A Counter Argument

My brilliant, amazing, lovely, generous, gracious wife wanted to say something.

There have now been several posts and discussions here that fall into the realm of feminism, child rearing and biological versus societal influences and I've been wanting to weigh in since Lawryde's high school friends started bashing him and the viewpoint he represented (which was researched with me, who holds a BA in child development and has many years of experience with children, but that's neither here nor there).

I've recently started viewing feminism in two lights. The first is the traditional, stereotypical idea of the word. The woman out to prove her merits in a man's world. A woman who will not be bound by the gender constraints of a static society, who isn't tied down by children, who does not fall into the mold of the merry, happy, housewife who spends her days cooking and cleaning to please her man. The second view is sort of the antithesis of the first view. It's that of the earth mother goddess. The woman who is in tune with what the natural world intends for her to do. She bears children and nurtures them through close bonds, time together, breastfeeding and all that jazz.

What I've been seeing reflected in the comments and posts by this group of women really saddens me. It seems like they're turning their backs on the power that being a woman and partaking in those traditional actions gives them. Becoming pregnant and sustaining a life in your own body is some serious power. Hunkering down and connecting with those primal instincts during birth, spending that time communing with yourself and birthing a child without medication the way nature intended is an eye opening, confidence building, view altering experience. I have never felt as powerful and amazing as I did after giving birth to Carter and Oz. I had done something that no man could ever do, something that connected me with women for all of history, all over the world. And spending those two years nursing Carter and sustaining his life, on the outside this time, exclusively for the first six months and then primarily for the next year, how could anything be more important and powerful than that?

It seems like there are a lot of angry feminists out there who are looking down on these activities. Who are failing to see the merit in them and to realize the power they have in this world because of their ability to do these things. There seems to be a need to prove that women aren't driven to care for their children, that they were out doing the same things men were through all of history and that's really selling women short. I truly don't believe that they were out hunting in the same way men were. They were at home, caring for children, birthing them, feeding them, caring for the house and to deny that denies part of our power as women. Do I think that women never went out and fought for food? No, I'm sure that they did. I'm sure communal breastfeeding happened so that women could go out and hunt and gather. But do I think women went out on week and month long hunting trips to get big game? No. There are so many reasons why they would have had a need to stay close to home. By insisting that they did the same things men did just demeans the things women have traditionally done.

Now I don't think that every woman should quit her job, kick off her shoes and get pregnant. But I do think that woman should stop trying to deny the biological tendencies towards caring for offspring that we have. As women we've been given the most important task of perpetuating our species. We should be honoring it, not pushing it to the side.

I would love more than anything to have my two views of feminism come together.
I would love for anyone who considers themselves a feminist to see the merit in both sides and in all the ways women can empower themselves. Until then though, I'll just be sad for all those women who are missing out on the greatest things they could ever know.

Comments are open and free, or did that just blow your fucking mind?

This is like listening to a discussion on Foxnews except with an Angry Feminist viewpoint.

Text of the Discussion
(I stayed out of it.)

All the ass slapping and atta-boys, or in this case nipple tweaking and atta-girls?

One thing that he mentions in his book that I totally don't buy is how our first ancestral "double income household" was a man hunting and a woman gardening. There are a number of problems with this theory based on other reading that I've done, some of which came up in our discussion with My Biggest Fan on Erica's blog. Also, my sister, who is a nutritionist and has studied such things, says that those ancestors likely did communal raising of children, such as multiple women breastfeeding one child, etc., rather than a standard nuclear family structure that this guy is a proponent of.

I enjoy the logic of instead of only a woman who has a child having enormous engorged milk filled breasts, not cradled in a bra for support, now the entire community of early human woman have them, and then are out killing prey. Maybe the nursing was done communally, but those women weren't out hunting.

But, I am willing to give the book a go, because it's such an interesting theory, and of course, one that jives with my own convictions against the patriarchy.

