on kids and definitions.

A couple weeks ago, I realized that I didn't know how many weeks old my daughter was. Moreover, I started to think of her age in months rather than weeks. Eventually, I'll start thinking of her age in fractions of years...then years. I will probably think of her grade as her age for a little while. Then it will go back to years.

Right now, my daughter is still X inches long. At some point, that will become "tall" instead of "long." Then feet will be added to the equation.

Right now, I think of my daughter as weighing X pounds Y ounces. Pretty soon, ounces will no longer be a consideration.

I never guessed how much fatherhood would make me aware of definitional terms.

fallen metal

Tomorrow, the most anticipated (by comedians, anyway) album of the year comes out: Lou Reed and Metallica. Yeah. We know. But it does put me in the mind to reflect upon the Metallica I used to know.

The first time I heard Metallica, Ride the Lightning was still an indy record. I was used to heavy...after all, I listened to Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. Nothing, though, could've prepared me for my first listen of the bay area thrash band. A friend of my brother's made a cassette, and I remember him telling me I "had to hear this." "Fight Fire with Fire" came on, and I stopped in my tracks. Could you even DO that? Could music actually sound like that? They seemed to be breaking rule after rule...and it worked! Over the course of the next year, I utterly devoured that album.

Later, I went to a record store (remember those?) to try and find Metallica's first album. When I went up to the counter to pay, the clerk complemented me on my taste and told me their new album was coming out the next day...did I want it? Hell, yes, I wanted it. When album four came out, I would throw the cassette in my car radio, drive around endlessly, and turn up the volume until my windows shook.

Then Metallica's fifth album (The Black Album) came out. I bought it on my way to work. Heard the commercial polish and sheen. Got through the first six songs. With each song, my heart dropped. Quoting nursery rhymes? Ballads? Why on earth was the most innovative band on earth (or at least in my (admittedly limited) listening experience) moving closer to the mainstream? Why did they sell out...after hitting it big? I sold the cassette to someone at work that very day.

Ever since, Metallica has dropped further and further away from my attention. The only real time I think of them is when I find a student wearing a Metallica shirt. What does Metallica sound like to them? I have tried to explain to a few what hearing "Fight Fire With Fire" (or any song off their debut) was like, but I know I'm never going to come close. What was once the most exciting band in the world to me has become classic rock....and rather lame classic rock at that. When they announced the Lou Reed collaboration, my only thought was "of course they'd try something so obviously stupid."

I used to love Metallica...and the saddest thing is I know I will never think of them in quite the same way. But at least I still have their old...their REAL music.

the baby headache silencer

Have the most beautiful girl in the world, but she loves spending days being (how shall we say) grumpy? Why, you need a mixed drink! I call this one "the baby headache silencer":

• make one glass of cocoa
  
  
  
  • note: while you can use any cocoa you like, home-made is best. here's a recipe:
    
    
    
    • combine 2 cups powdered sugar, 1 cup Dutch-process cocoa, 2 1/2 cup powdered milk, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp cornstarch, 1/4 tsp ground chipotle
      
    • mix well, store in a sealed container
      
    • use 1/4 cup of this mix for each cocoa mug
      
    
    
  
  
• add one splash of peppermint schnapps
  
• add one splash of wild strawberry liqueur
  
• stir
  
• take painkiller of your choice
  
• enjoy while trying to remember what it was like to be pain-free
  
• apply heating pad to shoulders
  

final frozen food fantasy

For those of you keeping track of such things, I decided to give my frozen food thing one more try. I was planning to do steakums, but one box now costs over $11...which, if you follow the math, means a full cow would retail for the price of a small house in a quiet suburb. Instead, I got a box of frozen chicken cordon bleus.

I've been trying to figure out a good metaphor. White board eraser? A cross between cardboard and packing foam? All I know all the moisture was cooked out around it...along with all the cheese.

I have come to two ultimate conclusions. First, frozen food might've actually gotten worse in the last few decades. Second, there's utterly no way I'm going to eat any more of it than absolutely necessary.

a post about competing songs

One of the reasons I love my wife is that she understands my need for release. She understands that I love her and my kid entirely...but I still gotta have something else. And since that day I bought my first guitar (a Chicago-brand Les Paul copy) with saved-up lunch money, that thing I need most is music. It is my sanity, my release...and possibly the the only thing keeping me sane at this point.

Last Friday, my band played a show in Bowling Green. Things went rather well. Several friends showed up (more than for my first Black Swamp Rats gig). The other acts (Mark Hutchins and The Half Hearts) were both awesome. I only moderately aggravated my bad shoulders loading my gear in and out of the bar (via the fire escape, mind you). And if my friends are to be believed, I even played well. Well, hell, don't take my word for it:



I would be lying, though, if I said I didn't feel guilty about leaving the wife and kids to play...but experience has taught me that it's much worse, though, for everyone involved if I don't have music as my outlet. In spite of shoulder pain and slightly ringing ears, I was a much better person after this night than before. Still, though, as I made my way into my house and crawled into bed, a song popped into my head:



Yeah. It's just like that...except Kenny was a rich man singing about someone who's poor but still thinks he might possibly be able to make it. I, on the other hand, am poor and hold no illusions of ever being otherwise. The need for what we do, though, is the same.

