happy face

My daughter laughs a lot. She has an amazing resilience of good spirit. We can squirt salt water up her nose and, after a good ten seconds of screaming blue murder, she'll be smiling and giggling at silly faces or her favorite made-up songs we sing to her. I admire the hell out of that. I hope she carries that through life with her.

Happily, her smiling makes me smile and her laughing makes me laugh. I hope that I carry that through her life with me.

a voice from the past

Looking through some old writing, I found some really old writing. It's dated Sept. 4, 2000 and I wrote it on my laptop, sitting on the porch of the barn in Lexington. I was writing a lot back then. I was heavily involved in working on The Ballad of Larry the Flyer. Amy and I had just gotten back together for the last time. The file is called "i know about writing":

Things I know about writing.

Writing isn't mystical or magical -- it's putting words down on paper.

The more you do it the easier it gets.

Rewriting is more important than the initial impulse to get what you MEAN down on paper.

The thing you are writing is more important than your ego.

Action and specific characterization are what capture the interest and hold interest through the course of the play.

When you write about something that means something to you, it shows in the quality of the writing.

You can't write about ideas. You can write something that embodies those ideas.

Your worst "enemy" when writing is your own head.

Be specific.

Be more specific.

Writing reflects the state of your mind -- the structure your create on paper is a mirror of the thought structure in your head.

Execution fills an idea with worth -- an idea is not good or bad.

Why you're writing isn't as important as the fact of writing.

I'm not saying it's earth shattering, or life changing stuff. It's just a reminder that I used to think, and cared to think a lot, about something that I've let get away from me. And I think some of what I wrote is worth thinking about now.

meant

I was going to write about the Red Sox today and how watching a team struggle and win such a monumental championship (length of season, number of games, etc.) stirs the desire to do something difficult; to dig in the dirt with both hands and keep going until something is unearthed.

But I'm suddenly struck with the overwhelming feeling that there is a lot going on between people that I just don't get. There seems to be a whole other level of interactivity and friendship that I am locked out of. I don't know if I'm interested in explaining this, perhaps for fear of it being made clear that this is simple paranoia and feeling sorry for myself. But I certainly have a history of pulling back from groups and people and watching on the sidelines while I think about all the things that I could be doing and then beating myself over the head with them. Ah, yes, the self-hatred is in full bloom today. Back to work for now.

CARLOS

Some people like boxes. They like to describe the specific parameters and texture and weight of materials so they know what it will feel like to push against the walls and to feel them pushing back, chafing against their skin. They like to climb into them and pull the flaps over them, blocking their view. Some people like to shove everyone else in boxes they've created for them. They keep everyone in confined spaces, make them easy to get around, and to handle. Some people just don't want to live anymore, I'm telling you. They're too fucking afraid.

destroyer of worlds!

I don't want to be that guy who is overly critical and tears down other peoples' work and ideas because he's frustrated in his inability to step up and create anything himself.

I feel like I'm waiting for permission to do what I want to do. How stupid is that?

CHANCE

I'll tell you what I want. I want a house with a broken stair leading up to the backdoor. I want faucets that need replacing and walls that need to be stripped of moldy wallpaper. I want something I can fix and make better. And I want the time to do it.

my problem, in a nutshell

1. "God I feel fat and disgusting. I have got to lose weight. Jesus, these pants are even tighter this morning. Did I gain weight while sleeping?"

2. "Oh look, a donut."

3. "I'm not going to eat that donut."

4. Eats donut.

5. Repeat steps 1-4.

Or, come to think of it:

1. "I dislike [bad behavior], dislike myself for doing [bad behavior] and want to stop doing [bad behavior]."

2. Opportunity to [do bad behavior].

3. Decision to not [do bad behavior].

4. I do [bad behavior].

5. Repeat steps 1-4.

tuesday

It's cooler here, now. Left the air conditioner's fan on here in the office these past couple of days, mainly because the knob fell off, but today it actually felt cold and I had to search for the knob to stop the air blowing on me as I sat at the computer.
Nothing I intended to write about here today, other than the weather. I much prefer any cold to the heat of summer. I feel much more comfortable and less stressed.
Tired this morning. Not one of Ella's best sleeping efforts last night. She got her latest round of shots yesterday, which probably has something to do with that.
This room is full of clutter. I wish I could throw everything out and start over. I could. I can, at least, with my own messes. The real problem is that it's not just mine any more. Amy's things are in here too and I'm not good with the subtle negotiations of property. I'd just as soon as trash everything as find a new place for it. Simple. Clean.
That is the one thing that was good about the separation and divorce — I got rid of everything and started over fresh. How to capture some of that feeling while being in a permanent relationship is a good question: how do you continue to change and redefine yourself to yourself when there's someone around who knows you so well? Hard to jettison that piece of you that you no longer want and say "I am no longer that. I am now this." when there's someone to remind you that you never remember to use the recycling garbage for paper and plastic items and who hears your farts at night.
I want to draw an imaginary line and say "Okay, from here on I will be different. I will think less and do more."
Done.
Now what?

ella

Ella is asleep. The last time I checked on her she still had her head turned to the left, her right arm slight up and resting against the wall of the cosleeper. When I put her down I put her too far to the left wall and now I'm concerned because her arm is up and what if she doesn't move it? Or what if she does and it wakes her up, etc.

