I should include a photo with this (and borrow Mrs. P’s camera). But why, oh, why, are there retailers/shops that specialize in art supplies, but not writing supplies? Or, maybe there are, and they are for offices. But I mean writing! I realize that a lot of creative writing (especially professionally) has gone digital. But, if I’m correct, so has professional “art.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been at work on my birthday before, except in 2001. My wife (then girlfriend) had flowers sent to the office. And I caught the young ladies of the suite reading the card when I got back from a smoke-break. Evidently, there was speculation of some sort about whether I was single, gay, how old I was, etc. No one believed I was “only” 22, and I was insulted for some reason. The whole “you’ve been with the same girl for how long?” thing was also insulting, as if three years meant something that everyone understood but me. Playing the field? No thanks. I wonder what some of them would say if I told them that we’re married now, with a beautiful daughter.
Today, I am 31, have a wonderful wife and daughter and really don’t care about my age anymore (remind me I said that if I’m still blogging when I turn 40 in 2019).
I might even start back up this old chestnut, on a limited basis.
Today, I took some pencils for the pen cup in my office, and it smelled like cedar around my work area. I got so much done that, literally, my eyes hurt.
I need to get around to going to the eye doctor to get new glasses.
Great article from Wired magazine about the decline of web-surfing. Uh, are there apps for porn, or have people become bored with it?
Charlotte is eating her feet, looking at me, squealing and humming. She also responds to her name all the time, at only 4 months.
Also, Amazon took my camera back, after the complete failure of Canon’s repair service to right my camera or their snarky customer service to right the situation. Amazon even footed the bill for shipping. I’m totally typing up the complete story for people who Google “Canon customer service” to find. To top if it, the last message I got from them wasn’t even polite, after I never verged from good manners myself.
I have refrained from telling the story in detail, in the hopes that they might fix the situation. Fuck that. Remind me to never buy a Canon ever again.
This week, wherein I am only supposed to work half-time, has been a bitch. Yes. A bitch. I wish it ill. Plenty of ill-deserved criticism at work, including being talked down to, taken advantage of and other bullshit I don’t need and don’t get paid enough to take. Oh, and I was still working tonight, when I wasn’t even supposed to be working today. Fun!
And, well, this is kind of funny. But I’m sleep-deprived enough to actually be hallucinating a little a few times a day. I see things that aren’t there and hear things that aren’t happening. This is getting a little scary.
Said a frizzled old lady in perfect Bawlmerese behind me in line today at the grocery store when Charlotte wanted her binky. She ignored the adorable baby the whole time we were waiting in line, which I thought was strange — because in an empty grocery store, everyone wants to chat with the baby, and we’re glad for it. I sure don’t want Charlotte to be as anti-social as I am. (Hell, I don’t want to be as antisocial as I am.) Anyway, snarky, “That’s why your baby’s fussing a tiny bit,” comments are unwelcome at best. I wanted to point out the sweater Charlotte had on, remind her that a baby’s parents usually know her best or to tell her to mind her own business. But I can’t control how people act. I just ignored her, which I thought was a silent, “Shut up,” and I walked home with veggies, bread and my daughter.
Interesting, if a little contentious, article about the decline of organized religion, especially in its relations to American politics:
“Yet somehow, in the last 30 years, people of faith were hustled and hoodwinked into regarding the GOP platform as a lost gospel. Somehow, low taxes for the wealthy and deregulation of industry became the very message of Christ. Somehow, hostility to science, gays, Muslims and immigrants became the very meaning of faith. And somehow, Christianity became — or at least, came to seem — a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party.”
Color me embarrassed, but I didn’t think “believers” believing outside of organized religion were really novel entities. Maybe there are just more now?
“Who can blame people for saying, “If that’s faith, count me out”? Has atheism ever had a better salesman than Jerry Falwell, blaming the Sept. 11 attacks on the ACLU, or Pat Robertson laying Haiti’s earthquake
off on an ancient curse?
But what of those who are not atheists? What of those who feel the blessed assurance that there is more to this existence than what we can see or empirically prove? What of those who seek a magnificent faith that commits and compels, and find churches offering only a shriveled faith that marginalizes and demeans?”
Read the article here. Pitts makes some good points, even if he does seem to be generalizing more than I’d be comfortable doing in such a contentious piece.
