Fatherhood the Blog - Week 11

                While I won't deny I love writing about my tiny little child that is currently doing back flips inside of my wife's belly (like a creep!) I also won't deny that on occasions (like every day) I am a desperately self-centered, self-pitying little fool who is not above hijacking a blog dedicated to his own unborn child in order to wax on to pathetic lengths about his own crazy little life. I knows I switched from first to third person in that last paragraph, forgive me, Mr. Whatley of ENG1101. 


                This week my baby turned 11 weeks old. Or perhaps negative 29 weeks old. This week I turned 26 years and 40 weeks old. This week Margaret turned 23 years and 4 weeks old. Also, this week was a horrible week.

                 So many things went horribly wrong this week. It's Friday, and instead of feeling relieved that the weekend is (sort of) here, I feel like a half-drowned man realizing that he's very nearly out of the current, and the shoreline isn't quite as far as it was a moment ago. I have a pretty smooth life, and duck and dodge drama with a deft dip or a delightful dance-step and generally can in no way ever be called, "depressed." My life is a little boring, and not a ton of exciting things go down, but if I had to fill out a quiz every night as I lay my wet hair on my dry pillow, I'd almost always rate each day a 7.5 out of 10 or more. Not this week though. I'm sure it's just some perverse way our brains attempt to organize a chaotic world, but it seems as if disasters come in groups - like thunderstorms. There will be a long period of sunny weather, and then three bands of storms in a row.

                Monday - I don't remember Monday, really. That can only be a good sign. I know we re-planted some peppers in our garden, but then like two days later the peppers we planted a few weeks ago sprouted. PEPPER WARS! My baby reached the size of a medium goldfish. 2 1/2 - 3 inches long.

                Tuesday - At work my handheld computer quit working and, long story short, I had to work 9 1/2 hours straight, without a break. After a few hours at home Margaret and I went to my sister's house. She, her husband, and their three wild indians just moved to Georgia from Los Angeles, Mexico. We had dinner over there and then sat out in the front yard watching the kids ride a bicycle, a tricycle, and some creepy little car with eyeballs. They borrowed a shovel from me, and I borrowed a BB rifle from them. Watching Siobhan, the  five year old, ride a bicycle with no training wheels, take a turn, and then the bike wobble back and forth as her eyes cartoonishly pop out of her head and she comes dangerously close to scraping all the skin off of her legs with the pavement, I learned a lesson about fatherhood: I never want to have a kid. It's just too terrifying. I think I would be running behind the bike ready to dive and catch the child before he or she came close to the ground - and I'm an extremely laid back guy! My baby experienced something amazing today for the first time - the sound of his or her mother's voice. I don't think she/he can hear me yet (but maybe, I don't know) for which he/she should be grateful.

              Wednesday - Wednesday started at midnight (as days often do). Wednesday is my day off, and therefore I still had not gone to sleep. I was sleeping on and off throughout The King's Speech (it's a fine movie, but best picture? Really?) when I got a phone call. This is a top secret phone call which I am completely unable to relate here, or to brag about what a good person I am, but mysterious details aside, my heroic misadventures resulted in me driving several hours, falling asleep on a stranger's couch at 5:15 a.m., waking up at 7:30 a.m., doing a few other secret agent type things, and then driving back home. Margaret was visiting her parents, so I spent the rest of the day (aside from the hour I had to work) lying on the couch feeling exceedingly crummy and fading in and out of sleep. During this time my baby was checking out it's new organs - a gallbladder, a pancreas, and some other stuff which it doesn't know the names of yet.

               Thursday - I got up at 4:00 a.m. and went to work. I spent just over an hour sorting my product and loading my truck and then hopped my sprightly self up into the cab, turned on the vehicle, turned up the radio, shifted that baby into drive...and rolled forward about four feet. My transmission had magically gone out. There was no choice but to get a giant rental truck, but the local Giant Rental Trucks R Us doesn't open until 8 a.m. After a series of headaches and trials that can only have been designed by the god of drill sergeants (and basically amounted to running through mental tires, crawling under cosmic barbed wire, and leaping karmic walls) I was able to get a vehicle with which to do my job. This means my job ended up taking over ten hours straight, and I had to make over twenty phone calls. It took about half an hour on the phone with some barely-English-speaking guy from Allstate to finally get my work truck towed. In despair we went out to eat Mexican food that night, because I needed my margarita medicine. My baby, not at all fazed by my terrible day, spent most of it stretching and flexing it's rapidly developing muscles, focusing on the day when it can hit me in the eye.

                 Friday - Friday wasn't actually that terrible of a day, all things considered (or, at least in comparison with the three days previous). It was bad because I got the news that I needed a new transmission, it'll be over a week before my truck is ready, and my warranty - though it doesn't expire due to mileage for another 50,000 miles, it's one year past the three year warranty date. Translation: No warranty. Also, while having a rental truck is great and obviously necessary, it isn't my normal truck, and isn't the same size, or have the same features, or even the same doors. All of this makes my job much more annoying and makes it take a much longer time. Today my child tested out it's vocal cords. They are very small (since they are on a 2.5 inch creature, after all) but vibrate wonderfully and, I can only assume, in perfect tune. 


             And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we fold our hands neatly in our laps and smile for the cameras. We've done it folks, the first trimester is complete. Margaret hasn't thrown up ONCE.

              UPDATE: It is now actually Monday, and the weekend was busy, but nothing horrible happened. I'm still in the rental truck, and still have no news on my broken truck, but the weekend was enough of a breather that I can survive this upcoming week.  Also, the Hawks are miraculously up 3 games to 1 versus the Orlando Magic, and the Braves just swept the World Champion Giants. There is joy in Mudville.

Local News Report! BODY PARTS FOUND IN LANDFILL

             I just made the tragic mistake of spending almost a full hour reading, watching, and listening to the news. My complaint isn't the traditional, "It's too depressing! Why can't we have a good news channel?" because really, if someone donates money to the Salvation Army in your town, and someone kills someone else in your town, which do you want to hear about first? I do, however, have a complaint. You see, news is now relayed through websites, and most of those websites allow readers to leave a comment to weigh in on the news story. WHY? I can think (and I can prove, since, as I just explained, I've spent the last hour on these sites) of dozens of reasons why these comment sections shouldn't exist, and how they actually degrade the sites and news stories, but I can't think of any one reason why they should exist, or any iota of positivity they possible contribute to the newsreading experience.

            I've kept my news story searching to the local level - never venturing beyond my state's borders for fear of the horror lurking just beyond my purview. I looked through Atlanta news, while watching the 10 o'clock Atlanta news on television. I read through the Columbus, Georgia news, and also the newspapers of a few small podunk towns in my immediate area. Wow, news is horrible. I can't believe that I at one point wanted to write for a newspaper. Stories are boring, and stolid, and rarely get more information across through their labored sentences than were originally communicated via the headline. Not only that, comparing a small town newspaper to the Atlanta evening news is hilarious. Let's just say that the standard for what makes news isn't always the same. However, our local small towns have had a few adventures lately.

- A couple has been arrested for killing a co-manager of Family Dollar while robbing the store.
- Three dumbass teenagers, while on a recruiting trip to UGA, stole iPods, phones, and other things out of the football players lockers. WHAT. THE. HELL. I would argue that was a bit short sighted, as far as value goes.
- Some girl who grew up around here, married a Marine, and was working as a stripper in California was killed by her Marine husband.
- In my favorite story, some Muslim family has dominated the news every day in Atlanta for a week. While the husband was gone, the wife (and mother of five, let's be sure to add, every single time we reference her) went to the Redbox to rent a movie and was never seen nor heard from again. The husband has been on the news every day, people have been looking for her and putting up fliers, etc. Then today his wife reappeared - she'd been staying in a women's shelter down the street under a false name and had left the house because she was afraid of her husband. "I had sent her a text saying, 'I'm going to kill you' which wasn't the best choice of words." he explained today. She ran away because she was feeling afraid, and then really got herself in over her head when he went to the Police and it became news, because now her family would know that she had spent the night ON HER OWN out of her house and she would be shamed and disowned if she came back. Sometimes, kids, religion ain't too healthy. For my own sanity's sake, I skipped the comments on this particular article.