Oh yeah, our song is better.

in perfect harmony

should've been smarter

should've been stronger

When I sing, my girl is my audience...and she's the best audience in the world.

She doesn't judge me. She doesn't, upon hearing my voice, break into wild laughter as did one former band member. She doesn't leave the room as has my wife (to be fair, though, as she's only four months old, she doesn't walk yet and thus couldn't walk out...but I like to think she'd listen to me even if she had the option of leaving). She finds my voice calming, soothing...as much, that is, as her mood, health, and general disposition allow her to find anything soothing.

Nevertheless, I find myself undergoing a crisis of songs, of singing.

I have a pretty good vocabulary of songs I can sing. I generally, while singing my girl to sleep, last about an hour ten before having to repeat myself...and this is, mind you, just the lyrics...it excludes instrumental breaks and the like. But I need more...because so many songs are, the more I think about it, just not suitable for the occasion.

Some are just too peppy or weird for sleep time. Can you imagine, for instance, falling asleep to Hendrix's "Manic Depression?" Others seem inappropriate. The first time I performed the Rolling Stones song "Dead Flowers" for her, I caught myself before I got to the line about being "in my basement room with a needle and a spoon"...because their first year of life is just a itty bit too early for heroin references. There are a few Wilco songs which got pushed out right away for having poetic lyrics which get a bit too close to spousal abuse for my taste...and while I understand irony and metaphor (and thus understand what Tweedy was getting at), it will be at least a year before my girl reaches that level of lyrical sophistication.

I mentioned earlier that my girl likes the Eagles. Therein lies another problem, though, because most of their songs are of the "trials of men and women in relationships." This is what most of all songs are about, though...which adds an additional level of difficulty.

I am worried about my daughter getting (on some level) the idea that people are only defined by their status in relationships. I have seen this happen to many people, and it is sad--someone walking around the earth, desperate for someone to "complete them." I am also worried about the normalization of drug use, the damage to self-worth, the use of violence (ironic or not) as a metaphor for...well, anything. There are a lot of ideas in music which, if one is not prepared to take them in context...or see them with irony...or understand them as metaphors...well, they have the potential to wreak havoc.

None of these reasons, however, are why I'm having a crisis of songs.

I have, as of late, found myself singing Two Cow Garage (my favorite band in the world) to my girl. I love Two Cow wholeheartedly, unreservedly. I love them for many reasons, but one of the chief ones is that they are fully aware of what it means to be a non-major band. They sing quite often about what you do when all hope of ultimate success is gone. What if you knew you would never achieve your dreams? What would you do? How would you act? Would you fight?

This is all well and good for me. Hell, many of the bands I listen to have similar lyrical concerns. I have known for ages that I'd never be a star, never be a success, never be a mover and shaker. First I gave up hope of being a professional musician. Then I gave up hope of being a scholar. I am, in the end, used to giving up hope....and I need art which speaks to my personal needs, my personal disappiontments.

I don't, however, need or want that for my child. Instead, I want her to see a world of possibilities. I want her to discount limits. I want her to ignore barriers. I want her to dream big.

How, though, do I do this when I myself have essentially quit dreaming? How can I help her hope when I can't make myself hope? When I don't believe in hope? How can I inspire her towards something I don't believe anymore exists?

What songs can I sing?

a dialog about whining

background: My darling kiddo hasn't been sleeping well, and that makes her cranky...and while I know a baby's only real method of communication is to yell, our girl seems to take this to the extreme. She gets a little hungry? Yell as if one is being stabbed by a porcupine and drug over salt flats. I realized, in some ways this reminded me of myself.

So last night, I went up to my darling wife.

Me: I'd just like you to know that if our girl ends up being overly dramatic or becomes a whiner, it's probably my fault...and I'm sorry.

Wife [after face drops]: Mike, have people on Facebook been mean to you again?

frozen food week two: pot pie

Hey, remember when I promised to write about my frozen food of the week experience? Well, yesterday's lunch was a frozen pot pie. The damn thing required a 35 minute bake time. I could've used the microwave directions, but I, dunno, like browning. I then let the thing rest for ten rather than the instructed five minutes...not by choice, but by screaming kid. When I finally got to it, I noticed:

• As frozen food is now designed for microwave rather than conventional oven use (the real oven directions are even in smaller print), they contain weird elements...such as a paper pie plate? Really?
  
• The crust, as it's also designed for a microwave, burns quite handily along the outer edges. Yum....blackened pastry!
  
• Ten minutes of resting is not nearly enough. One day later, I can still feel the scars in my mouth from the lava flow within.
  
• While the product doesn't taste bad by any means, it also didn't really taste good...or like anything you'd ever go out of your way to eat ever again...even if one was a vulture.
  
