, the first time in our 6-year history that we've had a dinner-and-a-movie date. I'll review the movie in the next post, but just had to put in the date's details for future reference.

We ended the evening with a steamy (in more ways than one -- it was 90 degrees yesterday and humid) bedroom tryst, not that I'm going to provide many details. Just let it be known that my wife kicks ass, and the only way we can add more love to our household is by havin' a baby. By lucky coincidence, we're doing just that.

I'm feeling much better now.

2008-06-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Let it be known that after I wrote that post, I logged into Kingdom of Loathing and talked to a few people who helped me get over my whiny, silly, hand-wringin' self. Big ups to the likes of Werebear and Ashallond, who gently reminded me that being a father doesn't mean you can't be awesome anymore.

The whole world looks better from this end of the day, I have to say. Maybe I shouldn't post during the morning doldrums anymore.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-06-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

Wow, looking at that first post, I think I said "30-year-old" at least five times. Guess what's on my mind these days, children?

I can't help but think about getting older, though, because giant, sweeping changes are coming, and I don't know what my life will be like after they hit. Right now I feel a combination of boredom, weird excitement, and dread -- like I'm floating in a little pond, ever-so-slowly getting closer and closer to a giant waterfall. I don't have any frame of reference for what comes next, except the assurance that I know people who have done it, and they're still around. Sometimes, though, that's just not enough assurance for me.

What I'm talking about is that me and the missus are going to have a baby in January. That definitely marks the end of an era that's a known commodity: lots of travel, parties, booze, and the occasional illegal substance, having a little extra money and loads of free time. I know the downsides to having a baby -- namely, the loss of all of the above -- but I've never experienced the upsides to it, so I have the trepidation without the assurance that it's okay. I know on an intellectual level that we'll love the baby, we'll be over-the-moon happy with the baby, and that it really *doesn't* mean the end of all the fun stuff -- it means less of that fun stuff, and more of a different kind of fun stuff. But tell that to my spine, man, because that doesn't stop the shivers.

I'm not saying I don't want to start a family; I do. I also think that the booze, the partying, the etc., does lose its luster after a while, and you eventually need some deeper pleasures in life, and that process has already started. It'll be a very empty life ten years from now if I'm still trying to party like a twenty-something. So I want this to happen; I just wish it didn't feel like I only have a year left to be relevant, and that year's already half over.

Aimee Mann and Kanye West...

2008-06-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

So last week, me and the missus took in some quality live music. I had heard that Aimee Mann was playing at the Minnesota Zoo's amphitheater on the 12th of June, and booked those tickets well, well in advance. I had also seen that Kanye West would be performing at the Target Center on the 11th, but initially wasn't going to go. That wasn't due to any lack of awesome on Mr. West's part, just that I've never been to a stadium-venue show like that, and I tend to prefer a little more intimacy for live music, if you know what I mean.

Then I saw some of the props Mr. West was going to be using for his stage show, including the 20-foot-tall gold holographic dancing girls, and decided I'd kick myself for missing it. So we ended up seeing Mr. West on the 11th and Ms. Mann on the 12th.

The Kanye West show turned out to be pretty damned incredible. Sure, the performers were pretty far away, and the acoustics in the hall meant that if you didn't already know the song, you didn't have a prayer of catching the lyrics, but the energy and spectacle was well worth the trip. Lupe Fiasco opened the show, and I found that instead of just waiting for them to play Superstar, I was grooving on every track. Lupe's got an incredible flow, which he somehow sustains while doing everything but cartwheels on the stage. His style is equal parts nerdcore and gangsta, I would say, so it's part "check out my gold rims" and part "check out my giant battlebot."

After Lupe, N.E.R.D. took the stage. I wasn't as impressed with them as I was expecting to be, but they still got everyone, even my pasty 30-year-old self, jumping. I did, in fact, throw my hands in the air, and with no irony I waved them like I just didn't care.

The third opener was Rihanna, of Um-ba-rella fame. I wasn't expecting much from her, but was pleasantly surprised -- she's got a lot of personality and spirit. Her voice isn't as powerful as, say, Christina Aguilera, but she really gets into the songs. She's also ten pounds of sexy in a nine-pound bag. I maintain, by the way, that Um-ba-rella is a pretty damn decent song. Sure, it's a friend/end together/weather kind of thing, but there's no denying the propulsive chord changes and the giant, giant hook.

Between Rihanna and Kanye, they pulled a giant curtain over the stage and spent a good half an hour putting things together. When the curtain opened, we saw a moonscape-looking stage with a 10x10 video screen horizontally on top of part of it, another 20x10 video screen vertically sticking out of it, and a giant screen behind the whole thing. Kanye was lying on top of the video screen with his eyes closed, and a computerized female voice said, "wake up, Mr. West."

Yup, Kanye turned his stage show into an incredibly nerdy science-fiction rap opera. Turns out his spaceship, Jane, had run out of power, stranding him on an alien planet. He had to find the one thing that would fuel the spaceship and return him home, while kicking the shit out of his greatest hits. Spoiler: the only thing powerful enough to take the spaceship home was Kanye's giant ego. No foolin'.

So it was an incredible evening, and a reminder that those who get too caught up in labels and irony (more on that in the next post) miss out. If I had thought, "wait, I'm not a fourteen-year-old girl, I'm a 30-year-old white nerd and music snob; I can't go to this show, and it's totally beneath me, anyway," I wouldn't have seen these amazingly talented performers rock an arena full of good vibrations for damn near three hours. It was great stuff, and not to be missed.

I have less to say about Aimee Mann, mostly because as a 30-year-old white nerd music snob, she's definitely what I ought to be listening to. She put on a great show, though, with completely unaffected, ego-free banter, dealing with accolades and heckling alike with humor and charm. For example, some douchebag kept shouting "Voices Carry!" until she finally stopped, said, "now, you know I'm not going to play Voices Carry. What the hell's the matter with you? Check it out, this guy is totally losing his shit," all with a wry smile that got even the douchebag heckler laughing. I do wish she would have played more old stuff, as the set was mostly off her new album, but we got some of the classics, too. And she finally acknowledged the weirdness of the whole "we go away for a minute, then you applaud until we come back for the encore" thing. And then went ahead and did it anyway. Class all the way, Ms. Mann.

So if you like good music, some recommendations:

!#$@%# Smilers -- Aimee Mann's new album. I keep hearing that it's too similar to her other stuff, yadda yadda, but I loved it on first listen and it just keeps getting better. Like, say, Cake, Aimee Mann's someone with a definitive sound and a limited vocal style who somehow never gets boring.

The Cool -- Lupe Fiasco's second album, and the only one I have at the moment. It's not a home run -- there are a couple of songs that are fueled by samples made out of pure obnoxiousness. But the concept is neat, the lyrics are intelligent, and it's definitely worth a few spins.

Graduation -- Kanye West's album is a year old now, but I'm still listening to it with regularity. There's just something about that guy -- the giant ego, the dumb smart lyrics, the smart dumb lyrics, the off-the-wall production -- it's a good antidote to most mainstream hip-hop, which tends to be bitches 'n' bling set to somebody banging two keys on a Casio.

So yeah. New blog. Maybe I will write in it. We'll see.