            The story that first got me started on all of this news crap was Mag reading to me, from someone's Facebook status: "Praying for the families of the four women who were shot today in Columbus as part of a gang initiation. One of them was pregnant but they saved the baby." (this may not be word perfect, as it's just something she read to me earlier, but the details are all there). Now, I have quite the famous BS detector (the secret - nearly everything on Earth is an exaggeration) and so I immediately knew there was no way this was true, and got online to disprove the statement. As I told Margaret, "Killing four women, one pregnant, as initiation? This is the most hardcore gang in the world!" Of course, the real story is that two women were shot - one pregnant, who was killed, and another in the leg. The women were carrying a gun in a crappy part of Phenix City when the incident happened but there are currently no suspects. The baby was saved, which is the only true part of the Facebook status. I'm sure more details will come out in the next few days, but what really amazes me is how quickly the story has metastasized from the basic facts into doubling the number of women, saying all were dead, and giving the killing a motive.

                If I had a super lame super power I would want it to be the ability to trace a rumor. It's humanly impossible, of course, but I would start with whoever posted that status, follow them backwards in time to whenever he/she heard the story, follow that person back, etc. etc. Does someone here something wrong? Does someone make some conjecture about motive which then gets repeated as possible, then probable, then fact? Does someone somewhere along the way deliberately add facts that they know to be untrue in order to make the story juicier? I find that endlessly fascinating

              You know what else I would find fascinating? A news story that ever was completed! Now I already gave an example of one that has been completed - the Suleiman tragedy was brought to its predictable anti-climax, but that story was only followed up on because the news was following the, "Pretty Muslim Woman Disappears!" storyline all week. However, when researching all of this news I was reminded of a municipality-shattering event that happened not three miles from where I now sit, back in February. A body was found in an abandoned lot and four arrests were made - three for murder, and one for making false statements to Police. The murderers were caught because one of them was stabbed during the murder (presumably) and had to be life-flighted to Atlanta. The other two murderers were little redneck wiggers, aged 17 and 18. Now, through my Internet detective skills, I quickly found out a few facts that the papers never divulged (everyone has a Facebook page these days, and even when they take them down, they often forget they have Myspace pages still open, since no one uses Myspace anymore). I found some arrest reports on the guy that had been killed, his age, his town of residence, and a few facts on the teenagers charged with murder. I constructed an elaborate story in my head that fit the little bit of evidence that I had (it revolved around drugs, let's face it) and waited for the follow up stories that explained a bit more about the facts. It never came. I just spent a bit searching for any follow up story whatsoever since the arrests were made over two months ago, and I couldn't find a thing.

                  Instead I got to read a comment section on whether or not a teenager should have made a comment about an umpire at a local ball game, and an in depth argument in the comment section about whether or not the paper should have stated that the murdered 19-year-old worked as a stripper, and whether stripping was moral and, "Christian." Thank you Internet. Once again, you've taken a bad thing and made it worse. Not every mouth needs a microphone.

Fatherhood: The Blog - Addendum

           I was stroking my skinny little cat today as she flipped and rolled around, purring vehemently and adoring the violent love which I give her (the great thing about raising a cat from a kitten is that you get to train them to believe in whatever form of petting you give them. I pet her roughly, scratching her and rolling her around and she loves it. My big cat, though, would kill me if I tried that sort of thing) as I sat down at my desk in my basement. I was watching Strangers on a Train and reading White Fang and generally just enjoying life when I stumbled upon a beautiful chapter that describes the first time the wolf cub (who I can only assume will one day be White Fang) leaves the den in which he has been raised. I found myself book marking nearly every page (this is how I mark things when I'm reading a book on my phone, since I can't underline a particular section like I do when reading a hard copy book) so I decided it would just be easier to type it all up for myself. It's a wonderful analogy for adolescence, and reminded me of scenes from my own life, which my newly-daddy-directed thought process immediately reformatted into a sense of wonder and anticipation in awe of the forthcoming privilege of watching my own child grow up. I'll reproduce all the relevant parts I loved here:

           "But there were other forces at work in the cub, the greatest of which was growth. Instinct and the law demanded obedience. But growth demanded disobedience...Growth is life, and life is forever destined to make for light. So there was no damming up the tide of life that was rising in him...In the end, one day, fear and obedience were swept away by the rush of life...It was bewildering...Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on...A great fear came upon him. This was more of the terrible unknown. He crouched down on the lip of the cave and gazed out on the world. He was very much afraid. Because it was unknown, it was hostile to him...Nothing happened. He continued to gaze, and in his interest he forgot to snarl. Also, he forgot to be afraid...Now the grey cub had lived all his days on a level floor. He had never experienced the hurt of a fall. He did not know what a fall was. So he stepped boldly out upon the air...The cub had broken through the wall of the world, the unknown had let go its hold of him, and here he was without hurt...He traveled very clumsily. He ran into sticks and things...Sometimes he overstepped and stubbed his nose. Quite as often he understepped stubbed his feet...But with every mishap he was learning...This was living, though he did not know it. He was realizing his own meaning in the world; he was doing that for which he was made...He was justifying his existence, that which life can do no greater; for life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do...With every rock he struck, he yelped. His progress was a series of yelps, from which might have been adduced the number of rocks he encountered... Thenceforth, in the nature of things, he would possess an abiding distrust of appearances. He would have to learn the reality of a thing before he could put his faith into it...He had recollected that there was such a thing in the world as his mother. And then there came to him a feeling that he wanted her more than all the rest of the things in the world." 
                         - White Fang, Part Two. Chapter Four. "The Wall of the World." Jack London

The Lottery (not Shirley Jackson's)

  I, Clayton O'Dell, Ruler of the Weak and Impoverished, Healer of None, First of His Name, do declare this day that I am going to the beach. Within the hour I'll be skipping town (probably a good prospect, considering the tornado sirens have gone off three times within the past twelve hours) and heading down to Destin with a trio of dear, dear friends. While down there I plan to, in descending order of importance, gtl (without the g or the l), eat delicious seafood, see TT, drink, finish reading A Clash of Kings, sleep, clip my toenails, buy a stupid beach thing, see a manta ray, get stung by a jellyfish, and see Phan Phan. As all men, know, however, it is often the leprechaun's pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that is more enticing than the rainbow itself, and the jeweled beach at the end of the modest four hour drive is far more desireable than the driving itself. But fear not, what's an O'Dell if he can't make up inane activities designed both to erase boredom and hear himself talk?

 To make the trip down to Destin more interesting, I have designed a game that I like to call, quite unoriginally, The Lottery. The Lottery requires a buy-in that I have decided shall not exceed $50 cash, though I'm not fully certain as to how much cash I actually want to put in. I have $34 in my wallet leftover from tips this week, so that'll be my starting fund and seeing as how awful my luck continues to be, I may add a $20 bill to the experiment.

 Apparently cars need gas to run. Apparently gas stations sell gas at their stations. I always thought that gas stations were designed to purchase underpriced fountain beverages, overpriced candy, regular priced cigarettes, and who-cares-what-priced lottery tickets, but regular people also go to gas stations to purchase gas. Throughout the course of our journey today I believe that we shall stop at a gas station at least twice, presumably for gas, and I plan to stretch my modelesque young legs by marching into the gas station and purchasing a lottery ticket.

 Here's the catch, though. I'm required to purchase the dollar amount in lottery tickets on whatever the last mile is on Aaron (the driver)'s car when we stop. His car is new (and beautiful) and therefore has low miles, so if, for example, we stop at a QT when his car has 3017 miles on it, I have to purchase either a $7 lottery ticket (do they make those?!) or a combination of tickets to equal $7. I will be constricted to lottery purchase made outside of Destin, both on the way in and the way out, and every time we stop at a place that sells lottery tickets I'm required to purchase one.

 We'll see how quickly the money runs out. Either I get very lucky and have to buy only $1 or $2 tickets the entire trip, or my luck runs out when the gas does and I have to buy $9 or $10 worth of tickets at each stop. Regardless I know I won't win any money, so I might as well hope to spend less on tickets.