I also enjoy and prefer only getting information that conforms to my viewpoints.

Square pegs end up fitting in round holes when you're just skimming the top of something and not thinking of the logistics of it.

It's good they don't want kids of their own because by the time they finally do decide and they're 40 they'll end up with genetic defect if they even make it to term. Again logistics of the situation, your bodies weren't meant to have kids that late in life. It's a fundamental part of the human condition, just like the hormones that make little kids gravitate to the toys they want, just like I can't fly by flapping my fucking arms up and down.

I totally want this book. It just makes sense that women want fewer children than men. It takes such a toll on our bodies and so much work to raise them. I hate that men use our bodies to prove their virility. I hate that so often, our bodies are not our own.

The unwillingness to believe that there are women out there that are strong, powerful, and independent who give birth and raise children on their own terms and conditions blows my fucking mind. The generalizations they make are just as bad as “all women should stay home and raise children” and “all men want to fuck everything that moves to make more little versions of them”.

Oswald Xavier: Oz to his friends

Born 10:55 pm at home in water naturally at 37 weeks one day.

Mom and baby are doing well.

I'm tired.

7lbs 6 ounces 19 3/4" long

Post #345: The Dregs of Pre-Holiday Break

Being at work is just killing me right now. I was supposed to be really busy right now setting up a test to have ready for when we get back from holiday break. Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten the fan pump we need for the test.

Now I’m stuck at my desk waiting for the hours to click by.

Everyone thought my late grandmother had seasonal affective disorder. Her mood visibly changed every winter. I thought I was just an asshole for hating this time of year, the hassle of doing holiday related things, the headache of traffic due to everyone being out shopping, etc. Turns out I too may also have SAD. I went and bought a seven-dollar big wattage full spectrum light bulb. I’ve been having it’s blasting light a few feet away from me for about 2-3 hours a day. Either through coincidence, placebo affect, or actual curative properties, I feel much better after only two days of doing it. I’m not exhausted after getting home from work, I can tolerate being in stores full of all the ugly, stupid people in this world, and I generally feel OK.

Found out yesterday that we’re having a second boy. I kind of wanted to have a girl, but now that I know we’re having a boy, I think it will be better to have two boys than a boy and a girl. Now Carter will have a partner in crime and be able to have that brother-brother bond, that I known nothing about, but can only assume is pretty cool to have. We’re also all set up for a boy so no additional things need to be done other than get seasonally appropriate clothes since this one is due in May. Now there will be two Lawryde men to carry on the Lawryde name.

Lawryde Ponders Causality, the meaning of Cheez-its, and why God is trying to kill him again.

As if God isn’t trying to kill us all at every given moment… but I digress.

My body is full of adrenaline right now, so we’ll start from the end and work back.

It snowed last night (less than a ¼ inch accumulation), and the sandbox at work is tucked away back in the country with only two country roads leading to it. I’ve lived in Illinois a touch too long apparently because every winter here I have an oh shit moment where I nearly get in an accident because I forget my Wisconsin winter driving skills. Luckily I have reflexes of a jungle cat (more on that later). The twisting winding road to work normally is really fun to drive at high speeds. So I’m kind of driving it the way I normally drive it. I come into a corner going way to fast and my ass end lets loose.

Oh shit moment begins.

I counter steer the skid, but my momentum keeps me going. The anti-locks are clicking and I’m counter steering the other way now. I’m facing the other direction and my car finally comes to rest about two feet from going into the ditch. The engine dies because I don’t push in the clutch in my moment of shit. I was lucky on two fronts. Number one I didn’t end up in the ditch because then I would have had to call a tow truck to get my ass out. I do think, however, that is covered in Hyundai’s roadside assistance program.

Where I am most lucky though is that a large semi carrying a piece of heavy equipment wasn’t coming the other way at that exact moment (a frequent occurrence on the road to the sandbox), or I would most likely be in the hospital right now or dead. Bottom line, I need to slow the fuck down and remember where I’m from.