I haven't written about Ella in here yet because, well, aside from the fact that I haven't been writing in here until lately, I've been afraid to because I didn't have anything good to say. Not about Ella — she's awesome — but about the way that I interact with her. This is not all the time, mind you, but there are times when I swear at her ("go to fucking sleeeeep, Ella") and I have put her down perhaps slightly roughly and then gone into another room and screamed). She'd be a real good teacher of patience, if I was willing to learn.

I try. I swear that I try. But there are times when I'm too exhausted or want too much for her to go to sleep, or just am not willing to put up with what I consider her fickleness — and then I lose it.

Amy doesn't like it. I don't like it. I'm not sure what there is for me to do, other than try and try harder. I come back, always, to something my therapist said years ago after I went on one of my typical long, rambling stories: "expectations, expectations, expectations." If I could release myself from the burden of expecting things and wanting them I swear I would be half-way to self-fulfillment. (Oh the irony: fulfillment through emptiness. My erstwhile buddhist teacher would love that.)

There's no point to all of this except to put into words something that I feel humbled by and makes me question my ability to be a father or to interact with other sapient beings.

Right now I am enjoying the time alone while Amy is away at a private client. I have forced myself to turn off the tv — no shows or games. And I am going to read a little bit, and think a little bit, and contemplate my return to writing which I feel is right around there corner... oh wait, is that it now? Oh. No. That was something else. But it's coming.

cranky dave

A comment on my favorite discussion website MetaFilter.com:

'One of our major problems in this country is that most intelligent people have an overdeveloped sense of "fair play", which dullards and ideologues constantly take advantage of. We waste far too much time on fools. Rather than writing them off, we scramble to accommodate their idiocy and provide them with a platform to perpetuate it. If someone injects a full-goose crazy idea into a discussion, the tendency is NOT to dismiss it as "full-goose crazy" -- but to seek a middle ground. All in the name of "everyone is entitled to their opinion". That's nonsense, of course. As Harlan Ellison countered: "No! You're not entitled to your own opinion. You're entitled to your own INFORMED opinion."'

In response to this.

WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE

1: What have you got to lose?
2: You're kidding, right?
1: No.
2: Jumping into a river from like a hundred feet above and what do I have to lose? How about my life?
1: Don't be so melodramatic. It's like — fifty feet.
2: Oh, I'm sorry if I take my life too seriously.
1: You're not going to get hurt.
2: You don't know that.
1: Alright, I promise you you're not going to get hurt.
2: That doesn't make it better! You've never seen this river before! You've never been here.
1: I don't know that.
2: You have never --
1: We're lost. I could have been here before but just don't remember.
2: Give me a fucking break.
1: It's the quickest way down. We're lost. It's getting dark.
2: It's one thirty.
1: It's hot. We're going to get dehydrated.
2: That doesn't mean we have to jump into a river.
1: I think we need to be down there. This could save us a lot of time. I don't see any other way down.
2: Being down there with two broken legs, cracked ribs and a probable concussion isn't going to help.
1: You're so negative.
2: Right. Great. Fuck you.
1: What?
2: This isn't about this.
1: What is this about?
2: I really don't think you're in a position to attack me for being cautious.
1: I don't know what you're talking about.
2: Fine. Whatever. But you are just as much to blame for what happened with dad as I am.
1: Everything is — everything for you, isn't it? Could you just shut down the ego for a minute, and deal with the problem —
2: Right.
1: — at hand?
2: Let's go. Let's go. We're walking. Let's go.
1: What if I jump?
2: Don't.
1: What if I jump and I'm fine? Will you jump?
2: No.
1: Really?
2: Don't do it.
1: Someone's got to.
2: You jump and get seriously hurt then I have to take care of you. Just like —
1: Like what?
2: Let's go.
1: I'm not going to get hurt.
2: Right.
1: This is what I mean about being negative.
2: Do you know what is generally on the bottom of mountain rivers? Large fucking rocks.
1: It looks slow. That means it's deep, doesn't it?
2: Don't. Seriously man, I mean it. Fucking don't — DON'T! ASSHOLE!
[1 has jumped. pause]
2: Are you alright?
[pause]
2: Jesus. Thank god. [shouting off:] Yeahyeahyeah, you're a fucking genius!
[beat. paces]
2: You'll be fine. It's deep. It's totally deep. He was right. Shit. He was right. He was fucking right. That asshole. Shit. Shit. Shit. This is all his fucking fault in the first place. The only reason we're out here is his stupid fucking motherfucking ASSHOLE! SHIT!
[beat. he runs off and jumps]