 I'll report back to my loyal readers sometime next week with PICTURES of the lottery tickets, the gas stations they (and gas) were purchased at, and perhaps even pictures of my earnings through The Lottery. Hold your breath.

The Things I Hate; The Thing I Love

 My laptop ran away again. et al


 The Thing I Hate This Week (Month?) #3: People who cannot do simple math.

 I understand that the majority of Americans are stupid, I truly do. And I further understand that 102% of all Americans are hopelessly addicted to and supported through marriage by technology. This translates into a nation where even adults can do math only with calculators, and only perform the simplest of math, yet it's socially accepted to be that moronic.

 This seed of failure is seen most readily in cashiers. It seems as though cashiers who have to return change, as opposed to swiping a card and handing it back, are in constant fear of incorrect math and rely solely on the computer screen to tell them what change to make. This is oddly complemented by the fact that cashiers are only capable of comprehending obvious numbers and go into a frightened tizzy when someone's total is $6.63 and they hand over $22.00 as opposed just the $20 bill. They don't understand that the change will be a $5 and a $10, instead of a $10 and three $1 bills.

 I took a friend through a McDonald's drive thru this weekend and got her a hamburger that cost $1.07. She handed me a dollar and a quarter, but I decided to test the cashier and instead readied a $1 bill, a dime, and two pennies - as opposed to just the $1 and the dime.
 The cashier took the handful of change and looked at me dumbstruck with wide eyes. She then turned to the computer, glanced at her meaty fistful of a mere three coins, and punched the sum into the computer with an alacrity amazing in such a lumbering beast. The change popped up on the screen: $0.05. Then she came to realize I wanted a nickel back and her world imploded causing the destruction of three neighboring counties, and my own precious little life.

 Gawd, I hate that.



 The Thing I Hate #2: Alarm systems.

 I moved into a new home a mere six-odd weeks ago (more like four, maybe?). Said home was equipped with a state-of-the-art alarm system (and still is, so robbers beware). The alarm doesn't merely sit in silence on a bedroom wall, but instead is prominently posted in the hallway and chimes every time a door is opened. It also features a STAY button, wherein we equip the alarm while in the home and every time an entrance is breached - even if it's just us going out - an alarm goes off that calls the security offices; this is in addition to the EXIT button, which equips the house to seize in alarm thirty seconds after a door is opened, unless the code is put in, and additionally arms the motion sensors within the house to alert police. It's pretty awesome, I have to admit. I'm giddy over it every time I put in a code.

 Well the second day I was in the house the police showed up to the house, and within three days I'd set the alarm off twice. I got a bit more used to the alarm in the next weeks, though I inadvertently opened a door at 4:00am'ish to go to work and set off a wild alarm that woke both roommates and the security offices. That one was my fault, though the two times I entered the backdoor this week only to feel like a burglar and have to answer a phone call with the phone password (the password is "I RUN L.A.") were obviously NOT my fault.

 Regardless, alarm systems are annoying, and quite frankly I estimated my renters' insurance payoff much higher than the actual value of my threadbare possessions so that if a robber were to steal every item from my room, the deductible and the cost of the insurance, plus replacing all stolen items, would be much less than the payoff. I'd be set FOREVER! Ugh, it was so exciting! But no, with this alarm system I'll never get to commit insurance fraud. =/




 Thing I Hate #3: Desperate sports fans.

 Okay, here's the deal. I once hated sports and now I don't, yay, such character development. But that means that I'll wear my Alabama hat out wherever and be fearless and careless in the face of possible Auburn idiots, but it'll be not so much because I love Alabama as it is that I just need a hat to wear and I only own an Alabama hat. I will support my team, and speak highly of them and accuse opponent players of not being legally born in the United States or wanting money or whatever, but I am not delusional and tied solely into my own team's existence.

 I worked at my corporate coffee joint in Alabama today, and in "Tiger Country" to be a bit more specific. This means that as I rendered services to the customers in the most jovial ways as possible, I saw a deluge of Auburn fans who wore idiotic navy blue t-shirts with NATIONAL CHAMPIONS 2011 and a combination of tigers killing elephants or Panama City art-style tigers looking buff on a football field; also, lists of past inflated school records; people who spent a notable amount every year on paying the fee for an Auburn tag AND sported two Auburn bumper stickers; many more things that made me lose my last feeble thread of hope in humanity. And I realized that people who live their lives and *ROTATE* fully around their sports teams aren't really people at all, but demon zombies who ought to be silenced.



 And This One Thing That I Love: FOAM.

 Just think about foam. It's this airy, light substance that is dense enough not to be trasparent, but still can float and be moved with the most minimal of efforts. It crests a glass of freshly shaken tea, it sits atop a steaming sink of water ripe for dirty dishes; it mounts effortlessly upon a Mexican beach in the back of a bar and hosts a bilingual and drunken foam party. It is all of that. It is Madonna. It is undeniable. It is FOAM.

 I can think of no possible medium that foam is bad in. The Mexican beach story is true, and I participated in an eight-man interracial dog fight, wherein skinny me, Redneck (and, unbeknownst to us, Pregnant) Vicky, and Captain America AKA Joel took on five locals who didn't speak English and repeatedly rammed them into the sand before they gave up and went inside the bar and we all from Uninter immediately left the bar, went back to the hotel, and hid in our rooms for fear of a gunfight (for which we were ill-equipped, as was the nearby Burger King, which was home to a beachfront gunfight the night before we arrived in town). But despite the frightening end to the night, and the fact that the next morning Joel, Vicky, and I examined our limbs and chests to find a host of raw scrapes from the sand beneath the foam, we still loved the foam. It had been air to shield our fall, from the evil master of sand. Regardless, America had prevailed.

 Foam is at the forefront of the baseless reality of childhood. The airy nature of foam, the odd mixture between defiance of weight and adherence to density visibility scales, its mysterious yet easily recreateable nature... all contribute to the positive existence of foam. I do dare you to find even one thing slightly wrong with the loveable and notable presence of foam. I LOVE IT

Fatherhood: The Blog - Week 10

            While I love the ending of the famous Rudyard Kipling poem, Gunga Din for the delicious cadence to the rhymes (and here I show off by paraphrasing from memory: Though I've beaten you and flayed you/ By the living Gawd that made you/ You're a better man that I am, Gunga Din!)  I have no earthly idea why I would ever want my baby to wear this onesie. In case you're wondering, I found this by randomly searching, "Rudyard Kipling baby quotes."  That's the way my brain works in these fast and furious (or should I say, 2 fast 2 furious!) days of impending fatherhood. I was thinking about ol' Imperialist Kipling and therefore found some way to Google his name along with something relating to babies. In truth though, my favorite Kipling poem is the one I decided to live my life by around age 14 (and gave up around age 15, though I still keep it as my lofty ideal). It's the famous, If and if you haven't read it (or memorized it, really) do so immediately. If - Rudyard Kipling  If I have a boy this is going above the headboard of his bed and I'll force him to recite it like a prayer every night (and if he doesn't then I'll beat and flay him Gunga Din style). 

            Let's dance past all this nonsense and get down to what really matters - BABY CLOTHES. Margaret and I, along with Clayton and some other fools who I don't know (but love dearly, I'm sure) went to our first Braves game of the season on Sunday. We lost 3-0 but that isn't what's important, as it was fun and sunny and we ate hot dogs and drank beer (Margaret not included) and sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame and booed the Phillies and participated in all of the things that make live sporting events so great. We also went to the big Braves gift shop to look for Mag a Chipper Jones shirt and I got distracted in the baby clothes corner. I'm sure it was a strange sight, some disheveled, long-haired creeper thumbing through Brian McCann onesies, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. My baby is two inches long now, I have to start thinking ahead! 

