2008 may 28 what the hell do i know. what an incredible organism, the modern hospital: a sprawling network of halls, wings, elevators and concentric chambers. such a flux of forces—public vs. private and personal, open vs. closed. after hours of waiting we looked at video clips of my father-in-law's heart pumping blood and dye through his arteries. he's going to have surgery on some of those arteries. the cardiologists know what they're doing.
at 7pm I sat on my couch, trying to figure out where to go for dinner, when all at once a thought both simple and grand overcame me: routine has displaced wonder in my daily life. without a fresh wave of new (people, adventures, creations and learning curves) i've passively tricked myself into a kind of smug confidence. and ugh, sometimes i can't bear to listen to myself talk. maybe i've forgotten to look for unknown unknowns, forgotten to embrace that feeling of coming into being. i am 30 years old.
2008 may 27 kind silence. as i walked around the block talking on my cellphone, i saw a guy standing beside a ng'; if(!file_exists($file)) { $errormsg = $lancing back and forth between the two. i told my friend i'd call back, and walked over to help the guy. he understood my offer, and grinned. we hoisted the massive thing onto the truck bed with only a little trouble. the angled metal base left a mark on my hand. he thanked me in spanish as i walked away, smiling.
jenny often tells me her dreams first thing in the morning, as i'm blinking awake. depending on where my sleep cycles fall, i sometimes feel assaulted by her words, my brain not yet ready to process. she tells me so much so fast, and the barrage makes for an uneasy start to the day. perhaps i need a slow fade-in, to set the scene.
once jenny's off to work, alfie and i spend the whole day together, not talking.
2008 may 26 pain is the body's way of guiding us to comfort. last week we picked up this newfangled wii fit, completing the gta4 + mario kart video game hat-trick of the past month (mr. gamestop employee, despite your condescending uptalking upsell i won't be reserving rayman rabbids 3). the wii fit is fun, social, and giving me a proper workout... like basketball would, if i had anyone to play basketball with. most challenges seem to become easier when you add a layer of play.
my nephew miles loves when i chase him like a monster while he laughs and screams. the monster takes giant steps, swinging his arms and legs high into the air, moaning loudly. the monster would rather chase children than make small talk at various memorial day weekend family gatherings.
2008 may 23 going nuclear. this afternoon jenny and i watched the business of being born, a small but engaging documentary about natural childbirth and its rapid disappearance in this country. another in the pile of longstanding cultural / biological traditions suddenly crushed by the invisible hand of fashion and corporate economics. we no longer ask questions about even the basic needs of a woman giving birth. not much outsmarts nature: it's hard to come up with a more difficult way to push out a baby than lying on one's back.
earlier, jenny came by the house around lunch time. a sweet moment in the corner of the kithen: she in a chair and me kneeling in front of her, our puppy and her pregnant belly between us. and we both smiled. it clicked, in my mind, how a family grows as an entity greater than the love of its members.
2008 may 22 not all solutions involve causes. i spent an hour on the phone talking to josh. he's going through some trying times (if this was his website, maybe he'd go into details) and handling it well. i'm glad to be talking with him more frequently, and it's nice to think about things beyond my immediate working-from-home staring-at-screens limited-social-life-media-grok routine. that routine needs to change, as i'm a bit restless, and i've got a son on the way. today i realized that it won't be a hard change. we only need alter some initial conditions. i realized this during the phone call by way of a story/metaphor (a metaphory!) which I was relaying to joshua for another purpose:
since we started dating 5 years ago, jenny has cut my hair on a regular basis. she does a good job with it, but early on the process didn't always go well. i'd get ornery and uncomfortable, she'd get frustrated, and we'd snap at each other. it took a long time to pin down the root causes: 1) my chair isn't comfortable 2) jenny takes longer than a professionally trained stylist 3) jenny's actions do not include the kind of subtle but informative comments and gestures that a barber uses 4) i second guess her choices 5) jenny takes my concerns to be criticism 6) we don't communicate well in the proximity of control issues, and shit escalates needlessly.
our successfully implemented solution: i read a magazine while she cuts my hair.