Charlotte will find hundreds by then.

If not more.  This is a great article not just about the act of keeping a paper notebook, but also of that notebook which has been kept.  I’m running through one Field Notes notebook every 7-14 days.  Not to mention my stash of other notebooks, even from the brand of former liars.

Charlotte has some Field Notes I got her for Christmas, I mean, that Santa (wink wink) got her for Christmas.

Mine are filling with the myriad new words she says everyday now.  Sometimes I am surprised at how easily they come.

Rocks in/on/are the cairn.


If you’ve been to Walden Pond, you’re familiar with the custom of adding a stone to the pile near the original site of Thoreau’s little house.  I’ve done it several times, but I’d never brought a rock with me.  For this visit, we brought a stone from Baltimore and wrote a note for Mr. Thoreau on it, from Miss Charlotte.  I thought it was…a bit much.  Not only was I transporting a rock several hundred miles just to throw it into a pile near others by a pretty pond.  I had to remember to pack it, carry it to and from a train, to and from a hotel, and then on the hike to Walden Pond.  But, it being Charlotte’s first visit, I couldn’t resist.

When I got there, I felt less weird about my own actions and pretty baffled by some other folks’ bizarre gestures of self-aggrandisement. While Charlotte’s rock was small, free and thrown into the pile (which is, I think, the point), several people went and paid for custom flat stones with their names (or kids’ names) for the pile. Only they weren’t in the pile. They were placed on the ground in front of the pile, along with some unrelated handwritten letters to Thoreau (some charming, some downright inspired). These self-referential rocks said, “Hey, I was here! This is my name! I paid for this rock to have my name on it so that you could see it here!” Whereas most people throw their stones into the pile as a message or gesture for Mr. Thoreau (I chucked Charlotte’s way up so that I couldn’t even make it out among the other stones when it stopped moving), these people just left stone calling cards for everyone else.

I’m thinking of a larger article about my thoughts about/relationship to Walden Pond, and I don’t want to write about it too much yet.

But still. Come on. Are you fucking kidding me? What, did they have a run on megalomaniacal stones at L.L. Bean or something? I thought of blanking out names when I posed pictures. But, well, the people who left the stones obviously wanted everyone to know they were there. So.

Certainly they might even be memorial stones for dead people.  But that’s not a grave and not the place for such selfishness.  Seriously.

Me?  Shit, I have left orders that my ashes be scattered at Walden, secretly (it’s probably not legal).

Charlotte’s new favorite thing: books on your lap.


Our new apartment is in an even older building than that from which we recently moved. While it’s been converted to have central air conditioning and forced-air heating, two ornately covered radiators are still in the living room and the dining room. We have the couch against one, with the window into/onto the “sunroom” behind. It’s a good set-up, even though said window hasn’t been opened in decades (literally).

Already, it’s covered in books. And most of them are Charlotte’s.

Her new favorite thing is to run at you, board book in hand (always right-side-up, usually open to a page with a dog or a cow), thrust it into your hands, and then charge your lap (or your knees, if you’re in a chair). If you ask, “Charlotte, do you want Daddy to read you that book?” she yells “Doh!” which is, I think, how she says “yes.” (She says “no” for “no”.) Often it’s something by Eric Carle or something involving animals. When the story is over, she closes the book, claps, yells, and promptly exits your lap. The performance is finished.

Meanwhile, she yellst either “Dog!” or “Gog!” at the dogs, “Duckkk” at the ducks and “Mmmmmmmmmoo” at the cows. It’s completely adorable.

My old boss told me that she read somewhere that the single most accurate way to predict good performance at school is the number of books  in the child’s home.  Not the parents’ education levels (poor Charlotte), not the time spent reading.  Just the books.

And I shudder to think what’s going to happen to the Kindle Generation.

Mrs. Former Boss can’t remember where she read it, and I’ve been too lazy to look it up for confirmation.  But I can’t help but believe that the fact that we’ve been reading to and around Charlotte since before she saw daylight and took a breath has a little to something to do with her infatuation with books.