           On Monday one of my many brothers turned 10. This was a strange occurrence as his birth is the first I really remember experiencing as an, "adult." I was old enough when he was born to really watch this kid grow up, and really, it's happened rather quickly. Not as super fast as all parents pretend, "You blink your eyes and suddenly they're going away to college!" but he does seem to have reached this age pretty quickly. I remember being 10 pretty well, and it just doesn't seem like he should be that age. Part of that is the difference in birth order though, I remember when I was 11 years old and some dumb rednecks who I've never seen before were walking down my street and started yelling at me (I was playing basketball in the driveway by myself). They kept insisting they knew me, which they didn't, and that my dad was, "that lawyer!" I said he wasn't, and that I didn't know them, so they started screaming at me and calling me a liar and said they were going to go home to get a gun and shoot me. I suppose I should mention these rednecks were about 13, not 30, as you may have assumed. After they walked off I got very frightened and didn't know what to do but told myself, "You're the oldest man at home, Andrew. You have to defend your mom and siblings." (my dad was at work). I didn't own a gun, of course, so I went into the shed, got out my Louisville Slugger wooden baseball bat, and waited at the end of the driveway. Sure enough (rednecks don't make idle threats in Georgia) about ten minutes later the boys showed back up carrying a BB rifle and stood across the street, staring at me for a few minutes. I held my bat in my hands and stared back, and eventually they walked off without any of us ever saying a word. As soon as they left I of course collapsed to the ground in a bundle of quickly vanishing adrenaline and tried not to embarrass myself through vomiting or pissing my pants. Later I told my dad what had happened and said, "They said you were a lawyer, but I thought they said you were a liar, so I was mad." He told me, "A lawyer and a liar are pretty much the same thing." Never let it be said he missed an opportunity to make a bad joke. 

              Short story long, though, (and here you should stop and marvel at how I can use the opportunity to make my brother's birthday all about myself) ten seems young until I stop and think about how I thought, and felt, when I was ten. Then I have to think about whenever this little fetus turns ten, and what he/she will be like, and think like, and where it'll live, and whether it will have siblings, and how many, and all of those sorts of unknowable answers to questions that haven't even been asked. Also, at my brother's birthday party I told my six year old brother, "Did you know my baby is tiny and can hiccup and do somersaults?" His big blue eyes bugged out of his head as he gasped and said, "What? I can't even do somersaults!" 

             Let's get this zig-zagging ship back on track (to mix metaphors) and talk about what's actually going on with this little bugger. This week we had our second appointment with the doctor who is actually going to (presumably) deliver the child, and I met her for the first time. She said everything looks fine and dandy and on track for the November delivery. She even put the jelly on the belly and stuck some little portable sonar device into that. All I heard was a bunch of static and some dolphins swimming by but Mag said that she could hear a tiny fast heartbeat. In another few weeks we have an appointment in which we'll be able to hear it clearly, and then a few weeks after that we'll finally figure out the sex of this damn thing. It will be convenient to be able to talk about it without calling it an, "it" or having to write, "he/she" or, "they" as if my one baby is two - both a boy and girl contained in one body, fighting for control. We also, this week, got our first bill from the OBGYN, upon which we promptly contemplated suicide, and then robbed a bank instead. After talking to the folks on the phone, however, we discovered that it is actually a bill for everything we'll owe up until delivery, and not just for services rendered so far, which is a far, far better prospect. 

                 Mag was complaining this week about how she feels bloated, and her stomach is poking out a tiny bit already. I hate all those girls on Facebook who begin taking pictures of their stomachs as soon as they find out they're knocked up and stick them out as far as they possibly can, willing them to grow. Mag isn't like that, so was a bit shocked to find that a 2 inch long baby can actually make your belly visibly grow. It's slight, to be sure, but it's funny all the same. Of course now she's worried as she is a bridesmaid to be in early June, and was hoping not to be showing by that time since she already has the dress. Other than that, things haven't changed much since last week. We only had one giant knockdown drag out argument (though, my lawyers have informed me, I should stress that there wasn't any actual knocking down or dragging out) and it was over the very insulting question, "Around what time do you want to go out and eat dinner at your favorite restaurant tonight?" 

Squash ball is all the way on the right

                 The baby is now about the size of a, "squash ball" whatever the hell that is, and is beginning to actually look pretty human. Sadly, it's cute little flippers are mostly gone. According to this book, the uterus is now to big to fit into the pelvis and is beginning to push into the abdomen (which I suppose explained the bloating/swelling of the belly). The book also suggests that this is the appropriate time to inform one's co-workers and distant relatives about the pregnancy. I guess we jumped the gun on that one a bit. But consider this - if you didn't know we were having a baby you couldn't stay up to date on all these super important stories! 

                  Soon, hopefully, Margaret will be big enough to actually begin taking pictures of her stomach (at least until her belly button turns inside out, because that's just disgusting). 

This is what my baby looks like, though less rubbery.

Our Gardening Adventure

             Margaret and I have started a garden. We started a half-hearted garden last year, which mostly consisted of putting some seeds or plants in the ground or something and then ignoring them. I guess I must not have the proverbial, "Green Thumb" as, surprisingly, this didn't yield a bountiful harvest of fruits and vegetables. This year though, we declared from atop a mountain of recently tilled soil, things would be different. This year we would sink our pink little fingers deep in this grimy muck and mire and, through back-breaking labor and the sweat of our regal brows, pull forth from Mother Earth the fruit of her fertile womb. We would play the role of mother, creating a welcoming and nurturing environment for the plants - father, planting the seeds in this environment - nursemaid, nurturing and maturing these seeds into plants - doctor, delivering the bounty of our labor - and finally cannibal, sinking our sharpened teeth into the juicy goodness of vegetables we planted. This year, our long-winded declaration continued, we would not be distracted with petty things such as work, sleep, food, or Halo: Reach. This year our garden represented our child - and if we couldn't take care of a garden (and here we shook hands in solemn agreement) we would immediately sell our child to the highest bidder upon its birth. The stakes were high, our ambition higher, and our dedication higher still.  Garden, prepare to meet thy makers.

              So, since Mag's dad has recently given up his hobby of raising five children and eleven and a half grandchildren, he's faced with the problem that haunts many an older man - free time. This isn't a problem for the young, as the young are most excellent at finding ways to waste copious amounts of time without ever feeling as if the time has been a waste. Because of this he's taken up gardening. The guy's a pilot, which means he doesn't halfass anything, and he has been reading some book on square-foot gardening (cleverly titled, "Square Foot Gardening") so we decided to try that.

             I'm not much of a carpenter, but I used to play with LEGOs a lot, so even I can put together a 4 foot square box with 2x6s. Of course first we needed the lumber, so we made a trip to Home Depot. We got the wood and a variety of other things in giant heavy bags which we were going to mix together to make the most fertile of soils. After returning home Mag (also known as my Honey Baby Sugar Bookums) began her mysterious mixture of our forthcoming mineral conglomeration, and I got to work on screwing the boards together. This sort of thing is really more fun than it out to be, and I can only suppose it's because of LEGOs. After I built the box I was going to overlay a sort of tic-tac-toe board on it so I had to measure and re-measure the sides, doing the most basic sorts of math to figure out where each end would go and marking it with the oldest, most beat up pencil I could find (I feel this is appropriate for carpentry). Meanwhile Mag mixed together the following substances:
- Composted soil from her dad's compost tumbler.
- Cow manure.
- Organic

                 We also had a sheet of something to lay at the bottom of the box. When we had everything put together in the obvious and appropriate way, we began planting the seeds. I made up a little grid on a piece of paper (in case our memories fail us in the future) and we marked down what we were planting in each square - okra, tomatoes, peppers, marigold (to keep pesky little pests away) and a few un-planted squares for our as-yet-to-be-decided vegetables. We planted the seeds, stepped back, congratulated ourselves on a job well done, and waited to see what nature would do for us.

              That night we had 60 mile per hour winds, multiple trees knocked down on our street, a large branch fall across our driveway, and a hail storm. However, it's a week (or so) later and just in the past few days our okra and peppers have sprouted, and I'm confident more are on the way. I was worried that the massive destruction caused by the storm may have drowned our poor little seeds, but evidently they drank up that hail like the lifewater it once was. I don't even like vegetables, and usually avoid them at all cost, but I can't wait to eat these suckers.