I’m wondering when the religious and political over-lapping in this country is going to really come to a head. It’s bad enough when religious leaders tell you how to vote in political elections. Things are really going to shit when people who are elected get to start telling us all how to act (by the law), according to their own religious beliefs. And it’s certainly not only Christians doing it. Secular humanists and others often attempt to legislate their beliefs. But at least they don’t so often conflict with the Constitution or seek to take away other people’s freedoms.
I keep forgetting. It’s strange. Two years as a VISTA member, and now I can’t get away with wearing shorts to work and only shaving twice a week anymore.
Stranger still, I’m in the same office after the rest of the suite moved. I’ll be staying on in the Provost’s Office to work on faculty development issues two days a week for six months to earn some cash. At least the PhD (for which I received three negative comments in two days last week — nice) means something right away. It was listed as a prerequisite in the job description.
I’m tired of apologizing for it, like I owe it to everyone to live up to three letters or something. It’s not like being an Eagle Scout, that’s for sure.
I find myself stuck more and more these days not even on products I might want to have or use — long ago I lusted after a Dickie’s messenger bag, got it, used it, loved it — but to brands. There’s a new Moleskine? I need to have it. I realize I might need to keep a binder at work? I need to get the expensive Moleskine one. I need to. Anything bag related? I need a Timbuk2 and even a very heavy diaper bag that I can pass onto Charlotte later for travel/school. Because, you know, a bag has to be made of a material that was designed for flak protection in WWII to be worthy of a bag, right?
This could be my relatively boring life. I never go camping as much as I used to, or travel. So I sit and obsess over backpacks and messenger bags and what sort of gear I’ll need for my imaginary solo trip around Europe and the near East (which I’ll not only never get to take, but also don’t really want to take; my wife is a great travel companion as well as life companion). When I was in my teens and camped more, I never really thought much of gear. I had (still have) a framepack from 1990, and that was that. My sleeping bag still has a cigarette burn from October 1995, in the mountains of Western Maryland and probably hasn’t even been washed since.
So I sit and read about bags to do things I don’t do. Look on Flickr at pictures of Moleskines and other tools of writers, while I never write anymore. I read adventure and manly books to imagine myself doing it.
And I don’t do anything.
I used to convince myself (even until this morning when I noticed a few meaningless broken threads on my precious custom Timbuk2 bag — one of FOUR I own!) that I really just needed to be able to enjoy my stuff, to love it so much that I didn’t care about the universal flaws that things which are made of material always exhibit (namely, never ever being or remaining perfect!). That’s crazy. The only entities worthy of being loved beyond their flaws are people and maybe your country. Not your damned messenger bag that was made in San Francisco just for you or notebooks that have freakin PVC in their covers and paper that’s really, let’s face it, not great. More properly, I need to regain my love of things like hiking and camping and traveling so much that I don’t care what beat-up piece of crap I carry all my stuff in. I’ve been actually planning on buying a backpack to take to the mountains this fall. Why? I’ll just sit there worrying about and thinking about it. There’s no point in spending a lot of time on it. When I was a teenager, my journal was just a big spiral notebook I never needed for classes, and then the books people would give me as gifts.
I’ve gotten to the point where I would be ashamed if the people whom I admire were to learn about my sick ways. When my dissertation director was here last month, I hoped I wouldn’t slip and admit how much I’d read about the little backpack I had with me at the time. I’m not quite sure that Thoreau, Hemingway or Chatwin would own four Timbuk2 bags or even that any of them would get anywhere near a Moleskine, especially now that there are better and cheaper alternatives that do the same thing.
There was a time when the only things I was obsessed with were Space Pens, and I just wrote and traveled and camped and enjoyed activities and experiences. This wasn’t that long ago, merely months before I started blogging, maybe a year. I need to get back to that. I don’t think I need to somehow learn to deal with accepting the imperfections of the stuff I am already obsessed with. I think I need to get rid of and no longer buy the things I’m obsessed with. Things that don’t obsess me don’t bother me regarding their imperfections. Hell, I love shit that’s broken in!
My consumerism even extends to how I spend my time online and why the hell I even own a digital camera anymore, but that’s another post for another dark lunch-hour.