I hope the substance is not vital.  The first thing I ever read aloud to her in utero was by Jean-Paul Sartre.  I’d hate for her to grow up with my, ‘er, sunny outlook.

Fortunately for Charlotte, we live four tenths of a mile from a nice children’s bookstore.  And, fortunately for us, it’s mere yards from the local coffeeshop.

Charlotte’s a year old today!


This was yesterday, when the sun way out. We had to postpone her outdoor party a day because of terrible weather today (2-3 inches of rain and wind!).

I’d say that all she did a year ago was poop and cry, but that’s not true. She tried (with some success) to hold her head up while we were still at the hospital, and would stick her tongue back out at me when she was a few hours old.

She’s always been a pretty amazing kid.

Charlotte’s first Halloween, very lately.


Two weeks into WINTERBEARD. Wait, less, I think. I’m hairy. Not now.  Now I only have a brown soulpatch.  Charlotte’s much hairier now. It takes effort to dry her hair and to rinse the shampoo/soap out of it.

She hates both of these things.

The fact that she’s inherited out big heads does not  help the situation, not at all.


Mama with Charlotte at the Costume Parade. Said costume was made by Grandma and Mama. I always had lovingly homemade Halloween costumes. Though, to be sure, they didn’t look homemade. (Grandma’s a whiz with the sewing machine!)

Despite all my wife’s very excellent qualities, downloading photos from her camera to her computer is not one of her strengths. I stole the memory card and copied it to mine. So be prepared to be overwhelmed with cuteness and pictures of messes.

Not poop, though. Mama  doesn’t take pictures of that. Er, uh, me neither.

My daughter is awesome and amazing.


And exhausting!  Daddy crashed on the couch post-supper tonight, while Mama and Charlotte played and had a bath.  We have bought and “installed” a 12-cup electric coffeemaker with a timer in our apartment’s kitchen — and into our routine.  No big deal, right?  But, for Mr. and Mrs. French Press, this is something to document.

Charlotte was sick and/or teething for a few days, with diaper rash to boot.  (Hence the skimpy blogging.) Low fever, wakefulness, fussy eating (moreso than usual).  Mama and I were at the low end of high by last night, when Charlotte decided to get up and play at 4:44am.

You’d think I’d be used to sleeping for four hours once or twice a week.  And, if it happened every night, I might be able to get used to such a routine.  I remember being much less exhausted when that was the routine last spring and early summer.  Now, however, six and even (gasp!) seven hour stretches of Mommy and Daddy sleep show up themselves once or twice a week to throw everything off even more.  I can’t figure out what to get used to.

No matter how tired and fatigued we get (and remain), it’s all worth it, though — every second.

For a better Monday.


It’s raining.  One of my least favorite people at work is being my least favorite person ever today, on my last day.  Storms are coming, in fact, also.  And I don’t feel very well.  But, you know.  Look at Charlotte, right?  Yeah?  Life ain’t bad.  I tell ya.

Funny baby name story part two.


(See part one. This somehow never got published last year!)
But even if these are coincidences, they are remarkable coincidences and certainly merit the use of the name through giving it a meaning.

“Mom and Dad, where did my name come from?”

“Well, the name popped up either from the universe or by a series of consistent coincidences.  It literally just came to us.”  that’s a much better answer than, “It was your Daddy’s great-grandmother’s Confirmation name,” or something, no?

Charlotte on the swing.


Not surprisingly, Charlotte took to the swings last week at the park like a tired parent takes to coffee — with gusto!  She laughed and giggled and smiled and then got tired.  And then she pulled her pal Mickey’s hair and scared the hell out of Jack Jack when she tried to hug his little face.  And then she got pissed on the way home because she’s not a huge fan of the stroller, especially when she can’t see her Mom and Dad and wonders where they are.  My daughter is awesome!

Eat those feet.

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.

Had good coffee.

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.

Things for today.


Things that are funny today:

My neighbor who was blaring Matchbox 20′s song out the window this morning, over and over and over again.  This is funny because I thought of, “I want to push you down — down the stairs!” and giggled.  Maybe it was a break-up song.  I don’t know.  But if that song reminds you of a person with whom you’ve been in a relationship, well, maybe you’re better off broken up.  There.