                                  

THE END

Hate Muslim Hate

                I wanted to try to get back on schedule this week and actually write about this weekend's movies and some other movies I've seen lately - I've been watching The Shield which is excellent television, and finally saw Tron Legacy which I assume was bad, but I don't really know because I didn't even realize it had ended as the credits are exactly like the movie - neon flashes on a black background, I also watched I Love You Phillip Morris which was so amazing I texted Clayton repeatedly until he rented it and watched it (he even sent me a picture message of the rented DVD with the caption, "And I just got off work 8 minutes ago"). There's even a 15 year old Mark Wahlberg movie I watched recently that I want to share my thoughts on. However, three things kept me from writing up a Friday movie post and those are A) I have no clue what movies are coming out this weekend B) I haven't seen a single movie released in 2011 and C) I wanted to write about this instead.

              I hate racism. I know this is a super edgy and risky stand to take, but I really do. I'm racist, and I admit it, but I think we all are to some extent or another. Part of it, let's face it, is smart. It's called profiling, and every single creature on this big blue marble engages in it in some way. A cat chases a chipmunk yet runs from a dog for a reason. A woman feels more fear when jogging alone in a secluded area when she sees a crazed meth head brandishing a machete than she does when she sees an old lady cleaning up dog crap. None of this is racism, but it's called smarts - you consciously or sub-consciously engage in threat assessment based on a variety of factors. It ain't pretty, but sometimes a factor in that threat assessment is race. This isn't ideal, but it's fact, and statistics bear out those facts. The exact races shake out differently in different countries and societies.

              Now, that disclaimer aside, let me continue. I'm racist in the way I just described. It isn't something I want, it's something I'm working through, and it's something I'm owning up to. However, I'm not racist in the fact that I don't believe that any person is better or worse than any other person based on the color of their skin, or the place of their birth, or the nationality of their parents. Everyone says they aren't racist, but let's face it, like 99.9% (we only use true and accurate scientific statistics at O'Dellicious) of all people are to some extent. Now I love the South, and I love Georgia, and I have many and varied opinions on the place of my birth and residence, but damn folks, you are all racist as hell.

             Racism doesn't shock me so much, but the outright unashamed proclamation of racism does. I don't know if it's part of being raised a certain (non-racist) way and then reaching adulthood and being exposed to all the dumbasses that populate this state or what, but over the past year or so people have been really surprising me, and not in a good way. I always assumed that people were racist, but that people were subtle about their racism - aw naw. Lately people say the most racist stuff in front of me, and not just when their drunk, and not just when their telling jokes. This offends me for a couple of reasons: A) Grow the up, assholes, and B) WHY DO YOU ASSUME I AGREE WITH YOUR RACIST VIEWS JUST BECAUSE I'M WHITE?

         When my lovely nubile little (white) wife and I went to the local babywatching robot place recently, I made small talk with the unlovely large (white) lady who was extremely sweet and charming as my wife changed into a hospital gown. The lady (we'll call her Ms. America) asked me a pretty normal question: "Okay, I just have to ask, what does your shirt say?" It is a red shirt written in a different language and I told her, "I don't know really. My grandma got it for me in a different country, like Thailand or something. It's John 3:16 or some other Bible verse." So far so good. Then she says, "Oh good. I just wanted to make sure you weren't one of them Muslim sympathizers." In the interest of honesty I'll admit that I didn't reply. I can argue that it was out of shock, or out of self-consideration (after all, she was about to insert some sort of futuristic camera inside of my wife) but really it was out of cowardice. I have this problem that is charitably known as self-centeredness where I don't really care about anyone else or their opinions. I have a ton of opinions on people and society as a whole, but on an individual basis I don't really pay attention to their views and opinions or try to change them. I'm pretty much nice to everyone who is nice to me, which is why I could put up with Clayton's satanic ex-girlfriend no matter how horrible she was (until she started spreading awful rumors about him, which is when I called her up and delivered my punishing blow: "you've been a goddamn liar since the day I met you, but this time you went too far." ). Let's be reasonable here for a moment though - this lady, knowing nothing about me except that I was white and lived in Georgia, assumed that I would share her racist views.

           A few weekends ago I watched a SUPER SPECIAL REPORT on CNN about a Muslim synagogue (racist joke alert!) that some hadjis were trying to build in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The community, typically, threw a snit-fit and declared it to be the end of the world and tried everything they could to stop it. They vandalized the property, set the equipment on fire, and then tried the super subtle method of, "Oh we're concerned that that particular location might cause more traffic then the two lane road can handle." I, of course, want to go fish out my childhood baseball bat out of the pool I threw it into four Halloweens ago and start beating ass, but instead I pour out my frustrations into this blog (and Halo Reach. Gamertag xCrackWilsonx if you wanna go). This isn't a blog to address every problem non-Muslims have with Muslims,  and then my defense or support of each claim, as that would go on forever (literally, as this has been going on for several thousand years already) but things have been getting a little silly. Folks don't seem to realize that every single time a majority has hated on (for lack of a better term) a minority based on something like race or religion, history has proven them (the majority) to be a bunch of old jerks. We already did this with the Irish, the Africans, the French, the Mexicans, and now the Muslims. Yeah, I bet this time will be different. If I was 80 years old now I would want to be able to tell my children, grand children, and great grand children that I supported the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s - can people not really see even five years into the future?

            Let's get one thing straight - the Muslim religion didn't attack us on 9/11. Al qaeda did. When the British government was being bombed by the Irish Republican Army a generation ago they didn't declare war on Catholicism, and try to outlaw the Catholic church, the used police work to fight back against the IRA. I think there are problems with the Muslim religion, and with specific interpretations of that religion, but that isn't enough to ignore the ideals this country was founded upon. One of the nicest people I know is a Muslim, and she asks about my life, my wife, my unborn child, my garden, and shows much more concern for me than any other semi-stranger that I've met. That's anecdotal evidence, to be sure, but if I was a racist I'd never enjoy the relationship that I have.

           This is all a bit of a rant, to be sure, and I'm a coward, as I've admitted, but I'll leave you with a small minor victory that I had to balls to achieve over the distancing medium of Facebook. It contains my wonderful use of obscenities, so tap out now if you don't like that sort of thing.

Original Poster: "So, Muslims now have more rights in America than Christians do? Screw you, Obama. I repeat, SCREW YOU. In my head, I just spit in your face twenty three times, you ignorant, effing IMBECILE."
Some other folk: I hate him!
Some other folk: What do you mean more rights?
 OP: Allowing the Muslims to have a day of prayer on the capitol grounds, then getting rid of the national day of prayer because he doesn't want to offend anyone pretty much proves my point. The end.
My Delicious Self: Uh no, Christians can pray on Capitol grounds too. That's called equal rights, the foundation of America.
A LOT OF OTHER COMMENTS THAT AREN'T WORTH COPYING HAPPENS HERE, AND AT OTHER POINTS.
My Delicious Self: I think two different ideas are being conflated here - like Barfield said, anyone can hold a ceremony with a permit, that's issue one, and on that issue I think we can agree equal rights are being given to all. Issue two is the National Day of Prayer, which was recognized traditionally by some past Presidents (and declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court) but not by Obama. Viewing this as an affront to Christianity reveals that one thinks that the national religion is Christianity, rather than the ability to choose one's own religion. Obama isn't ignoring Christianity by choosing not to hold a public ceremony on, "prayer day" he's treating all religions equally. The end?
Some Random Dummy: islam is an extremist religion. basically muhammad changed christianity inot an extreme religion as it picked up followers because he was upset that they wouldn't follow him to begin with. Islam is an extreme religion. you'd know that if you had a moral basis rather than a wishy washy acceptance of everyone. although i don't agree with [the original poster's] approach, she is right... (AFTER THIS HE POSTED SAYING THAT HE IS BOTH ANTI-OBAMA AND ANTI-MUSLIM)
My Delicious Self: I'm not sure if you're addressing me, [Some Random Dummy], but in reply, A) there are extreme factions in every religion - some more violent than others. I personally feel that in the modern era America is much more threatened (through violence) by Muslim extremists than extremists in other religions. I do not, however, think that Islamic terrorists represent the majority, or anywhere close to it, of Muslims. I also don't see what any of this has to do with freedom of religion in America, unless you are saying you're against the constitutional right of freedom of religion. B) If you are talking to me, go fuck yourself.
Some Random Dummy: well, andrew i am saying give all or none to all or none, no taking from some and saying that we can't call ourselves christian, then giving a Special treatment to others and calling it freedom... please find a more adult way of showing your consternation with me... than fowl language...
My Delicious Self:  If you're saying I have no moral basis, and just, "a wishy washy acceptance of everyone" then I voiced my consternation exactly as I wished to. If that wasn't addressed to me, then my comment wasn't addressed to you. As for the, "none to all" thing, I think I agree with it, as far as I can understand it. I don't really see how it applies to the National Day of Prayer, but I do agree with it. 