Rough week, rough night, and we needed more rest. Bought fruit at the grocery store, and I had to spit out and throw away a nectarine that tasted like what I imagine the inside of a [cave] tastes like: mooshy and bland.
My punishment.
Which meant, today, that Charlotte and I could have breakfast with Grandma and Aunt Sheree and that we get to take a walk later to see Aunt Frannie (Frances, same as Charlotte’s middle name) and Aunt Patti. We we get to see Uncle Joey later, too, and Uncle Tom and Aunt Heather and Auntie Wu and Grandpa this weekend.
I’ve never liked hot weather. But 100+ degree heat indices (and even temperatures!) are dangerous for a baby and have kept us indoors a hell of a lot this summer. It’s even very hot when we do to the farmers market on Saturday mornings very early.
There’s escape this weekend in the form of temperatures in the mid-upper 8os, less humidity and, well, the sheer desire to go the hell outside!
So. Got my camera back yesterday. I think for$400 a point-and-shoot that’s not waterproof ought not to have to be repaired after two months. Certainly not again a few weeks later. And definitely that they should actually fix it this time. And then, after the third trip in, one’s camera really, oh, really should not come back with a cluster of dead pixels, a vertical line in the images and moisture in the lens! No, indeed.
I demanded my money back, and I hope I get it. I’m buying something else.
I love being a father; I really do. But I also love getting a coffee and shooting the shit with my pal. Tonight I got to do both. Even though it was hot, we enjoyed nice coffee standing around a NO LOITERING sign. It was fantastic. Charlotte had a short walk with Mama and got to hang out, since Mama worked very late last night.
I’ve had a rough couple of weeks at work (etc.), and I thought aloud tonight to the Mrs. that I would love a cigarette tonight but that I wouldn’t smoke one. I did smoke in the past. Not that far past. The last time I smoked was June 2009 at a party, and I don’t, uh, remember smoking it very well. So, to indulge my desire to smoke, I ask if I can light my pal’s cigarette (my brother seldom lets me, you punk!). It’s fun.
I got a thousand bug bites on my feet and ankles.
And, in the weird light tonight, I noticed that I’m more tan than I’ve been since, well, my early teens. At my age, that’s probably not the brightest idea. But, well, whatever.
I am officially between pairs of glasses. My ultra bullet-proof lenses cracked, from going in and out of the heat and AC this summer, I think. Turns out that our improved health insurance means my glasses, whatever I want, are $25 (+$50 if I want Transition, and I do). Awesome. Only I don’t have time to go to the eye doctor this week or next or last week. So I’m squinting a lot.
I’m officially finished my AmeriCorps time in two weeks. My office becomes a library after tomorrow. I think I might be off-campus the week after, my last week. Bizarre. I didn’t accomplish much this year, after a great year last year. I think I might actually take my Dell Mini outside of my apartment, after owning it for almost six months. That might be exciting.
I have been drinking more coffee than usual, being online less than usual and reading more than usual lately, though. That is excellent.
I am in my underwear on my couch now, since Charlotte’s asleep, enjoying the AC and wet hair from a shower.
And now I will stop revealing things for the evening.
And this makes me sad, here.
Sans commentary from me.
Charlotte can hold herself up enough to sit in her high chair now, which she prefers because of its viewpoint. Wow.
Well. Long story. But it involves my camera being en route to/from Canon. Again. Yes, again. They typed “glass” where I typed “lens,” and the person doing the fixing thought it meant “LCD.” Boo. At least they didn’t make me pony up for shipping again. Bums.
“Dangerous heat index. Outdoor exposure should be limited.”
This is the story of Baltimore’s summer this year. Everyone who called this year’s snow “piles of global warming” with snark and sheeplike repetition: up yours.
All my shit got wet at the farmers market last week (read: diapers, extra baby clothes, etc.) and at work last week (read: books, Moleskine journal, etc.). Ultralight backpack I bought from REI with a giftcard. It’s a great bag, but even the rain that gets under my umbrella finds its way into it, when I’m holding Charlotte and concentrating on keeping her relatively dry.
Despite their new offerings only sometimes being good, I find myself missing my Timbuk2 bag that I got last year. Damn their constantly new custom bag offerings that have us all owning a few bags that are each, on their own, supposed to last forever! I have two smalls and two mediums. That’s kinda dumb.
Fatherhood