arms around the world

Thinking about what has changed for me, in me over the past several years. I feel like I crashed down to earth about three years ago, suddenly aware of my limitations in ability to handle difficult situations and people. I froze at the opportunities I had and my sudden dawning awareness that I wasn't as great a writer as I'd thought I was. Nowadays I look back at things I was thinking and writing and wonder where the hell I got the hubris to write what and as much as I did. Nowadays I try to think about a large project and it feels impossibly daunting. I try to break things down to chewable pieces, but the whole of it looms above me, weighing me down, as does the past. I carry every minor failure, every obscure fear, every possible thing that has gone or could go wrong with me into the present moment. As if every action needed to apologize for or make up for my history of broken promises or un-lived-up-to potential. I need to learn to sidestep. Let that weight come crashing down to the ground and leave it in a crater of its own making. I can come by and observe it from time to time. Maybe mark its destruction on the calendar and tilt a glass to it every year. I need to move on with my life.

read me

Read Me.

books

The thing about a book is that it makes me feel like I'm doing something. If it's non-fiction, I'm "learning something" even though my retention is horrible and any boost I get in understanding of the subject I'm reading about fades to a vague mush pretty quickly. Fiction gives me the feeling of forward momentum as I follow the plot to the conclusion, as I count down the pages toward the end. I swallow books the way I eat my food — greedily and with hopes that it will fill me up in a way that is more than physical. I am living my life on hold these days; getting done what I can get done, trying to keep a lid on the constant fear and stress that comes with keep a little three-and-a-half-month-old alive and happy while toying with the idea of some kind of fulfillment outside of day-to-day need completion. I do not claim to be unique or special in this. Every parent must go through this. I am just blowing off steam, trying to find a way forward that isn't just thoughts in my head; trying to move toward action. 

CORY

The problem, as I see it? Is other people. Hard enough to figure out what the hell you're doing with your life by yourself but you get yourself attached to someone — some girlfriend or somesuch — and then the next thing you know you got to think about them all the time and you can't just be, you know? You wake up one morning and all of a sudden you can't just go down and shoot some hoops or — what? — just fuckin' sitting around beating off to porn. Yeah, you're laughing but you know it's true — I see the way you look at Trudy, looking for, uh, approval or permission. Probably the same way you look at her when you want to get some. [laughs] Admit it, buddy, you are fucking bought and paid for. You can run as fast as you can as far as you can but you've got Trudy and Tricia — don't get me wrong, Trish is a fucking angel and I would give my life for her and I'm just some guy she hardly remembers — but the point is, what I'm saying is that you are settled, amigo and you aren't your own man no more. You are part and parcel of this group and it affects your brain. You tell me you feel like you have two seconds to rub a couple brain cells together to think about something other than what you got to do for them. You tell me that you don't wonder if you missed your chance. You tell me that and then tell me you don't want to do this thing with me.

MITCHELL

I felt like I was contracting. You ever feel like that? You can see your world shrinking around you — you're taking up less space. You see fewer people. You know fewer people. You run into people you used to know, people you used to stay up into the small hours talking passionately with dramatic hand gestures and empty pint glasses on the bar in front of you. But somewhere along the line you made one decision that — I don't know — that took you a step away. Maybe you needed a break. Maybe the life you created — maybe you needed to rest. Maybe you got afraid. And then a couple years drag by and you're still — disengaged. A few people call. You still get invited to places, to see  things. They ask what you're doing. You have to find creative ways to say "nothing." But then — it's like a map of the city that's your world and all the people you know, all the places you go, are colored on top of this black street map. And, as goes on the color fades and you realize that nobody notices this but you. You always thought you were important to people; that if you were gone people would notice and that maybe things wouldn't be as good, somehow. But the world just keeps going on and you don't really matter. And then you don't really care that much. You convince yourself that the small life is one you can be happy living. Your — drive, passion, whatever — your energy to — do — anything is fading and dissipating. That's a good word for it: dissipating. It sounds like a hiss — like a slow leak. Then, one day, you realize how deflated you are. You realize the battles you've fought are all in your head and that there's no reason to go on with them. All the things that stop you from — all the things that make you small — maybe you could set them aside. Maybe. And then... what?

hello

Just finished reading a book that has floored me. A novel about creating artificial intelligence and how we see the world and the people that we love in it — why we love them, and how we love them. This book has blown across dark coals and found something still warm enough to glow at the sudden oxygen.