Last night my wife and Carter and I went to see a specialist midwife. The only one within 60 miles is 60 miles away, so we took a ride through the Illinois countryside to see her after I got back from work. We stopped in Henry cause I had to pee. The boy had also run out of food and was hungry. I grabbed some Combos for myself and looked for something for him. I looked at the Cheez-its and had a Robert Frost moment of both Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and The Road Not Taken. I paused a few moments and grabbed them.

We continued on in the dark. We were chatting, mostly Carter (he doesn’t stop) and I saw a deer in the right ditch. I slowed, but it was continuing to the right. My wife said something about how I was going to hit that deer. I didn’t see the second one that was coming from the left until the last second due to my concentration on the first who I thought was heading left. I mashed the brakes and I saw him stop and turn. We were going to hit him. There were no cars in the other lane so I swerved hard. The Elantra pranced to the side nicely. We barely missed him. My body filled with adrenaline much like it was a few minutes ago.

On the way home I began to think about my pause at the Cheez-its. If I hadn’t paused for them, would I have hit the first deer (unable to swerve or hit the second), or would I have been delayed a few seconds elsewhere and the same thing would have happened? I’ve talked before about how seemingly insignificant choices have massive impact on our lives. This was one of them.

Was it inevitable that I was going to miss those deer? Was I never going to get stuck in the ditch or hit by a semi coming the other way?

This is the center of my dilemma with life, death, God, and the nature of time.

Cue the music.

Picking dirt out of my teeth

One of my pipelayers is messed up, so I've been out in a dust bowl trying to work on it with 32° mornings and 60° afternoons.

Trick or Treating was fun with Carter.

You can see pictures of it here, and the post before that has some news.

It's alive. Always blows me away.

Like a Phoenix He Was Burned to the Ground

I talk to all these smart, intellectual people who tell me they are waiting to have kids, and I see these myspace profiles of married people who “some day” want kids. Society tells everyone that it’s OK to wait to have kids.

Modern society has lied to you about waiting to have kids. If you do wait until your late thirties or whenever you decide, your baby making tools will have started to deteriorate. You can expect to have a higher risk pregnancy, with a higher likelihood of genetic defects, if you can conceive at all the natural science free way.

“Pregnancies from men younger than twenty-five years are 40% less likely to end in miscarriage than pregnancies from men 25-29 years. Pregnancies from men older than forty years are 60% more likely to end in miscarriage than the 25-29 year age group.” From Wikipedia.

I guess standing around microwaves and not wearing athletic supporters during contact sports can make your guys swim less effectivly.

Back when Rome and Greece ruled the world, people only lived between 25 and 45 years. If you didn’t get to the business of making babies at an early age, you were dead before they were able to take care of themselves. Do you really think our reproductive organs have evolved as quickly as our standards of hygiene and medicine have?

So all you intellectuals who are waiting until you can’t conceive to try and conceive, maybe you should reevaluate you plan and start trying to make more little intellectuals because you known stupid people, the ultra religious, and people from the south are cranking out babies like crazy.

Waiting for my…

No baby yet. He’s pretty smart. No rush to get into this cruel world.

Anyway. I had a pretty busy weekend. It was really nice, something like 50° and sunny. I changed the oil in my car on Saturday. It was nice to do something manly since I cleaned and did laundry on Sunday. We also took down the Christmas lights on Saturday. It’ll be kind of sad not coming home to their glow at night.

I’m listening to that new System of a Down track Hypnotize as I type this. There’s something about that Armenian rock that is hypnotic and melodic.

I played hockey on Sunday night. It was good. We won something like 9-2 or 10-3, I don’t remember exactly. I didn’t have any goals, but I did have a couple assists.

I don’t really consider myself very strong. I’m really kind of wiry at 6’3” 175. Last night though I was able to really manhandle the guys on the other team. I can remember four times when I either wrestled a guy down or just skated through someone. I do have excellent balance on my skates though, so if I do get tied up with someone I’m not going to fall before they do.