      

               That was the end of the argument, so therefore I consider it a victory. Also (and this is just being petty here) Some Random Dummy isn't quite random, as I've met him once before, at a house party where he challenged my 17 year old brother to a rum shot contest which ended with my brother probably acting idiotic, but with Some Random Dummy puking off of the back deck. And that, sweet meat, is what I call O'Dellicious.

Fatherhood the Blog - Week 9

                   My widdle bitty baby is now 9 weeks old. Now I realize some people use the term, "widdle bitty" a bit loosely, but I mean it literally. My child is now officially the size and weight of a peanut. I know peanuts come in many shapes and sizes, but so do babies, so go screw your clever little self.

            People (and by people I mean guys) like to joke around about some hilarious tropes and cliches regarding women in general, and pregnancy specifically. When I was engaged I got all sorts of helpful advice such as, "Every time you have sex during your first year of marriage put a coin in a jar. After your one year anniversary take a coin out of the jar every time you have sex. You'll never run out of coins for the rest of your marriage!" (for the record, I don't carry cash). As soon as, "the fellas" discovered my wife was knocked up they got very excited about the misery I would soon be enduring (by proxy) - the hysteria, the bizarre cravings, the lack of sleep, the lack of sex, etc. Well, we all know that all stereotypes have a basis in reality (especially the racist ones) and let me tell you something - pregnant women are crazy. I know being pregnant must suck for the girl, but, as I've said many times through my always objective mouth, it's even worse for the guy. See, the girl has tons of stuff to put up with, but you know what they get in return? Unlimited amounts of sympathy and a free pass for whatever they do. A guy may only have one thing to put up with (the woman) but he gets no sympathy whatsoever.

               Margaret and I have had some of the greatest fights of our eight year history during the past week. In complete honesty, I don't remember what a single one of them was about, but trust me, they were amazing. Several times during the week the arguments have taken a turn for the truly strange to the point that I almost thought that I was being punked or something. It's difficult to argue while restraining a smile. Mag got her wisdom teeth out earlier this year and I was super excited about how crazy I expected her to act while dealing with the after-effects of the anesthesia . She acted completely normal and I was severely disappointed, but thankfully she's making up for it now in spades. Ya know I love ya honey (if you're reading this) but you have been pretty damn crazy a few days this week.

            I'm beginning to realize something about fatherhood that is terrifying me already. See, one criticism I've often leveled at parents (usually my own, since I don't spend a great deal of time criticizing other people's parents, except the parents of every single child I see at Wal-mart) is that after they have a child they become more connected to the child than to the person they had the child with. This makes sense on a lot of different levels but it isn't something that I want for myself. Let's face it, Margaret is a girl I fell in love with back in 2002 and remain in love with today - she's someone with her own family and past and life and loves who chose me, and was chosen by me. This is a great and beautiful thing of course, but this little ball of cells growing in her belly is me. It shares DNA with me, and with Margaret, and I'll experience this life from the very beginning. Of course I'm going to have a connection with him or her that is very different than my connection with Mag.

             Different is okay, of course, but the danger is using my new connection with my child to replace my connection with my wife as a source of emotional fulfillment. Why would I do this? Because having a relationship with an innocent little fat creature that can't talk and depends entirely on me for protection, guidance, and provision is a hell of a lot easier than having a relationship with an adult with their own desires, fears, and opinions. This is the coward's way out, and something I'm determined to avoid, but I think an easy trap to fall into. I'm not saying this is what all parents do, but I think it's something I could do and something that I don't want to do. There's no love hierarchy, where love of my wife comes first, and then love of my firstborn, and then love of my second born, and then love of my half-Lithuanian lovechild, and then love of my cats, and then love of booze, and then love of my other half-Lithuanian lovechild. My heart is huge and ever-expanding - there's no danger that I'm not going to fall deeply in love with this kid, but there is a possibility that I use it to replace the connection I have with my wife.

              Beyond this, it isn't fair for the kid either. He/she didn't ask to be conceived, or to be born, or to have such a good looking father. This world and this life is something that I'm pushing on the child, not something that they specifically requested when they visited me in a dream from their little cloud in stork pre-heaven. It isn't fair for me to already be burdening the ornery cherub with my issues, or with my hopes and dreams. I spend a lot of time driving on my own, and as you can tell this child occupies my thoughts about 85% of the time (also known as the percentage of dance scenes in which Natalie Portman did her own dancing in Black Swan).

              A quick update on the dirty physical stuff: the baby is going to double in size this week, and can now hiccup as well as do somersaults. The somersaults will probably grow more difficult to perform shortly, as it's little fish fins are turning into arms and legs and growing finger and toenails. Most importantly, this little peanut now has balls or ovaries. Why it needs them so early I don't know, but ya got 'em kid. Use them wisely.

Latest sonogram image. 

Disparate Ruminations

           I don't know how else to say this but to just say it, my dear brother Clayton is a horrible, horrible, person. Two Tuesdays ago I went to his city of abode and went birthday shopping for my wife, hiring him (for free) to shop with me, to give me a woman's opinion and all. After spending around 20 minutes on our SUPERSMARTPHONES, attempting to discover which Enrique Iglesias album contained the song, "Tonight (I'm Raping You)" we gave up and went to eat fried sushi and drink hot sake. This may seem irrelevant but let me assure you it is not for two reasons: A) The song, "Tonight (explicit)" is evidently on the French re-release of Senor Iglesias's most recent album (Euphoria?) and B) It was on this little misadventure that Clayton assured me he would, that very night, post the first two entries in our O'Dellicious Celebrity Bracket. As you can no doubt reckon, that was 11 days ago, and Clayton hasn't contributed one single post to our collective blog since that moment. Now, I love the kid, but when I confronted him about this he said, "Well, since I moved I've been...well  for some reason it seems like I've been really busy but I don't know what I've been doing." While this is classic movie addict behavior, it is still inexcusable, and I post this now as an attempt to shame him into contributing, at least in part, to the damned blog that was his idea to begin with.

            Let's move on, shall we? I don't think I've explicitly stated this in the past, but I work alone. I encounter many people during a normal work day, but I don't (thank the good lord) have to spend much time with them. This has, of course, groomed in me a distaste for all humanity (along with a love for myself) but I feel I am wise enough to overlook this when it comes to most of my human interactions, and save it for the extreme and complicated threats I make to my cat and kitten, since they can't understand me (to be fair, they're both adults, but I consider one a kitten because the other is so disgustingly fat that in comparison to her any other creature seems to be a mere infant). I remember when one of my many younger brothers was a small child (like three years old) and, when he wouldn't mind me, I told him, "You know I'll pick you up and throw you through this second story window don't you?"  Oddly enough some folks found these threats to be abusive, but let's face it, when the kid one quarter of my size (and age)  is responding with, "No, I'll throw YOU through the window" it's pretty clear he doesn't feel threatened. This has nothing to do with anything, except for establishing the fact that all of my violence is sweet, don't ya know?