"All human effort, it seemed to me, aimed at a single end: to bring to life the storied curve we tell ourselves. Not so much to make the tale believable but only to touch it, stretch out in it"
—Galatea 2.2, by Richard Powers

I wish I had written down more quotes. There were a lot of things that hit home. Beautiful book. Nice to be opened up emotionally by something written, again.

Found the quote I originally wanted to post:

"Life meant convincing another that you knew what it meant to be alive"

life? don't talk to me about life.

Things are starting to settle in a little bit here at the new job. My fears of enforced internet silence are fading and I'm even venturing back into IM, after being reassured by one of my designers that the internet policy here isn't, in practice, as draconian as the lawyer speak in the handout they give you in orientation might make you believe.

So far this gig has been good. Basically my days seem to be: design, maybe a meeting (or three on wednesdays), and then design the rest of the day. Pretty great, as far as I can see. We'll see how my first couple of designs go over on Wednesday, but this appears to be a pretty decent fit.

In other news, I have some weird muscle thing in my shoulder. I don't know if it's tension or if I'm sleeping weird, but it's been going on for over a week now. I tend to believe it's stress. Ella is due any time now, and I don't feel prepared.

Intellectually I realize that I will NEVER feel prepared, but there are some things that I really can do to get ready for her arrival (buy curtains for the nursery, get rid of even more books in the office to make more space, etc.) but I don't seem to be doing them.

Yesterday I had one of my minor revelations. Or, well, I started thinking about something I think about a lot in a slightly different way.

I know very well that I like to avoid things by putting my mind elsewhere -- in a book, a game, online -- but it suddenly seemed like this was part of a major shift in my life that has taken place over the past several years.

I'm getting older and feeling the weight of responsibilities from the outside world and expectations from myself to be certain things or have accomplished certain things, which I haven't. For the longest time I lived my life in this "artist's bubble" in which I discounted the real world and its necessities (money, planning for the future, etc) which made it easy to live my life in a kind of romantic fiction of what was going to happen to me -- my writing was going to make me famous/respected/wealthy.

I can no longer fool myself into accepting that story as real. This came as something of a shock to me several years ago, when it dawned on me that the fantasy future I'd been dreaming of hadn't arrived and that I was, in fact, going to have to step into the real world and learn to deal with basic things I'd avoided for a long time if I was going to get the things I wanted.

So, now, I'm stuck in this place where the whisps of that fantasy world are still inviting, but I am living more and more in the day-to-day world. I'm having a hard time reconciling the two. I don't want to give up that romantic, creative place (because it wasn't like I didn't work while I lived in my artist's dreamworld -- I did a lot of good, hard work writing and it was very worthwhile) but I have yet to find a way to make it part of my life again.

Anyone who has an idea of how to do that is welcome to tell me.

parting is such sweet...

LAST DAY! LAST DAY!

Yeah, so here I am sitting at my desk. Have the few photos and knicknacks I'd accumulated over my 13 months in a pile, along with copies of the books I worked on while I'm here. It's not much to look at.

There's not much for me to do today. I've already written out everything I need to pass on to my boss. I've organized my computer so at the end of the day I can delete all my emails, chat logs, and the few "non-official" programs I installed while I was here. My iTunes folder is already emptied.

What I do need to do is find the files for the books I helped design and make hi-res files of a few spreads for my book. Who knows when or if I'll need them. I hope that the New Gig turns out to be long long term. But who's to say? I do still plan to write, and maybe that'll happen for me. Maybe we'll move to L.A. Maybe I'll find something else I'd like to do better. Maybe I'm not management material. Who the hell knows. I would have never predicted when I left Avalon in November of 2005 that in 18 months I'd be starting a Art Director gig at a major publisher -- in New Jersey -- and that our first daughter would be kicking and preparing to come out and turn our lives upside down.

They're throwing me a "pizza party" as a goodbye which is ... really nice. It's not an exaggeration to say that this is the first place I've ever felt I left on good terms. So, I'm hoping that this job, much like the relationship I had before getting back together with Amy has been a good learning experience and one that heralds a kind of emergence of a slightly more mature and reasonable me.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm still a pain in the ass to live with and have my moments, that's for damned sure -- but something good happened to me when that relationship ended. I came to a realization that endings didn't have to be ugly and that if you can come out the other side without lighting yourself or the other person on fire and running away screaming... it's much nicer. Rachel and I parted as adults, and it opened my eyes to how poorly I'd treated Amy at the end. And that was part of the beginning of us getting back together.