I’m exhausted today. It’s been about 3 weeks since I’ve played, and it felt like it too.

Waiting for Baby

Christmas has passed. It was OK. It was quiet. I didn’t really get as much in years past, but I really didn’t have a strong want for anything like in years past. Except for my spider web tattoo and I got that.

Now we’re just waiting. Waiting for the little baby to release the appropriate hormone from his lungs indicating they are ready to work in the outside world and bring on labor in my wife. I was hoping he would be early, born in 2005. All for selfish reasons of my own, a 2005 child tax credit, and a nearly free birth due to Opposite of Dog’s insurance getting far shittier (It would have been about $50, but it will be more like $1000 if he comes in 2006). He still has about 37.5 hours, but I’m not holding my breath. No matter... as long as he’s healthy and my wife is healthy.

I’ve had a bit of a renaissance revival of my Nintendo and Super Nintendo over this break. All you kids out there who’ve only know you’re Playstation 2 and Xbox have no idea the simple joy of Super Mario Brothers, Tetris, Iron Tank, Donkey Kong Country, and all the other fine 8-bit and 16-bit games out there. I sound like a fucking old man, don’t I? I will be a father soon. I guess I should stop saying “Fuck” so much. I wouldn’t want the boy’s first word to be “Fuck”. I think that’s too complex of a sound for a baby to make as a first word. If you look at almost every major language, the words for mom and dad are the same. It’s not a coincidence. The sounds for mom and dad are the easiest for a baby to say, and every parent wants to think that their child is acknowledging their existence as the first thing they utter.

Happy New Year to all. I’ll keep everyone posted on the baby situation, and put pictures up as soon as he graces the world with his presence.

There's still time to give my unborn child a monetary gift, or pitch in for the crazy $1000 bill I'm going to be spanked with at his birth.

“and it's closed on Sunday." “Of course,” I snapped. “These goddamn Jesus freaks! They're multiplying like rats!”

I’ve got a couple things on my mind as I sit here in our abandoned section filled with only those who didn’t have enough vacation days left to take off. I stand on the brink of becoming a father and I have such clarity in my mind. Maybe that’s just the drugs, but it feels good.

This whole thing about intelligent design is really bothering me. I think it’s because I love science so much, and I don’t want to see it perverted into something it’s not.

Those who are for intelligent design throw up all these smoke screen arguments about how we should be fair and let children decide which is correct, Darwin's Theory of Eveolution or ID. They actually act as if ID is a competing scientific theory with evolution. It’s not. No one followed the Scientific Method to come up with it. There is no real proof. ID is Philosophy. It is Religion and Theology. It is NOT science, and to say it is and to have a desire to have it taught in PUBLIC schools is simply Theocracy.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a Deist. I come to the same conclusion when I look at how vast and amazing the world around me is, and how complex the systems of the world are. I come to that conclusion though not with my analytical brain, but with something deeper in me. Again, don’t get me wrong, I haven’t gone to church in I don’t know how long, and I’m horribly afraid of my own death because I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

In an interesting side note, my Aunt talks a lot to me about my religious beliefs and hers. She’s a devout Baptist, and I think it’s cool. She and her husband have an amazing faith that I don’t think I could ever have, and they really don’t push it onto people like so many other Christians do. I lived with them for a summer while I was interning at Miller Electric, and they would ask me if I wanted to go to church with them on occasion. I would always respectfully decline, but they didn’t force the issue on me. I was talking to my Aunt a month or so ago about life and death. She’s recovering from breast cancer, and I asked her what if she was wrong about there being a God and about Heaven, and when we die we just die. She said she didn’t care because she likes the way she lives and the community, faith, and strength her religion gives her. I thought that was a really good answer. It didn’t make me feel any better about dying, but it did make me respect her beliefs even more.