              Today I was at the local penitentiary when the guard said to me, "Son, you look different every time I see you! Now you got that hair all growed out. You must be trying to be a hippie or something." I like this guy, some old black dude, and I've run into him in public and talked to him before. He's a cool fellow, so I responded with, "Hippies? I'm not old enough to remember what those are, but I'm sure you are." This brought a round of laughter from the inmates (as you know, I'm always trying to get on the good side of convicted felons since I read Androcles and the Lion) and some spiel about the Vietnam War (conflict? I don't know what we're supposed to call it) from the guard. I wasn't paying attention, because I don't pay for anything that doesn't benefit me in some way, but I overheard a mention of the draft, so I asked him about it. "Hell yeah I was drafted," he told me, "You think they would have been able to send me over there any other way?" This got my astonishing little brain a'working, and thinking, and ruminating upon a great many things. Let's establish a few things: I love knowledge. I hunger for it. I want to know everything about everything. I realize that every single living creature knows something that I don't know, and I want to suck that knowledge out of their souls - for what purpose? I don't know, just to file it all away and die with it, I suppose. My main obsession is with American History, since that seems easier to comprehend, though I'm interested in all of history (and the future as well, my hunger knows no prejudice). I studied the Civil War, than WWII, and now I'm back on the Civil War (after all, it is the 150th anniversary). After this I really feel the need to move on to Vietnam, as I feel like it is probably the third most important moment in American history, but I really don't want to. It's so involved, and so depressing, and so...I don't know, futile and humiliating, that I don't want to get into it. I've met hundreds of people who fought there, and seen dozens of movies, and have heard stories from both of my grandfathers who fought there - hell, my mom lived there during the war, that I'm just too scared to really get into it.

                Anyway (if you haven't realized this yet, this blog entry is pretty much stream-of-consciousness, and has no real point) thinking about America in terms of our wars got me into thinking about America, and the world, generationally. I am, what I would term, an optimist. I've been called a pessimist by many people, and perhaps I was at one time, but I tend to think I've always been a realist, that perhaps once leaned towards pessimism, but now leans towards optimism. Let's take racism as the best example of what I'm trying to communicate - I'm pretty sure my great-great-grandparents were huge racists. I've never met any of them, and have no proof of any of this, but I just assume. I know my great-grandparents were. I'm not attacking them, nor justifying them, but I know they threw the word, "nigger" around, and it wasn't slang in their freestyle raps. Their children - my grandparents, were considerably less racist. They lived through the Civil Rights movement, and while I don't know their opinions on it, I know they accept the world they live in and have never heard any of them make any super racist comments. At the same time, I'm pretty sure my grandparents would be pretty uptight if one of their grandchildren brought home a black girlfriend/boyfriend. My parents are much less racist than their parents, and I feel like I'm less racist than my parents. I hope that my child (currently cocooned within my wife's womb) is even less racist than I am. This is all to say the following - if you follow the path of racism from my ancestors, tobacco farmers in the hills of North Carolina, and sharecroppers and oyster shuckers in coastal Alabama, to the present, you would have to graph it out as moving in the right direction. Humanity sucks, in a ton of ways, but we're getting better. That's where my optimism comes from. Racism is a huge stain on humanity as a whole, but you know what's amazing? That we know that it is. The genocide in Darfur is horrific, and makes people hate humanity as a whole but guess what? Humans are the only creatures who think that genocide is horrible. The fact that we have the capacity to find humanity immoral means that we are moral creatures.

              This actually brings up the problem I have with a lot of religions. Many religions view humanity as fallen, and falling. It's as if humanity was set afloat on the gorgeous, perfect, beautiful Titanic, and immediately ran it into an iceberg. We're sinking fast now, and our job is to herd as many people as possible into lifeboats as the rest of humanity sinks into the abyss, waiting for a greater power to come snatch us up at the last possible moment. I prefer to think of humanity as good and getting better. We have a lot to improve upon, certainly, but the fact that we know we need to improve is a good thing. Of course we'll never be perfect, but wanting to be, and trying to be, is a good thing.

              But then I go out in public and see everyone else who just doesn't give a damn, and suddenly I'm a pessimist again.

Fatherhood the Blog - Week 7-8

             Super interesting things I've learned in the past week and a half of Fatherhood:

- My baby is the size of a thumb tip, and has organs, but is translucent and still really creepy looking. It is, as the book reads, "unmistakably human" but only in the way that the little gray men who crash landed at Roswell are unmistakably human. We share the same basic anatomical make up, I mean, more so than like a human and a sea slug, but we really don't look much alike at all. I can only reason that if the entire baby is 3/4" long, than it's itty bitty organs must be like size of a sprinkle (I had ice cream last night) and that's insane to think about.

"Phew, thanks Mom, that was a
close one!"

- Evidently people bring fabric covers from their home to put on high chairs in restaurants. I learned of this via an amazing argument with my darling little wife about whether or not we were going to use one of those with our child (can you guess which side I was on?). In my defense, for the first portion of the argument I didn't know these things really existed and thought we were debating the value a hypothetical object. My impeccable logic was, "Listen, we didn't have these things when we were little and we never got any diseases. That wasn't 60 years ago, people didn't use these like FIVE years ago. If they were necessary than mankind would have died out thousands of years ago. Besides, germs are good for our kid! I want to build a super child by building up an immunity to every sickness by being exposed to germs!" Margaret would give her reasons or something (like I was paying attention) and then say, "We are going to use one of those things!" and I'd say, "Okay, we'll see." just to be annoying and keep the argument going while we waited for our food to be brought to our table.

- Uteruses (uterii?) grow. You find out all sort of things from reading a baby book. Sometimes you even find out things that you didn't really need to know. For example, I now know which week the uterus goes from being the size of a tennis ball to the size of a softball. Look, I'm a guy, and not just a guy, but a young guy, and not just a young guy, but a young American guy - I'm supposed to be ignorant when it comes to innards that women have that I don't have. The only guy who ever knew a lot about uteruses who wasn't a doctor was Jack the Ripper, and that's because he was removing them from his victims! (but who are we kidding, every one knows that Jack the Ripper was the King's Royal Surgeon, and a freemason, and a vampire).



            I've been considering some really important things about the raising of my future child today. For one thing, I was thinking about how one day they'll be a teenager, and I'm really not interested in dealing what all that bullshit. Teenagers are so annoying, as I can attest, having been one just 7 years ago. Sometimes I look back on some random opinion I had when I was 16, and think, "How could I ever have legitimately thought that? And I really thought it too! I was so convinced and passionate about it, but now it seems dumb." There are some things you just can't learn without actually traveling the distance to learn them - it isn't so much knowledge that can be passed on or communicated, but a certain lens that grows over your eyes as you view the past through the filter of time. It isn't that you know a different set of facts now, it's just that you see things in a different way. So how, when I have my own equally headstrong teenager, can I communicate the lessons I've learned when I know they can't understand it? That all gets too heady for me so I quickly move on to other concerns, such as....

            At what age should I introduce my child to the movie E.T.? This is part of a bigger multi-part question, which is about what movies I want to introduce to my child, at what age for each movie, will I let my kid pick any movies that he/she watches, how can I keep them from playing the same movie over and over, etc. I've already begun putting together a list of movies, or several lists really. One is for toddler movies - basically movies my 4-year-old child will enjoy that won't drive me crazy, and includes all the Pixar movies, How to Train Your Dragon, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The Iron Giant and more. The list that has me excited the most though, is the movies to shape my child's manhood, should it turn out to be a boy. I saw the Indiana Jones trilogy when I was 7 years old, and I loved it. It felt like something I shouldn't be allowed to watch, but something awesome and exciting and, in The Temple of Doom anyway, genuinely terrifying. Seven seems pretty young, but I want my son to see those movies when he's still young enough to be scared by them, not when he can just watch them with a detached critical eye, noticing how cheesy the special effects look now. When will I show him Star Wars, and will I even let him know the prequels exist? These are serious things to consider - what a boy obsesses upon informs much of who he will become. I can't control whatever my child eventually loves, but I can expose them to a limited selection and try to brainwash them subtly.

That's gotta hurt.

          As you can see there are many things to consider when partaking in the incredibly slow process of becoming a father, but I think it's pretty clear I have all my priorities in order.