Anyway, blah blah blah... me me me... it's an ending day, and a new beginning day. The pizza party makes me nervous, being the center of attention. I'll feel pressure to be witty and charming and funny. Maybe I'll pull it off. Seriously? I hope I don't tear up. I'm unaccustomed to groups being nice to me. I can handle it one-on-one with Amy, and with people I am close to, but casual friendships that are temporarily heightened make me nervous. I don't have programming to handle it. And yet, I really appreciate the hell out of it.

Okay. Off to do a little more work.

standing up

Told my current-soon-to-be-ex-boss that I couldn't couldn't come in next week. I'd been stressing about it all weekend long. Tried to talk myself down from the stress by telling myself that there's no reason to worry or care about what she says or does any longer. I'm here for five more days and then adios muchacha!

But that combination of feeling like I owe people something due to proximity and history, plus my dislike of making any kind of personal request made it more like climbing an emotional mountain than stepping over a mole hill. I kept backing off in my mind, thinking I could come in for one day instead of the three she asked for. Then two. Then I'd think ... "Aw, just do it. Help out."

But I want that week. I want a week to go to the gym every single day and to start to gear up for this next challenge. I want some time with myself to clear my head and to let the remnants of the voice of my current condescending and uncaring boss fade.

So, I did it. Told her I couldn't come in next week. Stood up. I'm slightly proud of myself.

you can't always get what you want. and then you do.

Well, as I think everyone who reads this blog knows... I got the job. I start on the 23rd.

I quit on Monday. It wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped. My boss took it pretty well, although she did get a gratifyingly stricken look on her face. She surprised me by asking me to stay three more days. I stammered and said I'd look into it. I tacitly agreed, and now I'm trying to figure out how to back out of it. I think I will end up working two days into the week I wanted to take off. Ah well. It will be helpful — and I'd said that I would stay slightly longer if they needed me. Stupid me.

So, I'm going to have a real J.O.B. I'm actually getting one of the things I constantly worry about:

1. What am I going to do for work in the future?
2. What do I want to do with my writing?
3. How can I lose weight?

It's good that I'm dealing with the first item, since a new item:

4. How can I be a good father?

has taken over most of my peanut-sized brain.

But seriously folks. Now what? I'm getting a job that could end up being a good long-term situation that really won't impinge on my ability to do other things. (It's a strict 9-to-5-er that apparently has overtime about as often as I do my taxes -- that is to say: once every couple of years.) So, of course, now I'm freaking out a little bit about whether I'm up to the job.

I've never managed people before. I have a pretty tenuous grasp on managing myself. This is only MOSTLY a joke. I do get my work done on time and I do work quickly. I am not, however, a go-getter. For instance, it's 10:20 in the a.m. and all I've done this morning is check my emails, cruise a few websites, and write this.

- - -

Almost five hours later and I've done very little work. I know that I'm going to get some pointed looks and a sour face from my boss, but I have a hard time caring. There's really not much for me to do. I will probably leave soon.

I've lost all the steam that I had this morning when I began posting. The point of the whole thing was that I'm still in a place of "now what?" and still not sure what I want to do with my life. Plus, I'm confronted by the fears of failing at the thing that I've been somewhat hoping for. (Only somewhat because, really, it's the writing part of my life that I've hung most of my self on for the longest time. I still don't know what I'm going to do with it. I still haven't figured anything out. I still lay in bed at night thinking about writing ideas. And I still do nothing about them.)

This is not in any way to counteract the excitement at starting a new job. And at leaving one on good terms, as well. This is the first job that I've left where I felt like I'd done good while I was there and that people would, in fact, miss me. It's encouraging as I move forward and take on a more... shall we say adult role in the workplace, as well as at home.

It's just fucking scary is all.

dear diary... today I'm going blather on and on...

I always start out kind of slow on Thursdays. My boss only works Monday through Wednesday, so there's a kind of release of pent up "but I don't want to work"-ness. Plus there are a couple of other things contributing to my laze-malaise. One is that the things I have to do are not easily quantifiable — I need to figure some things out, as opposed to replace all the art in chapter three with hi-resolution pieces, etc. The second is that I have part two of my interview at Big Publishing Company today during lunch. I'm meeting the HR person and seeing Paul (The Man Who Would Be My Boss) again before sprinting back to work here. So, I'm a little preoccupied and feeling a bit like "Fffffh! I'm not even going to be working here in a couple of weeks." Of course, who the hell knows? I'm concerned with my less than stellar track record with my bosses in the past — who would I have them call for recommendations? I don't know. Ah well. I'll just be as honest as I can without making me sound like the petulant child I've been at times. (I do have to say that I feel like I've done a much better job here. Although my boss would probably have a few reservations about giving me a completely glowing review, I've charted a much smoother course here than any other workplace I can think of.)