Anyway, if anyone who supports ID can give me a valid argument as to why it is SCIENCE then I’d like to hear it. Otherwise it should be kept in philosophy and religion classes.

So the birth of my son is supposed to be this amazing life-changing event. I’m really excited for it to happen. I don’t recall all that many other life-changing events in my life. The most emotionally rich moments of my life I think are the following:

The moment I walked into the room where my grandmother’s body was at the funeral home. It was the first person that I was actually close to who died. When I saw her it was like a baseball bat hit me in the head.

The time after I broke up with my very first girlfriend. I remember crying in my mom’s arms like a little kid even though I was like 17. It just sticks out in my mind

The first time I had sex: Self-explanatory

The moment I saw my wife right before we were going to be married. Also self-explanatory

The week after my wife’s miscarriage. Previous blog post’s reflect how I felt after this.

And finally, the moments after I thought I wasn’t going to be promoted to “Engineer” See this post for that one.

So we’ve got 4 bad things and 2 good things that really stick out in my mind as deeply emotional experiences. Hopefully the birth of my son will be so vastly amazing that it will count as like 3 or 4 good things. We’ll see.

Life’s short and hard like a body building elf

As I sit here, I’m not really sure what to write about. It snowed last night, and I woke up to a fresh coat of snow on everything. It made me feel good. Everything looks more picturesque with an inch of snow on it. I don’t play hockey this weekend so I don’t have that to look forward to, but we are going to decorate the tree. I also decided what I really want to get from my wife for Christmas. It’s so cool. I can’t wait.

I’m really nervous about the baby being born. It’s only an estimated 33 days away. That’s not very much time. Now that a good portion of my family hates me because I’m an ingrate I’m not really sure what to do. I moved up my physc appointment so maybe that will shed some light on the whole thing. I get my performance review at work next week. I’m hoping to get an extra 1.5% raise above what I think I’m going to get. I’ve got my case put together now it’s just a matter of laying it all out.

I was fantasizing about what I would do if I won the lottery the other day. I guess that’s what happens when you get older. You no longer fantasize about fucking beautiful women. If I won $335 million dollars first I would see how long it took me to get fired by being as incompetent as possible. Not by doing anything that it’s easy to get fired for like sexual harassment or something like that, real incompetence. In this place, that could take a while, but eventually I would move back to Madison and I would buy up some property on the isthmus near campus and have the coolest tattoo parlor ever built. My only goal in owning the parlor would be to break even on the books, and just be able to get tattooed whenever I wanted. I’d just hang out and shoot the shit with artists and watch TV on the big screen I would have in their, and maybe buy a seat of Pro Engineer so I could finish the design of my tattoo machine. Then start assembling it and selling it via the Internet. Then just go around the world to tattoo conventions with my wife and son and sell my machine. That would be awesome.

Instead I am here.
In my cell, thirty-six square
Of cubicle hell.

That’s a Haiku bitches!

The business of childbirth

So my wife is about to give birth to our son in January and I’m also being forced to determine what healthcare coverage I’m going to take in ’06: High premium lower max out of pocket, or low premium higher max out of pocket. We’re also taking a Bradley Birthing class that stresses natural childbirth rather than knock ‘em out then drag it out.

The concept seems to make sense to me, other mammals don’t have excruciating labor like humans do. They still feel pain, yet they somehow know how to giver birth without extreme discomfort and without drugs. Why do humans need it? The answer: money.

I talked with a guy at work whose wife gave birth naturally and one who was induced with epidural. The cost difference: Natural = $7492 Drugged= $12,177. So if you were the hospital would you rather make 12 grand or 7.5 grand? Don’t tell me those few syringes of drugs cost an additional 4.5 grand. It’s a big scam.