O'Dellicious Celebrity Tournament Round One: Lil Wayne v. Gucci Mane

O'Dellicious Celebrity Tournament Round One

Lil Wayne vs. Gucci Mayne

Lil Wayne
        Growing up in New Orleans, Lil Wayne's career began blossoming at the tender young age of 15, really taking off when he deluged the internet with "mix tapes" before releasing Tha Carter III in 2008. At this point Weezy F. Baby was sitting on top of the world, a certified pothead midget toad-voiced genius, guesting on every song on the radio, running his own label, and raking in millions. Which means, based on the universal law of gravity, it was time to start heading back down. He released a horrible "rock" album, got busted carrying a gun (he's pretty gangster and was once shot in the chest...by himself by accident when he was 12 years old) and went to jail for a year. He got out not long ago but has since remained pretty quiet, releasing a few raps that he wrote while in the clink that come nowhere near to measuring up to his former greatness. He's due for a comeback, but while he was gone rap morphed into a new genre - Gay Rap. Chris Brown, Jason DeRulo, Taio Cruz, Drake, and a few others have pushed the high-voiced poppy emo rap to the forefront of the, "black music" genre, inheriting more from Justin Timberlake than they did from Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne is due for a comeback, but so far it's all been talk.

Gucci Mane
         An Atlanta based rapper who talks as if he's full up of every single drug that has ever been used since the time of the Neandrathal and has a mouth full of marbles, Gucci Mane is probably more famous for his ridiculous name than he is for his ridiculous music, and for driving his Lamborghini at insanely high speeds in circles around Atlanta on I-285 and being surprised when he gets pulled over and arrested for having a carload of drugs. After he got out of jail he released an album titled, "The State vs. Radric Davis" which I own, and which has only one good song on it (the one on which he is featured the least). He has an upcoming album titled, "The Appeal: Georgia's Most Wanted." Thankfully the drugs have finally wormed their way far enough into his brain and body to propel him to a level where he doesn't just do the normal things drug addicts do - you know, slur their words, not sleep for days and then sleep for several days straight, break things, be annoying, etc. but a level where he can legitimately be declared insane. On January 4th of this year a judge ordered him to check into a psychiatric hospital, and upon release he immediately went to a tattoo parlor and posted a picture to his Twitter feed of his new tattoo: an ice cream cone on his face. An ice cream cone on. his. face. No further questions, your honor.

Results:
    Lil Wayne's O'Delliciousness comes mostly from his incredible swagger. He declares himself to be, "the greatest rapper in the world" and then backs up that claim. While I wouldn't say that the O'Dellicious swagger even begins to approach that level, we do retain the ability to make a claim to greatness in a particular area and then, through the mystical powers of our ancestors, follow through on that claim. However the inability to sustain greatness subtracts a lot of points from this column.
    Gucci Mane, at first glance, has many more cons (so punny!) than pros, but he does beat Lil Wayne in one area - instead of becoming obscure (and I'm not saying Lil Wayne won't come back bigger than before, that's a possibility, but we're in the present, not the future) he went batshit crazy. He wasn't good enough to begin with to ever become bad, so to devolve he just turned loony. Normally, Lil Wayne would win this one hands down, but it's hard to not respect someone who tattoos a permanent ice cream cone on the side of his face that will remain there until the day he dies.

WINNER:

Yes, there are lightning bolts shooting from behind the cone, and yes, it says, "Brrr" on it. 

GUCCI MANE!

   Another round one match up will also be posted today, if Clayton ever gets off of his lazy ass. 

Fatherhood: The Blog - Week 6.

                 I am 26 years old. I have been married for two and a half years. My wife is turning 24 this Wednesday, March 24th. On Saturday, March 5th, in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Eleven, we found out we were unexpectedly having a child. I intend to document each week of this pregnancy via this blog in our new column, un-cleverly titled (for the moment) Fatherhood: The Blog. This is the first entry.

            My wife and I both come from large families and fully intended on reproducing at some point, we just didn't expect this point to come so soon. "Don't you know where babies come from?" you might ask, as I have often asked the 20+ unwed mothers that I know (and that number is accurate, because Clayton, Margaret, and I lay suntanning in my backyard a few weekends ago counting the unwed mothers we know, not knowing that Mag was pregnant at the time). Yes, I know where babies come from, and somehow I've been able to avoid impregnating anyone/thing in my 18 year sexual history until now, using the exact same non-descript methods, a child has forced it's way into our life. I'm a disgustingly forthright person and do solemnly swear to be honest in all of my recountings for posterity's sake. In the event that I leave out portions of testimony, fudge the truth, or outright lie, it will be out of respect for my darling wife, and not to save myself from embarrassment in any fashion.

            When she told me I had just gotten off of work and we were preparing for a night out with friends at a minor league hockey game. I had been home for all of one minute and she was following me around the house with a peculiar little smile on her face until I asked her (politely), "Why are you being so creepy?" She told me bluntly, "I think that I'm pregnant." I didn't really feel anything in the moment, as my self-defense mechanisms work far faster than my thought processes and push me into a practical form of numbness long before emotion can come flooding in during a shocking moment. She had taken a pregnancy test on a whim, so I sent her to buy several more and try them as well (while I made myself Spaghetti-Os with meatballs and garlic toast with shredded cheese). When they all tested positive I came to the realization that a 99.7% accurate test, multiplied by three tests, meant that there was a 299.1% chance that I was having a baby.

           I was excited, personally. I like kids, for the most part (once they're old enough to talk and, therefore, entertain me), and more importantly, kids love me. It's pretty bizarre, but kids are drawn to me in strange ways. They talk to me, wave to me, stare at me, spit at me, just when I'm walking past them in stores. I assume it's because I have a big dopey cartoon-ish face and they assume I'm a character on a bad Nick Jr. show. I know that this child is going to change my life in a ton of ways that I've thought about, and a ton more that I haven't even the ability to predict; I know that things are going to be more stressful financially, that I'll have less time to myself, and that I'll get less sleep; I know that I wanted to be a little bit older and more settled in life before I had my first child, but I'm inexplicably giddy over this kid already. Mag was pissed the day we found out. That's a slight exaggeration, but she wasn't too happy about it - due to worry I'm certain. We had a few conversations about it during the day and then she woke up the next morning totally on board with the whole motherhood thing and talking to me about how to rearrange our guest bedroom to make it into a nursery.

        We went to the doctor a few days later and confirmed that she (my wife, not the doctor) was indeed with child, and that the estimated due date was 11/11/11. I doubt very much that the baby will be born on that day, as I think it's a law of nature that children aren't allowed to be born on their due dates, but it's still a pretty awesome date to be able to tell people. We've since been back to the doctor and heard the little shrimp's heartbeat, but I'll write more on that in the next entry in this column. As for now, I'll talk a little bit about what's going on with the baby in the belly.

         Pregnancy is much more confusing than I ever previously thought. One would think that four weeks past the date of conception one would be four weeks pregnant, but no, not really. It's calculated by some algorithm that I don't quite understand, but, regardless of whenever this thing (that is, my child) was created, it is now 8 weeks along it's merry journey to an oxygen rich environment. Being 8 weeks along means that the child itself is only 6 weeks old which means that it is the size of a thumb print. Regardless of the fact that it is small enough to flip like a coin, it still has tiny little finger and toe nubs, eyelids (but no eyes), some little ear things, and some other features I don't remember. This is the stage where it begins to look more like an alien and less like a dinosaur. Margaret looks exactly the same, and acts pretty much the same, but says that she can just tell she's pregnant because she feels different in indescribable ways. She's also a lot more tired than normal, which is weird to get used to since she's the one with all the energy in this relationship.

"Just chillin'." 

            What is a father? What kind of father will I be? What kind of father do I want to be? What if it's a boy? What if it's a girl? How will I raise this kid? How will having a child change the relationship between myself and my wife? How will pregnancy change my wife? How will being a father change the way I live my life? How the hell do I decide a name for this child that he or she will have to live with for the rest of his or her life? How do we prepare for parenthood? How do we prepare for the actual birth? 

           These questions, and more, will be answered over the next 7 and a half months of pregnancy in this blog. As Hunter S. Thompson once (or actually, many times) said, "Buy the ticket, take the ride." Oh daddy, I have.