Suddenly I'm remembering a day in college when I was on a bus heading to downtown Seattle. I was planning on going to the waterfront and maybe even a museum. I thought I could hole up somewhere and drink some coffee and write in my journal. Suddenly, horrifyingly, I remembered that I was supposed to work that day -- as I did every day. I got off the bus at the next stop and found a payphone (this is well before cell phones) and called. For the life of me I can't remember what I did. I either lied and said I couldn't make it in, or I said I was running late and that I'd be in as soon as I could get there. Knowing me, I'm going to guess I lied. Poorly.

In other news, further ripples from the slight boost in self-belief from the interview: I contacted my old job (who hadn't given me any new work on this season's list) and asked the Assistant AD if there was something I could do to get back on the "designers we use" list. An hour later, after a couple emails, he sent me a rush title that I've been working on this week. Reminder to self: ask. Don't think about asking. Ask.

And that's a whole other story, that cover. It's about genocide and why it happens. The photo research has been incredibly depressing and horrifying. Imagine looking at a couple thousand images of Rwanda and the like.

You look at these images as just pictures — partly trying to find something that could support being a book cover... a shot that has a good shape, etc. — but then, you stop and really look and imagine what it would really be like to be standing there among those dead bodies, littering the ground. You see the soldiers there — now, too late, protecting a child squatting on his haunches looking toward the camera, with a look on his face that seems peaceful — and you try to imagine what it would be like, having lived through such violence and terror and lawlessness. What would these soldiers, these photographers mean now? How could you ever climb out of that darkness that must have begun to eat away at your ability to feel safe, or to feel anything for that matter? How does something like that happen?

It's hard to pull yourself back from there and focus on designing something. It's too intense, and real, and I've several times felt like there were images I couldn't use because they were too nakedly ... personal. Not overly violent and gruesome (although there are plenty of those), but images that seem to invade the subjects "space" somehow, and would trivialize what they were going through.

It's been an interesting gig. I sent in a second round of comps today. These have gotten a pretty good response. We'll see how it goes.

Perhaps I'll post some of those attempts on here later.

tastes like...

It's amazing what a job interview will do for you. Sitting down and having two professionals in the industry loving your work and taking you seriously can be a nice shot in the arm. Suddenly, I feel like I should be getting more work. Suddenly, I feel confident in my ability to design. I wish I felt like this all the time.

So, I go in on Thursday for the HR interview. I'll see my prospective new boss then, as well.

In the meantime, a friend of mine was just on jury duty and befriended a man who was there with him and who turned out to be the President and Publisher of Large Publishing Conglomerate That You've Heard Of. My friend talked me up and the Pres&Pub gave him his card and asked him to have me contact him. I sent him a link to my website this morning.

Funny how this shit happens.

And yet, still, I am uneasy about this (as I always am about change) and wonder what it would mean to my writing self. I bought more notebooks this week, with the vague idea of filling them up with the projects I want to work on (book, tv show, movie). And yet, I'm not getting anywhere on any of those multifarious projects and don't feel I have the space in my head to really delve into anything creative as much as I want to. As much as I really, really want to.

I really, really, really want to.

But family first. More money would be fantastic. If I got and took this job at the salary I requested that would mean that my yearly take-home pay will have doubled in two years.

Still: these are eggs. No chickens have hatched. I am not counting them. Carry on.

quick, big chunk o' life

What a week it's been.

A week ago today at this time I was driving through Pennsylvania in the middle of a blizzard. After a twelve-hour trip, we finally made it to Michigan, where the skies were blue and the snow was safely already on the ground and melting.

The weather remained friendly until Monday morning, when it was time to head home. It took us over an hour to get through Detroit (normally a 20 minute trip) due to a fresh, heavy snowfall. I didn't think it was possible, but the drive through the mountains in PA was even worse on the trip back. There was more slush and ice, this time around.

After another twelve hour drive and a quick eight trips up and down the stairs to carry the loot into the apartment, we were back safe and snug in our apartment. Sadly, we'd missed the snow in New York — which I love.

Tuesday my hamstrings were tight and I was exhausted. I'd finally gotten through to this man I was playing phone tag with at a large publishing company. I'd been recommended by a friend to a guy who knew a guy at this company. I'd sent in an email saying "hello" and that I'd heard they were looking to fill a design position, and pointed to my website about a month ago. Lo, and behold, this guy was now calling me regularly, and we were playing phone tag.