My 14-year-old dog is having heart failure. He’s been coughing really badly in the morning so we took him into the vet and they X-rayed him. His heart is swelling which pushes on his lungs and esophagus making him feel like he has to cough. The vet gave him some meds to take that should decrease the swelling, but he only has 6 months to 2 years left in him. It’s too bad. I love that dog.

I’ve had three and four hour meetings every day this week at work. I have a hard time concentrating for an hour let along four. I really need to win the lottery so I never have to work again. That would be sweet.

Lexapro: Day 1

So I’m an idiot on top of being mentally unstable. I decided to take the Lexapro this morning before I ate anything. I don’t have a strong stomach to begin with, and after about an hour my stomach was doing flips. I ate an oatmeal pie in an effort to quell the storm, but I was too late. I wretched into the toilet and went to my wife’s doctors appointment. When I got there I started feeling queasy again and my lower intestines were complaining too. I had to duck out early, not before I heard his heart beat and found that my wife’s belly grew 6 cm! (Maybe he’ll be early after all). My stomach settled a bit as I drove home fervently. When I got inside though I ran upstairs and hunkered down and got rid of the rest of what was in my stomach. If I wasn’t defeated enough, it gave me a case of diarrhea as well.

I still felt miserable, but I dragged my ass to work. After lunch I felt a bit better with some food in my stomach. Needless to say I’m going to be waiting until this weekend after dinner to begin another try of my little friend Lexapro. If it gives me the same shitty reaction as today it’s going in the trash can and I’ll have to get better through good old-fashioned psychotherapy.

Help a poor throwing-up bastard out!

In Utero

This weekend I was able to throw away the shackles of Peoria, and head back to the verdant hills of Wisconsin. On the way there, my wife and I were at each other’s throats for one reason or another, and I finally snapped and yelled at her. She wasn’t happy about that, and I thought she wanted to divorce me at that very moment.

We were able to make it to my mother in laws, and things immediately got better. Ah yes, the underlying reason for the trip was a baby shower for my unborn son. Yup, the cat is out of the bag now. We’re having a boy. There’s really no doubt about it, ultrasounds are remarkably clear. I saw his junk flopping around in the amniotic fluid.

Anyway, the next day, Saturday, we took a trip to Madison to soak in the wonder that is the state capital. It really is the best place in the world to live, it consistently ranks #1 in America to live. We walked around campus and State Street in the balmy, sunny Fall weather. It was great. We made our way to the Terrace and sat by the lake a bit. Normally we would have stayed for the Halloween festivities, but since my wife is pregnant we had to skip out this year. Yes, there was pepper spray used on the crowd again, something like the fourth year in a row. It’s really sad that there are a bunch of assholes from out of town that feel the need to start all this crap.

The baby shower was the next day, and I spent most of it watching football. I did participate in the present opening. We got a ton of stuff. When we left, the entire bed of the truck was full.

We both had Monday off, so we took our time getting back home. It’s still an awful trip, and I can’t wait to move closer to Wisconsin.

If you forgot to give a baby shower gift, there's still time!

Let's get down to brass tacks. How much for the ape?

So it’s really starting to hit home now that I’m going to be a father. We’ve started taking birthing classes, and the worm baby can now be easily felt from the outside, kicking and punching.

I actually felt like crying today as I drove into work. I imagined talking to my child and trying to tell him/her that they were born in Peoria. Then explaining how my life was while I was living here, what I did, who I knew, etc. I felt like crying because this town is terrible, and I feel bad my daughter/son has to be born here and consider themselves a native Peorian(?), and Illinoisan(?).