When people who think entirely too much of themselves have egg on face.  This is especially funny when the egg is on their face because they didn’t listen to you when you answered their question that they asked while you were on the phone (!) and obviously busy. (What’s less funny is when they seem to want to blame you for this bad information, like you did it on purpose.)

How my daughter laughed her little ass off last night when I was changing her and doing funny voices.

All the cussing I did this morning trying to get my office window propped open, and especially when our archivist turned out to be right behind me right then.

Things that are NOT funny today:

Getting “advice” from someone more clueless than you are.  It’s no fun when someone who never puts forth much effort jumps on you for a perceived and very temporary lack of effort.  Especially not when said person has their head further up their ass than you do yourself and has much less wisdom — which is to say very far and none at all.  Sheeeet, don’t we all know like five people like this?

The upcoming heatwave.

People who are bad listeners.  Bad listening isn’t a bad habit.  It’s a manifestation of a character flaw, i.e., being selfish and/or self-absorbed.  I mean, come one.  Learn to be self-absorbed and a good listener like those of us in the know.  (Geez!)  If you read this blog, you know that I hate bad listeners and refuse to get over it.

People who walk into rooms already running their mouths, assuming that nothing’s going on and that everyone wants to hear about their aches, their breakfast and their cat/dog/car.

Things which are happening today:

Me sitting at work, when I’d rather enjoy the spell of gorgeous weather taking my daughter for a walk or sitting outside with my pals enjoying coffee and running from spiders or having a beer with my parents on their deck or just watching a movie with my wife.

My boss is back, but I only have six weeks left on my contract and will be jobless by mid-August.

My least favorite month has started.

I will make a list and post it on the internet.

“Look at dem blue ayez.”


We took Charlotte for a walk this evening because she’s been fussy from when we get home until she goes to bed all week.  We passed a man who said something about her pretty blue eyes.  I looked at my wife and joked that there will come a time that I would punch someone in the face for that.  Oh, the teenage years will be fun.

But, yes, her eyes really are this blue.

The bizarre urge to document everything.


Before Charlotte was born, we bought her a new Moleskine (sized A4) for a first-year journal, and I bought a new camera with the cash I was planning on buying an acoustic bass with. My better half is a talented historian, and I’m a little obsessive and compulsive. We planned on recording everything. Everything.

I didn’t mean to, but I’ve found myself watching important moments through my camera’s LCD screen, and I’m so behind in journaling (and I haven’t cracked Charlotte’s volume open) that I can’t stand to sit down and begin to write anything at all. Today, I noticed a nice red stuck pixel in the middle of my camera’s pictures. Great. I know that bad pixels are a fact of digital photography, but a red one right in the middle is disconcerting. I spent the night trying out CHDK, but their website and download pages have been down all night. And the firmware version is conflicting with what it’s supposed to be. Canon said to send it back to them. Okay, that’s like $15-$20 in shipping and a week or two (or three) without my camera.

In itself, that’s not the end of the world. I could do something scummy, like buy my camera over again and return the one I have now, since my return period is over. Aside from being scummy, I’m sentimental, and I don’t want to do that. This camera took Charlotte’s first picture ever. But I find myself hoping that she doesn’t do anything too memorable in the meantime. And this is stupid.

For another thing, if it were me, I’d rather hear the story from my parents than see the photos. My parents took tons and tons of photos of their boys as children. But my own memory and hearing my parents tell me things that I don’t remember serve me better for my nostalgic needs than photo albums. In fact, there are some I’ve probably never even bothered to look through.

I’ve developed a strange “I’m getting older” and “important things are happening now” penchant for writing everything down and recording everything (that sounds like it’s own blog post) over the last few years. I worked all day and spent half the time Charlotte was awake messing with my camera like her childhood depended on it. But worrying more about some photos and posting them on Facebook seems like a waste of energy to me these days.

But, you know. Tell me that.