• For a pie which is supposedly beef, there's very little actual beef in it. What is there is rather stringy. Okay, everyone...please quit baking with round...in fact, if you use round beef for anything other than cube steak, you will be shot.
  
• A quick perusal of the ingredients shows hydrolyzed soy protein and garlic juice to be key ingredients. They also list "beef flavor," which includes autolyzed yeast extract....mmmm, just like mommy used to make!
  
• This "single serving" is about half the size of an actual single serving of food...by anyone's measure.
  
• It also contains 50% of a day's saturated fat, along with 800mg of sodium. Healthy!
  

I'm now reconsidering actually continuing with the frozen food of the week...because I want to live and be unscarred.

life twists

Get ready...the 21st century

is when everything changes

--Capt. Jack Harkness

When I found out I was gonna be a dad, I make one simple vow: to not change too drastically into a slobbering moron. Some people become parents and can then only talk about everything their kids do in glowing terms. "Oh, he let out the cutest toot today!"--that kind of stuff. An infant walks into someone's life, and their IQ drops thirty points. That, I swore, would never be me.

While I would like to think I am, at my core, the same person, it is in fact true that fatherhood has changed me in quantifiable ways. How so?

• I have a permanent glassy look to my eyes...because I'm never quite sure what the hell is going on.
  
• Although I am not on night duty (my wife, as the Milk Producer, has the late shift, while I work primarily days), I am usually called upon to spring into action immediately after awakening...usually in the middle of a cool dream. As a result of never being allowed to awake organically, I'm usually walking around in a zombie state.
  
• As the result of the point above, my per capita coffee consumption has skyrocketed.
  
• I find myself doing strange things with my morning...like taking my kid to the...chiropractor? It actually helped, by the way...and she giggles while being adjusted.
  
• What free time I used to have (which I would've used for, say, showering) is now taken up by endlessly buying and replacing batteries...which now require a screwdriver to get to. Seriously, are there no kiddie toys that don't require batteries? And every one is a different size. I now have a reserve of A, AA, C, D, AND 9volt. Now that I think of it, I kind of miss the B size.
  
• What income I used to consider disposable is now taken up by either hospital bills, doctor bills, or battery bills.
  
• I notice myself violating my oath "I will never do baby babble." Hell, half the time I speak, it seems I start lisping and using a sing-song voice. I sound like a Disney reject, actually.
  
• I also find myself talking in the third person an awful lot...doing things like saying "that's why Daddy really needs to drink tonight." Maybe this is how The Rock got started.
  
• I've become slightly immune to medicine stains, droll stains, milk stains on my clothing. I actually have to stop and ask myself "do I look presentable?" before leaving the house...and I also find myself caring about the answer a lot less.
  
• I still carry ear plugs with me everywhere, but now they're for my daughter, not my drummer.
  

doom and burritos

I've been having writing issues as of late...and it's all due to my current crisis of faith. So naturally, the solution is frozen food.

First, to be completely accurate, I'm really having crises (plural) of faith, not just a single crisis. Although I know I haven't had a future as an academic for years, it is, for reasons I would really rather not discuss, hitting particularly hard as of late. This adds to my crisis in my scholarship (namely: why do any?), crisis in identity (if I'm not a scholar or an academic, what exactly am I?), crisis in hope, friends, life, television viewing, you name it. However, if you've been paying any attention to this blog whatsoever, then none of this should be a surprise.

I've started to write several blog posts about said crises, but I generally get three long paragraphs and four re-writes into them before realizing I don't really have anything new to add to what I've already written. It's a shame, really, because writing always helps me work out my issues, but if I can't say anything original about the issues, what, really, can I work out? How can I improve?

Compounded with all this is the fact that I really don't wanna be that guy who always complains about the same stuff. Complaining is, I admit, an essential part of my identity. I still remember when one of my old bosses, while smoking cigarettes with me before work, had a dawning look of comprehension and said "Mike, you sure do like to complain." I just looked at him with one of those "thanks for stating the obvious" glares. None of this means I like being the complaining guy, though...at least not as a primary identity, that is. Moreover, I don't want to lose the friends I have who still actually wanna hang out with me. I also don't want any normal readers of this blog to feel like they're eavesdropping on a therapy session.

I know I have to expand my level of thinking. I gotta hit new subjects. I need to broaden my scope. What, you ask, might be the solution?

Strangely enough, it hit me when I was grocery shopping. There was a logjam of idiots in the aisle I wanted to travel, so I instead cut through the frozen food aisle. As someone who is proud of turning himself into a pretty good home cook, I was a little surprised at the variety of food-objects for sale. Many were of the "oh, holy hell, people actually pay for something that looks this bad on the actual box?" Others, though, were updates of things I ate occasionally growing up. Glitzier packaging, more "extreme" flavors maybe, but in the end, pizza rolls are still definitely recognizable.

My mission suddenly became clear: I would relive the frozen food of my youth, one meal a week (as to not die from chemical intake). It would make blog fodder!