The conversation took place in a nearby McDonald's (only place I could think to go and sit where it might be quiet). I told him I was at a Starbucks when he asked about the noise (which began about five minutes after I sat down). He told me about the position — which, it turned out, was an Art Director gig — and I did my best to disuade him from talking to me about it further. I explained my lack of a managing skill-set, and that I didn't have all that much experience designing the type of books they produce (business books and trade stuff). After a couple of minutes of this I told him I'd send my resume and the salary requirement he requested within the hour. I came back to my desk and IMed with a designer friend asking him what he thought would be a good amount for the job. We agreed on a number that seemed really damned high. But, continuing on in the "well, I don't think I'm really right for this job anyway" vein, I decided to ask for the moon.

Twenty minutes after my email went in, I had a message from him asking me to come in for an interview the next day.

Holy hell.

I waffled and hedged — I really, truly needed to be in at work (deadline for a project of mine, plus my boss was going to hand-off her project for her usual four-day weekend). I came really close to saying "I can't," but then a co-worker who is also planning on leaving to move to Paris for the hell of it next year said to me "you have to take care of YOU."

I called him back after work and said "Yes. I'll be there at 9:30 a.m." So this necessitated me going through my clothes — most of which I am now too fat for — and finding something to wear. Settled on my suit and a light black sweater under it (casual — no tie — but formal — suit) which actually fit me okay, still. I also had to find my portfolio and update it a little bit. And I had to lie to my boss. I used the pregnancy as an excuse ("Amy really wants me to go to this doctor's appointment with her tomorrow...") 9:30 turned into 10 a.m. and I didn't even get out of the interview(s) until 11:30, and back to Workman until noon.

It went well, I think. After realizing what getting the new job, and it's new paycheck would mean, I started thinking about actually doing the job, and then I started wanting the job. The man who I'd been playing phone tag with (and who would be my immediate boss) was my interviewer. He said I asked good questions. He loved my samples. He said they'd definitely hire me as a freelancer, regardless of whether or not I got the AD gig. Then I met with his boss. She loved the book. She loved that he said I asked good questions. She liked that we were having a baby, it seemed. And then I went to see the HR person. Filled out an application, but couldn't get in to see her — she was in another meeting. But we have a meeting set up next week.

To talk about what? Money, maybe. I'm not sure how this goes. Holy shit, I might end up with a real job. A real, honest-to-god if-it-works-out-I-could-be-there-for-years "career" kind of job. Holy shit.

What does that mean with the rest of my life? Writing? Fuck if I know. All I know is that it's a great job — everything they told me about the job and the company just got better and better — and it would solve a lot of problems for us if I got it.

So, the next day —yesterday—I was pretty worn out and had tons of work to do. Then we had our second Lamaze class, which included a tour of the facilities. It's getting more and more real. More and more exciting. More and more scary. Quite a year of changes. I'm looking forward to a night on the couch with my girls, catching up on some of our tv shows.

quick poker post

Poker Update: Going out of town in a mere 7 hours, and starting/finishing packing. Just wanted to get this down: game 7 — bought in: $50; up $3, total for the year +$126.

I felt good about my play. Other than getting involved in a dangerous Omaha hand that ended up taking between $30-40 from me (when I was up at the beginning) I made smart calls and folds. Still, I ended up with the second best hand a couple of times, and I didn't make a draw or two that would have helped me out immensely. But I was in with the right odds most of the time, I think. Battled back from about $10 total in front of me to end up above my buy-in. I'm okay with that.

Hope to get back to writing in here when we're back from Michigan. Or, perhaps I'll even post while I'm gone. They have the internet in Michigan now, I hear.

what i know = zero

This weekend was the first time that I've felt overwhelmed at the prospect of Ella's arrival. I'm not surprised, really. It's been percolating under the surface, I think. And, since I've started to actually get back to the gym and gain some measure of control over my eating habits (although we shared a piece of black & white cake last night for dessert that was unbelievably good) that the pressure would find another way out.

We were at Babies 'R Us and I felt somewhat blindsided by Amy's insistence we finish our registry there. I thought we were going to look at a few cribs and then move on. This would normally not be a big deal but I decided I was in a Bad Mood (helped along by low bloodsugar), plus shopping with Amy can be a difficult experience — she hates it.

Long story short, she was freaking out from the start and I got increasingly frustrated. How many shirts do we need? How many with side snaps? How many regular? Are onesies and jumpers the same thing? Why do they have x for 3-6 months, but not 0-3 months? Why does our registry list show everything as impossible-to-decipher acronyms and not have any complete WORDS? She kept asking me questions I didn't know the answers to and I got increasingly shrill: "I don't know."... I don't know, Amy."... "I. DON'T. KNOW!"