The second reason is that I know so little about my father’s life prior to me or my sisters. I know from hearsay that he was engaged before he met my mom, thus I almost never existed. (That’s kind of crazy shit to wrap your mind around). Imagine all those little choices you make in life that completely determine how your life will turn out in the end. But anyway, I have no idea what my dad was like when he was just starting out as an adult. That’s kind of why I like this blog. My kid can look at this and see how I was, for better or worse. What I though, how I felt, what decisions I had to make. (As long as Blogger doesn’t go bankrupt or somehow change its services, which is probably inevitable)

I’ve got this home issue too. I think one of my old natural gas lines may have a tiny, tiny tiny, tiny, tiny leak in it at a joint. If you get your nose right up close to it, you can smell the faintest tiniest bit of rotten eggs, but not all the time. I smelled it once before like two months ago, and my house hasn’t blown up since, and I never smell it strongly when I just walk into the basement, I have to get up close to the floor joist where it runs and smell right next to it. This leads me to believe it’s not accumulating at all. I put an open flame up near it and it didn’t really do anything, so I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t really want to call the gas company cause I don’t know if they charge just to come out and see if it ends up being nothing. I also don’t want to pay a licensed pipe fitter (plumber) $100/hr to come in and take out this totally unnecessary line. (It would be used for a gas stove if I had one, but it’s capped at the end right now). I don’t know, I guess I’ll keep a nose on it.

Hey why haven't you donated to my life yet?

I’m just trying to laugh at all the funny things that happen on the way to the grave

I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve actually been busy at work. Shit finally came together, and when it does come together, I have to design things.

We got rid of the asshole dog we adopted about 6 weeks ago. He was a 4 year old beagle and we just couldn’t house break him. He was making my wife and my life a living hell, constantly cleaning up after him, his incessant whining when we had to kennel him. I feel a million times better now that he’s gone.

I was told today that I do a good job at work, but I don’t apply myself and seems as though I could do more. I was a bit confused. I get absolutely everything I’m supposed to get done, done. I even do a bit more. I don’t, however, stay anymore than 40 hours a week at work. Fuck that. Just because all the other assholes can’t get what they are expected to get done in 40 hours doesn’t mean I should get punished for only staying 40 and getting all of my work done. I guess I’m not corporate material.

I felt my baby kick through my wife’s stomach yesterday. It was really hard. That’s some crazy shit. There’s a little worm baby in their kicking around. Really, really crazy.

So anyway, there’s other stuff that has gone on, but I need to get back to work, or at least make it look as though I’m doing more.

Cheers

Remember, if you feel generous give me some money.

Emotional Rollercoaster

My wife hadn’t felt the baby kick in a couple days so she called the doctor. They told her to come in today so they could listen to the heartbeat on the Doppler. I called her halfway through the appointment and she told me they couldn’t find the heartbeat and were trying something else and she would call me back when she found out more. I was freaking the fuck out for the next 15 minutes. The longer it lasted the worse I thought it was going to be. I couldn’t handle another lost pregnancy. I grabbed my cell and went into a back room at work and called her again. When she picked up her voice kind of cracked and my heart dropped.

She said everything was fine though. They had found the heartbeat and heard it. The baby was also moving. She just couldn’t feel it. I was relieved.

Sorry for the blurry picture.





From New York on top of the Statue of Liberty

Gonzo Engineers

We had a house warming party this weekend. My Mother-in-law and Grandmother-in-law both came down as well to see the house and join in the festivities.

In preparation I had to mow the lawn and clean up the outsides areas of the house. I went up on the roof and picked up some sticks and I noticed the gutters needed to be cleaned so I cleaned them even though it’s a pretty shitty job. It made it so I didn’t have to do any inside cleaning though so I didn’t mind.

Right before the party started, I was walking around the house, and I noticed a brownish lump perched on the side of the concrete slab in front of the house near the gutter. It looked like a lump of wet leaves. I looked a bit closer, and I was surprised to find that it was a medium sized bat. I don’t really have anything against bats, they eat bugs and all, and I don’t like bugs. I figure that it must have been hiding in my gutters and when I ran a bunch of water down it flushed it out. It was kind of covered in bits of leaves and was all wet. I proceeded to poke it with a broom to see if it would just fly away. That agitated it, but when it flexed its wings, the right one wouldn’t open all the way.