Week one was frozen burritos. As a teen, I would occasionally grab one for lunch...pile on some cheddar, nuke until the burrito was hot and the cheese had plasticized on the plate, douse with salsa, and you're done! My brand was Patio. My flavor was beef and bean. Authentic? Of course not, but it was pretty tasty.

They don't sell Patio up here. In fact, I couldn't even find a beef and bean burrito in the freezer case. Everything had gotten all gourmet-looking, particularly in terms of flavors. Frozen burrito makers in the eighties had no clue what chorizo was, for instance...but now it shared a wrap with eggs. Funky.

I settled on a steak and cheese burrito. The next day, I nuked it. I tried to eat it. It was awful. I know memory plays tricks on us, and I definitely know my tastes have changed...but this had the consistency and taste (I presume) of dog food. The ends were spackle-like, the middle was gross and paste-like. There is no way my teen burritos were this bad.

Score one against nostalgia, one against current food trends, one for my frozen food memories over the reality. One would hope this week's attempt (the frozen pot pie, currently in the oven) fares better. If not, it might be a sign that the bitterness in my life is poisoning even the mass market frozen food conglomerates.

up, up, and away

I have come to realize as of late that my daughter is a superhero. My evidence? She:

• is able to eat more than her body weight in a single sitting!
  
• has a piercing cry with the power to cripple any parents in 1.2 miles!
  
• can fight nap and bed time with an intensity belied by her diminutive size!
  
• is able to bend time to her own purposes! She can make a simple diaper change seemingly take an hour.
  
• can squirm with the strength of ten babies (see above point).
  
• can cause intermittent memory loss in outside observers! Yesterday, for instance, five minutes of laughter while the two of us were playing "hoot" made up for all the yelling and screaming of the entire grumpy day.
  

...but then again, I always expected she would be special.

update...or why academics is doomed

Hey, remember the post the other day about my bad attitude towards scholarship? Well, there's been developments.

Remember how I mentioned two papers I've had trouble placing? Remember the one I called a "massive leap forward in terms of both theory and writing" and considered the best thing I ever did? Well, the essay was under review by an appropriate journal. When I sent them the submission, the journal required I print off three hard copies and mail them to the editors. At the time, I presumed the journal had yet to hear of e-mail, fax, or even teletype. Well, I just got a rejection....via e-mail. I am highly tempted to drop them a line reminding them that all rejections must be sent via hard copy....or, barring that, they need to send me a check to reimburse my shipping costs.

Secondly, the text of the rejection itself is enough to drive one up the wall. After explaining how their decision process works, they list their criteria for rejecting (not publishing, mind you...they only quantify why they don't like something) submissions. An exact quote:

1. The subject matter or approach is not suitable for the interests and readership of [journal name redacted];
   
2. The argument was deemed unconvincing; or,
   
3. The argument fails to distinguish its contribution to existing literature on the topic.
   

Wow. That certainly clears up things. Gee, thanks.

brain trying to kill me yet again

When I was still a scholar, I used to plan my work based on fairly logical assumptions. I tried to see where the academic world was, what was the focus of most culture studies scholarship, and I used this information to try and find myself a niche, some place where I could do what was most needed, do work which both filled a gap and precipitated curves in the scholarly world. I thought my work would come out right as a new big trend came, I would ride the crest of this new scholarly wave, and that I would come off as a leader, a pioneer.

I was, however, pretty much universally wrong in my predictions.

When I started doctoral work, I noticed how everyone in culture studies seemingly was obsessed by the race/class/gender triad. Surely, I thought, identity has to be more than just these three...so I avoided doing race, class, or gender. The scholarly world, however, still really loves race, class or gender...and shows no sign of changing. Moreover, my idea that our concept of "mainstream" is both under-formulated yet still drastically important seems to only draw the wrath of most academics. Strike one.

When searching for a dissertation topic, I noticed that no one was doing 1980s studies. In general, I realized, people think of history as something that only starts fifty years in the past. So you are either current, historical, or in some kind of limbo. However, the eighties seemed to be an especially important decade, one where a lot of current trends and crises have their roots...the credit crunch and real estate bust, for instance, must be connected in some way to the Reagan "deficits? who cares about deficits?" angle. And time and time again, the eighties seemed increasingly relevant and ready to break as a new subject of analysis. So I started doing eighties studies in hopes of being at the front of that scholarly wave. However, in spite of multiple possible Eighties Studies-launching event after event (reinvading Iraq, the Reagan legacy project, Reagan being mentioned again and again in every presidential election (by both sides in 2008)), academics never started caring about the eighties. No one wanted to hire an Eighties scholar. Where did that leave me, who wrote a dissertation on the intersection of 1980s politics and popular culture? Facing strike two.

My job market failures made me realize I had to reinvent myself. There were, I noticed, tons of film studies jobs...but in order to land one, one had to hold a film studies degree. Television, I reasoned, was a different land...one with more possibilities. Hell, TV, with the likes of Deadwood, The Sopranos, The Shield, The Wire, and tons of other great programs had become the creatively dominant medium. So why not refocus myself as a television scholar? This is what I did. I wrote several great articles on television, with the highlight being a publication in Television & New Media. I gained some level of prestige (or at least a minimal presence in the field). However, 97% of every television-oriented job I've seen requires production skills. I have none. My refocus as a television scholar leaves me still unemployable. Strike three.

