Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Need.... more.... time

Kids,

I know that you're anxious, but we had a deal. Originally I was promised May 5th. You didn't want to miss cinco de mayo. Who would? So we kicked it around and agreed on April 21st.

Not a day sooner.

Last night, for the second time, we spent several hours in the hospital with you two threatening to jump the gun. As I was loading your mom and her little bag into the car I think we both realized how super not ready we are. I mean, we're ready. We have enough gadgetry to build a space station out of fisher price shit, but we're not ready ready. It's like having your execution scheduled and then having the guards show up weeks early with a priest and a last meal. I want the governor on the phone.

If you give me a couple weeks I think we can work wonders. I know our chit chats have gotten rared, but I've been slaving away and I managed to finish a draft and send it out. I got notes. You let me clean it up and get it off and you can poop and scream for the next three months and I won't say a word. But you screw me on this and you're grounded for at least a year. Both of you. I don't care whose idea it was. No TV. No phone. No sleepovers.

I'll do it too. Don't test me.

Novel - In revisions
Dunking - Who knows
French - Deux plus semains si vous plait.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Mystery Goal

So, briefly, we went to a friends house. They had a basketball goal. I went outside to get something out of the car. I figured, what the hell. I took a stab at it.

Under no circumstances could I have gotten a basketball down, but I managed to get my whole hand over the rim and then grab onto it. A tennis ball would have been doable.

My immediate thought was that this was obviously not a 10 foot rim. I mean I haven't measured my leap in a while, but this would be a significant improvement. The friends assured me it's regulation, but I remain highly skeptical.

I think the larger point here is, what exactly is the point of all this? I mean, the novel thing, the French thing, I can see how those are mildly useful (I can discuss writing bad novels in bad French). But what exactly will I do with my new skill dunking tennis balls on below regulation basketball goals? Should this go at the bottom of my CV under 'fun facts'. I guess that would require me to make a CV. This is like telling someone you can throw a Nerf football 70 yards. The fact that you would know that about yourself actually sounds more pathetic than not being able to throw a Nerf football at all. (BTW I'm good for about 40 yards with the Nerf)

I think that for me, this was the one that was important because it really served no purpose. There's nothing to remind yourself of when you're jumping around the gym like an idiot that will make the looks you're getting from other people seem worth it. I'm not jumping to cure cancer or set a record. It's just a stupid thing I wish I could do and can't. It means absolutely nothing to anyone else anywhere else in the entire universe. And I guess I'm obsessed with the idea that my freedom to pursue stupid things that only matter to me has a shelf life of about six more weeks. When you think about it that way I probably should have chosen a better task.

Anyway, I want to believe that the issue is not that this rim is low, but that all this time I've just been jumping at nothing and that actually having the rim to go after made all the difference in the world. What I really needed was to have something to shoot for. That sounds poetic. That sounds like a life lesson. That sounds like something you guys should pay attention to. Which kind of makes me sound like a dad.

Which is why it's probably bullshit.

We're only a ladder and a tape measure from finding out.

Novel - F (out of G)
Dunking - Applicant can dunk golf balls at neighbor's house. Also, applicant can drive forklift.
French - Tetons, if you missed it in the comments. Tetons.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Funbags From Hell

Work was going so bad that I got it into my head that having you two show up was actually going to be like a vacation. The fact that I wouldn't sleep and that my ears would ring with your piercing cries somehow seemed preferable to all the painfully unproductive thinking I'd been doing.

And then we went to breastfeeding class.

I don't know if it would have done much for the boys, but if they sent high school girls to breastfeeding class I think we'd nip most teenage pregnancies in the bud. Here's what your mother has to look forward to. Two babies gnawing at her for up to 40 minutes, up to every hour and a half. And if she can't master feeding you at the same time then she'll pretty much just become a stationary milk dispenser. This is what they tell you in a class designed to make it sound appealing.

I wish I could say that I was listening to this and thinking how unfair it is, how much I wished I could help. I wish I could say I was thinking about anything other than how happy I am that my body produces nothing of nutritional value while I made the practice doll that they gave us do the robot. I wish I could say that. But I cannot.

It also became clear just how much of the shaft your mom got on the husband front, if that wasn't obvious already. The instructor would start to talk about breast pumps and the other dads would correct her about their features. They would ask intelligent questions about colostrum and hand expression. They knew what kind of nipples, both real and synthetic, to use when. They knew where things were on sale. I knew how to force our practice baby into the lotus position.

The other shocking news was that you're collectively expected to produce between 16 to 24 dirty diapers a day! One mom asked if she should plan on changing the babies before and then after a feeding. I thought she must be insane. The instructor suggested that sometimes it's a good idea to also change them during! Do you have no organs? Does everything just leak right through you? I could diaper a running faucet and I bet I wouldn't have to change it 24 times a day.

So, no, it doesn't quite sound like a vacation. It feels like your mother and I have been convicted of some terrible crime, but when the sentences came down I just got life while she got death by extraction. Who knew a penis was a sort of get out of jail free card? Like all young men I was once obsessed with breasts and I thought more than once how handy it would be to cut out the middle man and just have a pair of my own. Had I known the true price women pay for the ability to fondle themselves endlessly, I'd have looked on my flat bony ribcage as if it were made of diamonds.

Mystery rim tomorrow. My nipples hurt.

Novel - D (of H)
Dunking - Update tomorrow
French - I should look up the word for boob.

Monday, March 10, 2008

I Have Returned

Hello. You may have forgotten me. I'm the guy who's apparently going to be changing your diapers 12-14 times a day in just a few short weeks. I've been meaning to write.

Usually it would go like this. I would sit down at the computer to work on work. And I would work, and then I would hate the work. And then I would become afraid of the computer and I would refuse to be in the same room with it unless someone came with me and all the lights were on. And then I would pray to things: gods, totems, cats, scientology, for the ability to string together a useful series of words. And nothing would happen.

This would go on for about 12 hours and then I would think, I should write to the kids. They're probably totally lost without my panic stricken missives about life outside their little goo globe. But then I would think, what do I tell them I've been up to? They'll be so disappointed and disillusioned that begging a keyboard to 'work with you' does not result in progress towards the goals one sets for one's self when one finds out that life as they know it is about to irrevocably change. I felt like you two were a fuse that got lit almost 8 months ago that would finally compel me to take a last stab and explode into greatness. Instead, I was a dud.

The fact that we're here talking, the three of us, should tell you that the heavens have opened and once again begun to shower me with the idiotic and inane ramblings that I depend on. I'm not saying they're good, but at least they're back. Being showered with brilliance was too much to ask. Now, instead of waking up in a pool of flop sweat and curling into a fetal position until noon, I'm sitting all alone at the computer like a big boy. And whatever else happens or doesn't, I'll have a draft of my work ready to hand in before you get here. Assuming you stick to the schedule. Which you won't. If you end up with excess mom DNA you'll be early, well dressed, and have next week's homework assignment. If you end up with extra me, I should be good until June.

Tomorrow: Breastfeeding class, and dunking on the mystery goal.

Novel: Part C (assume there's H parts)
Dunking: Mystery goal raises hopes
French: I learned the word for shoulder last week, but I've already forgotten it. Luckily no one ever discusses their shoulder.
 

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