After Photo Op, Trump Hastily Places Bible on Pile of Books to Burn

Washington, DC: Minutes after tear-gassing a crowd of peaceful protesters in a churchyard, Trump and his team arranged a photo-op to demonstrate the president's commitment to his faith. Awkwardly clutching a Bible provided by one of his aides, Trump did his best to show a grieving nation that God is in control.

After the cameras turned away, however, Trump wasted no time in tossing the book onto a pile of "subversive" literature that is slated to be burned in the upcoming July 4th "God Bless America" celebration. The Bible joined such seditious titles as Origins of the Species, The Communist Manifesto, and Al Franken's Rush Limbaugh Is a Big, Fat Idiot.

When a female reporter asked the President to explain his actions, Trump snapped that it was a "nasty question" and that she was "fake news."

However, when a white, male reporter was finally found to ask the question, Trump expanded on his rationale.

"Look, I know this may be shocking to people who hold the Bible sacred," he says, "But once I finally read some of it--well, okay, Pence read it to me-- I couldn't believe what the leftists snuck in there while we weren't looking."

Trump pointed to a few passages to prove his point:

"Look at this Levi's Tie Cuss 19:34," the President said. "'The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.' It doesn't even specify whether the foreigner is here legally or not? Seems like a pretty important omission."

The President's qualms with the Bible extend past the Old Testament, however. "Look at this chapter, this Matthew guy, he says Jesus wants us to pay our taxes," he says. "That's just not smart. Geniuses don't pay taxes. And his buddy Luke, he says, 'Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.' Sure, let's imagine no possessions, comrade. Sounds like socialism to me."

The last straw, according to the President, was when Pence's daily devotions covered James 5:4-6:

Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you; and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of (a)Sabaoth. 5 You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have (b)fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and (c)put to death the righteous man; he does not resist you.

"After he heard the Bible said you should pay your workers and not live a life of luxury, the President asked for a break to think about what it meant," Pence said. "I tried to explain that it wasn't meant to be taken literally, and it only applied to our political enemies, but he wouldn't listen."

When asked to comment on the President's act of desecration, the evangelical conservative community did not hesitate: "I'm so glad God sent us President Trump to show us how leftists have corrupted His Holy Word," said Franklin Graham in a tweet this morning. "We are eager to receive a New Testament from Trump's hand, ordained by God, that will correct these passages. If we have to burn a few Bibles to get to God's truth, that's what we'll do."

At least one Christian interviewed by this reporter expressed misgivings, however, saying, "I was always taught that the Word of God was Holy, divinely-inspired truth, every single word," the man, who requested to remain anonymous, said. "But what am I going to do, vote Democrat?"

The response in Congress has been mixed, with Senator Matt Gaetz lauding Trump's actions, Susan Collins expressing misgivings before ultimately continuing to vote in lockstep with her party, Mitt Romney visibly facepalming. Chuck Schumer appeared mildly concerned, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Trump's resignation, and Mitch McConnell blocked a motion to formally (if only ceremonially) disapprove of book burnings in general.

It is amazing how hundreds of tiny imperceptible changes over time can suddenly add up to a major shift, powerful enough to bring tears to my eyes. Ollie just woke up from a weirdly-timed nap (6p-10p) and is a completely different person. For the first time I see no trace of the baby or toddler in him. He's a kid now, 3.5 years in, all of a sudden.

He's huge. How did I not notice he was huge? I can barely hold him.

I can handle him talking like a six-year-old and thinking like a six-year-old. But does he have to keep getting bigger?

Dammit, how am I supposed to cradle him in my arms if he's going to get so big? How am I going to keep him safe?

At this rate, I'm going to need to be institutionalized far before he graduates 1st grade.

The Dog Days of Winter.

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.

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.

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. . .

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.

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!

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

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 . . .

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

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.

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!

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?"

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 . . .

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!

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. . .

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...

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...

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.

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.