Planning has gotten me nowhere...except out.

Lest you think all my moves (to paraphrase Clouseau) are carefully planned, I have also experimented with just letting my muse direct my writing. A few years back, I was watching the first post-Katrina New Orleans Saints home game. The broadcast, in spite of covering post-Katrina quite thoroughly as a matter of design, meticulously avoided mentioning race. It was a paper I just had to write. I still can't place it. Later, at the beginning of one of my summers, I found myself unable to sleep at night because my mind was deconstructing the traditional notions of political economy in relation to television production. My mind immediately started thinking of the then-still-in-production show Dollhouse, and, as a result, I ditched the two articles and book revision I had planned and focused on this new, "I can't get it out of my head" paper. It took me seven weeks to write. It was good, thorough, a massive leap forward in terms of both theory and writing. I still can't place it.

Following my heart didn't work out any better than following my head. This is one of the reasons I've pretty much abandoned scholarship and thinking of myself as an academic. Now, I'm trying very hard to look for nothing out of my popular culture experiences other than just killing time and occupying maybe 3% of my mind.

Today, while watching Bones (my new television addiction), I figured out a way to tie in the research from my abandoned CSI: paper with my understanding of both NCIS and Bones. It would be very doable. It would even incorporate much of my research on hierarchical authority structures, and of nerds. I even have a thesis statement in mind: "the concept of liberalism within contemporary media and society is dependent on the social positioning of geeks, nerds, and experts."

It would, in short, be good. However, it would also, if past experience is any indication, be completely pointless. No one would care. And even if a few readers liked it, cited it, used it in classes (as has happened with my scholarship in the past), it would do utterly nothing to add to my infinitesimal chances of ever finding a tenure-track job. Moreover, I don't have any time whatsoever to immerse myself in the necessary research, let alone chain myself to the computer's word processor to write the damn thing.

So why won't this idea just go away? Why did it come into my mind to begin with? Why can't I quit thinking, accept where I am, and just be?

then and now

Back when I used to think of myself as a scholar, a day without class would generally mean getting up around 8, eating while browsing the web, writing until lunch, watching a half hour of television while eating, and trying to continue to write until 4ish. I would then cook, hang out with my beautiful wife, and climb into bed around midnight. My main regret would be avoiding my guitars.

Things are different now.

Today, I woke up at 7:30 to the sound of my beautiful daughter giving us her "good morning" scream. I hugged her, changed her, and fed her. We then played "hoot" for a little bit, she hit a whale and octopus on her play mat, and then we did TummyTime. While the kiddo was napping, I checked my mail, avoided a few Facebook academic arguments, and just finished lunch when I heard the "I'm done napping" scream. When I went to get my daughter, though, she was smiling. We fed, did a trip to a produce stand, and tried to keep everyone (meaning her) happy while stuck waiting on a train (both on the way there and back). My wife came home from work, and I immediately hit the chiropractor (to get relief from hauling around my kid), hit the grocery store (to get kid supplies), picked up dinner, got to hang with my wife for an hour before she started the "get Mighty sleeping" routine and I started housecleaning. Currently, "get Mighty sleeping" is in phase two while I unwind with a vodka and apple cider.

Oh, I also avoided playing guitar again.

night is weird

I have an infant. I love her dearly. It does precipitate several lifestyle adjustments...the main one being an adjustment to irregular sleep patterns.

While I have always been a light sleeper (no doubt in response to my inherent paranoia), I don't sleep anywhere as deeply as I once did. This is probably because of the increased likelihood that either I or my lovely wife might be called into action at 3am. To be perfectly honest, it would most likely be my wife as I, after all, am not personally a food source. Furthermore, our kiddo has actually been sleeping through the night for a little while. However, I still expect her to wake up, and those expectations keep me up. Moreover, I often hear phantom kiddo sounds...I think I hear her move, cry out, hiccup...but it always turns out to be the television, a passing car, (most puzzlingly) an extraction fan, or something similar.

There is a plus side to never getting deep sleep, though: I have more vivid and rememberable dreams! Here's two from Friday night:

• I thought I was the last survivor of a zombie apocalypse. It was, though, a pretty wimpy zombie apocalypse, because the dead only became reanimated for about two days...so, by the time of the dream, I was more bored than scared. After a few weeks of boredom (told in dream-montage), I met another living person! And it was....either a girl from high school I used to have a huge crush on or the brunette from That 70s Show...I'm not sure which. However, the only other survivor, whomever she was? She didn't want to have anything to do with me...because I personally bored her.
  
• Later that night, I dreamed I found out Sylvester Stallone was a major historian of 1980s video games. For this reason, he was called in as a consultant for Jersey Shore. He quickly became a friend of everyone in the cast. For this reason, I was called in to write an article for Esquire on him. When I got to New Jersey, I went to the beach, and there was Stallone, sitting on a weight bench in the sand, pumping iron. Only he wasn't using weights...he was bench-pressing a car axle with two tires on each side.
  