At this point I felt a bit guilty because I was the one who blasted the water down on it, and potentially fucked up its wing. So I went inside and grabbed a Tupperware container and tried to scoop it up to move it someplace safe. I really didn’t like that at all. It made a bunch of high pitched screeching noises, but I was able to get it in the container and moved it over to the tree in our front yard. From their it was able to climb on it’s own up to the crotch of a limb and hang upside-down. It continued to try and flex its wings and the right one still didn’t open up all the way. I left it for a while and then came back and it was asleep. When I checked it after the party was over, well after dark, it was gone. Hopefully its wing was just too wet to open up and it finally dried out.

Anyway, the party went well. I grilled up some brats and burgers and we drank beer and sat around talking about people we didn’t like at work, and this and that. It was mostly people I knew from work who came, the cool people I know at work I should say.

This morning we found out the sex of the baby. I’m not telling anyone until the baby shower though, so don’t even ask. I’m pleased with what we found out, but like I said in previous posts, I didn’t have a preference one way or the other. I was happier to find out that it was healthy and had all it’s limbs and vital organs.

Life's but a walking shadow

As the population of Wisconsin Rapids now must know and several other cities in Wisconsin, I figured I would let the rest of the world know that I am going to be a daddy.

That's right my wife is now about 12.5 weeks pregnant with our child. This last Monday we went to the doctor and saw it's heart beat for the 2nd time. At this point it actually looks human, past embryo stage into fetus stage. The baby is due date is January 3, 2006. First and foremost I hope it's alive and healthy, but secondly I hope that it decides to come kicking and screaming into the world some time in 2005. Firstly because I could then get a child tax credit for the entire year even though the child would have only been alive for a few days of the year. Secondly, Opposite of Dog's insurance gets shittier on January 1, 2006. If we have the baby sometime in 2005, almost all of the expense will be paid for by the company. If we do have it in 2006, we have to pay something like 10% of the bill up to $X.

We are going to determine the sex at the 20 week doctors visit. No sense in leaving it a "surprise". I don't really care what the sex ends up being. I just want it to be alive and healthy.

So what happens when two crazy people reproduce. Does a super crazy person unable to deal with reality come into existence, or is it like -1*-1=1? Or like ugly people having a good looking child and beautiful people having an ugly child. I don't know we'll have to wait and see.

My parents have never sounded so excited on the phone when I told them. This will be their 4th grandchild, but up to this point in my life anything I've ever told them never made them more excited than this.

So I'm 24 years old. When my father was this age, he already had a 3 year old. When I'm 42 the child will graduate from High School. When it is 24 and possibly having children, I will be 48 going on 49. Crazy shit. I guess the question is will this increase or decrease my fear of death? I do know that I need to get more life insurance now. Enough to pay off the house, cars, student loans, and all other debt, plus the child's college, plus money for my wife to live on for a while. Fucking responsibility, it always gets the best of you in this life.

Is someone getting the best of you?

For some reason I feel good today. I shouldn't, I should be tired and angry. I should be mad I had to run all of the spoilable items from my apartment fridge to my house fridge at 2:00 am because the power was out JUST IN MY BUILDING and no where else in the city. All of the other building in our complex, in fact, had power.

That doesn't really bother me though. Maybe it's because I can actually see the end of all the labor I've been putting into the house. Maybe it's because it's almost 100% that I'm going to get to go to the UK and visit Lincoln and Manchester. Or it could be that I know that it's pissing people off that I'm going to get to go. Usually people get to go to Bumble Fuck, USA to see some machine operating in a mine or on a pile of shit. You've got to think big though. It's Friday too, no matter what's going on, it can't be all that bad on Friday.

I am a bit scared of Monday though. My immortality may be in jeopardy, and no... I am scared, not just a bit. I want everything to be fine. I don't want to deal with tragedy anymore. Have I ever told you how much I love you, and how strong you are? If I haven't then I should more often because you are.