I'm just happy I've given up on finding meaning in anything.

my shiny weekend

Much of last week was dominated by my darling Progeny Unit's case of being illin'. The poor little kiddo has acid reflux, so we have her on a drug and off the natural BoobJuice and onto a special formula (cost as if made from ground gold, awkward to construct, makes poo smell horrific). What's worse is the little tyke is still obviously in pain...it might be getting better, but it ain't there yet, and she ain't comfortable.

I don't want to minimize her discomfort, and I know she must be feeling terrible. I cannot, however, shake my personal viewpoint. Namely, I feel horrible and useless. She's not happy, and there's utterly nothing I can do about. My knowledge goes to feeding, to diapers, to rocking her, and to singing Eagles songs in my limited, creaky voice, and when all those fail me, it's frustrating. It generally puts a black cloud over my mood.

This is where I was when my Spousal Unit came home from work on Friday. She took one look at me and told me "you need to get out tonight. No, it's okay...you really need to get out."

Luckily, there were entertainment options. I live in an awesome town, and it was the weekend of the Black Swamp Arts Festival...which is truly one of the greatest weekends of the Bowling Green social calender. This year, it caused the clouds to lift.

Because of the BSAF, everything became shiny.

I walked downtown, hit the Thai food vendor (chicken on a stick, fried rice, and a noodle dish), and headed toward the parking-lot-turned-beer-garden. The chicken particularly is awesome and shiny...I half suspect they baste it in butter. Halfway through my meal, I saw my former bass player. In spite of her duties as festival chair, she sat down with me, hung out, and, as I shoveled delicious Thai food into my gullet, we had a great talk about our former band and our changing relationship to music. She was called away for festival duties/hobnobbing, but then some other friends came by...then some more...then some more. Eventually, some of us got close to the stage to watch the very cool Stone Foxes play before I had to head home.

Next morning, my Spousal Unit had to work, so I was back on kiddie duty...but, far from being uncomfortable, the kiddo was in a positively bright mood. The Progeny Unit woke up just fine. She was happy when I woke her, happy when I changed her, happy when I fed her, and happy afterward. She fell asleep in my arms, and she was calm when I was able, with very little effort, to get her back asleep in her crib. She had a good nap, during which my spousal unit returned bearing carry-out.

After a meal/brief conversation, we got a call from an awesome friend who asked, "would you like me to come over and babysit your daughter so you two can go to the art festival?" So, an hour later, my darling Spousal Unit and I were walking hand in hand down main street, sun shining on our faces, looking at art, meeting friends, sharing an order of freshly cut french fries, and just having a wonderful time being a married couple again after a few months of being parents only. The art was even shinier this year...lotsa new artists, really cool and inventive stuff. Spousal Unit bought a postcard from this local artist who did watercolors of Halloween-esque stuff and interpretations of The Wizard of Oz. I saw about thirty seven things I just really needed to have and vowed to become a millionaire by next year's fest.

We got home, and our kiddo was just fine...beaming, even. After a good afternoon and dinner, I had to go back downtown as my new band The Black Swamp Rats was playing a show at the auxiliary rock stage.

I got there a bit early and loaded my stuff into the bar. For some reason which escapes me, they had some hip-hop guy playing in the rock club, so I jetted out of there and went back to the main stage. I ran into my new bass player, we met my old bass player, and went to the front of the stage to see Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears. The band was, for some reason, all wearing matching black pants and shiny white (albeit not matching) shirts...but in spite of the pseudo-costumes, they utterly rocked. Joe Lewis in particular played guitar as if he was strangling the thing...which is the way it should be.

When my bassist and I got back to Howards, there was (again, for reasons which escape me) a trio playing. There was a guy on a computer. There was a guy playing death metal guitar (albeit with less melody). There was a drummer who was wearing a gas mask. They weren't as good as they sound as if they'd be, and we were to follow them. Luckily, though, the room filled back up as we set up. It was a new experience for me...playing in a new band (with whom I haven't had a full band practice), without a set list. It went fine, though. Actually, better than fine. There was a packed room. There was fairly raucous applause. There was dancing...I first noticed the woman in the shiny red dress swaying, but there were multiple dancers in the crowd.

I did a few screw-ups during the set, but they were the kind that, unless you knew my parts, you wouldn't really notice. Fortunately, I'm really the only one who knows my parts, and in general, my playing--particularly in my solos--was shiny. I think I passed the audition, because as I was getting my stuff off stage, my bassist came over, shook my hand, and thanked me for joining the band.

I got a good audience reaction as well. Although there weren't a lot of my friends in the bar (two of my closest were there for the set, but my gig lined up with someone else's birthday), I did receive several compliments. My singer told me [name redacted-local rock star] was checking out my guitar, and the singer for a cool band (with whom Analog Revolution played our first gig) told me I sounded really good in The Black Swamp Rats. Later, I got further confirmation that I did alright when, as I was hauling my equipment out of the bar, [name redacted-local rock star] (with whom I've never talked) bounded over, shook my hand, and told me I did "an excellent job."

The next morning, my Spousal Unit told me the Progeny Unit went to bed around 9 and slept through the night. When the kiddo woke up, she was again happy. After the feeding, I put her down on her play mat, and she was smacking the hanging octopus and giggling...generally in a bright mood.

Strangely enough, right about the time The Black Swamp Arts Festival was over, my daughter turned cranky again. The only real lesson from all this? Art festivals make everything glow.

D2D

Sitting at home on a Friday night? Watching your spousal unit feed your progeny unit while others are at the bar? Why, you need a drink! I call this one the "Drinker to Daddy":

• four ice cubes go into a highball glass
  
• add one measure of dark rum to remind yourself of the exotic life you used to lead
  
• add a half measure of peppermint schnapps for the zest your drinking friends are no doubt experiencing
  
• add a half measure of strawberry liquor for sweetness to rival the smile of your kiddo
  
• top with cran-grape and stir
  

road trip!

I'm on a music mailing list, where, for the last few days, people have been sharing stories of their most notable concert roadtrips. Here's my entry:

I was not, at first, a big fan of the Black Crowes. They came to my hometown of Jacksonville, FL on the Southern Harmony and Musical Companion tour. I heard them occasionally on MTV and our otherwise Classic Rock-obsessed radio station (which, to this day, has a playlist which is 95% stolen from 1986), but none of their stuff really bowled me over...so I decided not to go. Day of the show, I'm sitting at my computer doing homework (be fair and honest: I was probably playing solitaire), and the retro rock radio channel, in honor of the show, decides to play two straight hours of the Black Crowes. The more I listen, the more I'm getting into them. After about an hour, I decide I really wanna go see them...just as the dj announces the show has sold out.

Grrr. I decide to instead do what anyone disappointed in life would do...go to the bar. On the way home, I get pulled over. I'm driving a 1973 Plymouth Duster that is, without a doubt, the worst car in the world (passenger door only opens from the inside, driver's door only opens from the outside, the roof leaks so much holes got punched in the floorboard to drain the car, there's an ecosystem of some unkillable alien mold, and there's no foam padding in the front seat...only a folded rain coat prevents me from having a metal enema whenever I drive), and it's about 30 outside, and my heater doesn't work...so, in spite of me going relatively light on the beer, I'm shaking from the cold and can't pass the field sobriety test.

I head to jail. I pass the breathalizer test, but the technician decides to book me anyway, telling me that, under Florida law, if the arresting officer thinks I'm drunk, my blood alcohol level only has to be relatively close. Legal precision! Nice!

They put me in the holding cell. One of the cellmates was convinced the skin around his...um...reproductive organs was peeling, so he was walking around with his pants around his ankles, scratching himself (that is, until the nice officers came in, grabbed him, slammed him against the wall, and moved him into an isolation cell). Another gentleman was cold and kept trying to steal people's jackets...but everyone just basically told him to screw himself. An intimidator, he was not. Then he took to yelling at the guards, saying he had a health condition. Then he started to insulate himself by wrapping himself up with toilet paper. Then they moved me into a cell block, where my cellmate was a crack dealer.

All this because I didn't go to a show. It was a mistake, I vowed, which I would never repeat. So, when the Black Crowes toured again in our area, I decided to go. Problem one: it was in Gainesville, roughly two and a half hours away. Solution: get a bunch of friends to go with. Problem two: I got suckered into driving, which was an issue because, by that time, the Duster had died (threw a rod the day after I gave it to my brother), and I was in a not-all-that-spacious-bordering-on-microscopic Honda Prelude. Solution: cram a total of eight people inside as if using a clown car. Problem three: tickets were pricey. Solution: wait until band put special $3 "crowes nest" tickets"...because we were all cheap/broke.

We somehow got to Gainesville and untangled everyone in the car. It was at the arena where University of Florida plays basketball, which seats roughly eight thousand or so. There were about two hundred people on the floor, and the rest of the arena was pretty much empty...except for these "crowes nest" cheap seats, which were fairly full but as far away as humanly possible from the stage. I sat down as The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (the openers...who were awesome) started...at least I think it was them and not a bunch of ants with miniature tubas. Then a guy next to me asked me if I wanted a hit...not off his joint, but off his two foot tall water bong. The security guard in the area just shook his head. I politely declined the offer, by the way.

The Black Crowes came on, played for exactly one hour and fifteen minutes, were fairly lame, and then the lights came on. We left the arena and lubed everyone up to squeeze into my Hot Wheels-esque car for the ride home. Our travel time was longer than the show itself...which, itself, was fairly unimpressive.

At least, though, I didn't get arrested this time.

bone creak

(warning: whining content ahead)

I feel old.

It hasn't always been this way. Until recently, I never really thought of my age. Now, though, I feel it in my bones.

Physically, I'm worn out. On top of my right shoulder pains, I now also have something pulled/torn/silly puttied in my left shoulder...which means my good shoulder now has the unmitigated audacity to hurt more than my bad shoulder. To add a hilarious twist, the exercises which keep my right shoulder at bay seem to exacerbate my left. Do the exercised and increase the pain on one side, or take an exercise break and increase the pain on the other side? Hum.

I'm tired. My progeny unit's erratic sleep schedule is starting to get to me, in spite of my spousal unit taking care of most of the night stuff. Night before last, the progeny unit slept through the night. This is only the second time this has happened. The first time led to about 4 hours of sleep the following night. Yesterday, the pattern of not wanting to sleep at all after a full night's sleep held true, and I fear I might have to tell my daughter she's doing it wrong. Additionally, the erratic sleeping on her part means it was a particularly bad time for my insomnia to return. Moreover, I can't even start on the coffee until she finally wakes up because my burr bean grinder sounds like a jet engine...and I have definitely learned not to wake up an under-rested baby as to not unleash her fury.

Work-wise, I'm disconnected. Summers are normally the time to do writing, reading, research...basically remember why I became an academic. This summer, I have only read thirty pages of one of the dozen scholarly books I brought home from the office, have spent a few hours finding a possible place to submit one of my two unpublished papers (which still required I mail in three physical copies; I resisted the urge to introduce them to e-mail or the 21st century) and failed completely to find a home for the other. Furthermore, I have more or less abandoned my closest-to-being-ready-to-write essay as being too far removed from events to be relevant...much like myself.

Job-wise, I'm stagnant. Yes, I should be thankful to even have a job, but this year, a record number of friends and accomplices found work...in their field...with possible futures. More than one have had encouraging news from book publishers. Me? It has been, unless my memory fails, about four years since I've received anything other than a form rejection from anywhere I've applied. I am at a dead end. I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I will never be anything other than what I am, that there is essentially no longer an upside to my career, but it's hard; in spite of having really known this for years, to have your failure finally driven home? It is wearying. A while back, I used to tell my students that the difference between me and some much smarter MA colleagues was that I was a better worker, which is why I went on to get my PhD and they did not. However, these people do the exact same job as I and started doing so immediately after getting their MA. So the real difference? I have earned less, have higher credit card and student loan bills, yet we have the exact same career path. At least the world respects my highest of academic degrees....right? Right?

Life-wise, I feel I've missed out on so much. Why, I've been asking myself lately, did I not take the two years I took off between getting my two year and four year degree and do something interesting, like move to Colorado? Why did I not follow the lead of some friends and move into some career which would've allowed me to have a house, a new car, a pool table, something that would've meant I'd never have to life in the student ghetto for a decade? It's gotten to the point where I've quit watching any and all home improvement television out of the sheer jealousy and class hatred it evokes.

Socially, I feel isolated. A new crop of faces has entered our college town, and I've met none of them. Several people left our town without having a chance to say goodbye. And the people that are still here? The holdovers? Well, I rarely see anyone. I have one weeknight where I can go out--the Tuesdays at Howards, and this was the first time in weeks I've seen a few of my friends. Others, I haven't seen in close to a month. One friend called me several days last week to invite me out after I told him I couldn't go out anymore.

Yeah, I know. I'm whining again. Moreover, I'm ignoring all the wonderful things that are happening in my life, especially my beautiful spousal unit, my awesome progeny unit, my cool new band. However, I said a while ago I was going to be honest and open...and if you know me, you know whining is part of that honesty.

Last night, I took the second of what turned out to be many attempts to put my daughter to sleep. I picked her up, took her to the bedroom, swaddled her, and she started to scream, to flail. It was one of those times where she just would not be placated, where all of my (normally successful) tricks abandoned me. It's hard enough emotionally to bear her screams in the best of times. She yells with her whole body, her bottom lip starts to quiver, and she gains an Exorcist-esque pitch and timbre. Factor in my flaring shoulders, the mounting insomnia, and I came close to weeping myself.

Please tell me it will get better. Barring that, please tell me I will get tougher.

The Heating Pad

Have two types of tendinitis in one shoulder...and a pulled muscle in the other (which actually hurts worse)? Still working on recovering from the insomnia which had the bad timing to ruin for you a rare sleep-through-the-night session from your progeny unit? Afraid to say too much about your afflictions in fear of having friends call you a whiner? Why, you need a drink:

• take a double dose of some generic ibuprofen variety
  
• place three ice cubes in a cocktail glass
  
• add one measure of Tennessee whiskey (although rye or bourbon would do in a pinch)
  
• add one half measure of triple sec
  
• top with a good ginger beer
  
• hope the concoction quells the aches in your torso
  

addendum

For the second go-round (hey, the recipe only uses half of the ginger beer...I have to make another!), as the original drink used up all my Tennessee whiskey, I was moving to rye....although I wasn't singing "this will be the day that I die" or indeed anything else. I decided to similarly replace the triple sec with some strawberry liqueur. The resulting variation? I call it The Ice Pack.