We got through it without any bloodshed, but it really hit me during our quiet walk to Buy Buy Baby, and then our quiet walk to the pizza place for a late lunch, and our quiet walk home: I don't know anything about little tiny babies, really. Or toddlers. Or children! I don't know anything about anything! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

So, that's fun.

That black & white cake sure was good, though.

watch me stop watching

So it has come to this: I only post in my blog after a poker session, to keep track of my play. It's not for lack of wanting to post — although it's not for lack of time, either. Things have been busy here at work, but I'm working without a bossorial presence, so could carve out a few minutes to throw up some thoughts if I really wanted to.

It's just that I am still being a fish in the water — plugging away and preoccupied by the day-to-day tail swishing. I had a very good IM chat with friend JTM in LA this week about desire and ability and butt-in-chairness (making up all kinds of words today) which has gotten me to at least take small step #1: I'm cutting way back on my tv watching time.

I definitely use the tv as a pallative. After a "long, hard day" at work I'm fairly beat. Add to that, hitting the gym a couple nights per week (which I actually did this past week) and my energy levels drop — at least that's the excuse.

So, I end up on the couch watching poker or some other show that we've DVR-ed and then, the next thing I know... it's 10:30. Besides, I learned years ago that watching tv and then switching gears to doing something creative is hard for me to do. It's as if my brain gets put to sleep and is hard to wake up — I truly am muzzy.

So, I'm cutting down on a couple shows (okay, well, one got cancelled — but the other one is a poker show that runs five nights a week) and on the number of nights per week I watch. Friday night is tv night, I think. We'll see how this goes.

I'm also thinking of trying to write in the mornings. I get up at 7:30 in the morning and don't leave until 9:00. I fill that time with a nice, leisurely bath and some email/web time. I could definitely make use of that 90 minutes and get about an hour of "stuff" done.

Anyway, onto the poker.

Poker Update: I got some cards last night. Pocket aces twice — both of which paid off (which is somewhat unusual), made some flushes, etc. But I feel pretty good about my play as well. I flopped the nut flush in one hand and slow-played and trapped Steve into going all-in. Worked beautifully. I didn't make any key lay-downs that I can remember, although this one hand with Jamie and Paul keeps running through my mind:

Small raises before the flop which comes up 3 4 10 rainbow. Jamie is first to act and bets $4. I figure he's either on a straight draw or has something like AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ so figure my pocket 7s are winning and he'll go away with an overbet. I raise it to $10. Paul considers for a loooong time but finally folds (turns out to be pocket 6s). Jamie goes all-in, which would put me all in for another $20.

Damn. This is exactly what wasn't supposed to happen. I reconsider what I think he has. There are so few things I can beat in this scenario. What if he has A-10? Or any overpair. I fold after a lot of hemming and hawing.

Turns out he had that straight draw that I originally put him on. Trying to figure out if I could have put him on that. In retrospect I think he would have checked JJ, QQ, KK, or AA after that flop, for fear of chasing someone away. There were no flush draws and that straight draw was pretty unlikely (except that he had it, of course). A-10? He might have bet that, I suppose, but $4 into a $3 pot? That's chasing-away money. If he's chasing away, then he must not have a made hand. He must have had the straight draw. In which case... he had eight outs. With two cards to come, that means he had about a 33% chance of pulling his straight. Both of his cards must have been a 7 or below. He couldn't have had an A and still had the open-ended straight draw. I should have called.

Ah, well, maybe next time. But it's good to know that he'll play his draws like that. I wonder what he thought I had.

At least I've turned around the trend — two games ago I was stuck $100. Now I'm up over $100!

Game 6 — bought in: $30, up $60, total for the year: +$123

just keep swimming...

It's like this: you're a fish. Sometimes you're swimming in the water as fast as you can, whipping that tail along, concentrating on moving forward. And sometimes you leap out of the water into the air and sun and whip your body back and forth so that you can see with the eyes on both sides of your head. You try to spy some kind of landmark, and make course adjustments. And maybe it's the air, or the thrill of the leaping, but you have Ideas. Some big Ideas. And you contemplate them, and your course adjustments and wonder what you should do — and then you hit hit the water with a slap and next thing you know you're swimming again.

I've been swimming lately. Not a lot of thoughts beyond the day-to-day, at least not for more than a momentary pang of wonder. But I've been getting things done. Ella's room is coming along nicely. And there is something to be said for swimming — the actual physical act of moving forward. It's reassuring. And necessary.

Poker Update: Played for the first time in three weeks. Got some good cards at good times. Played them well (mixed up playing strong and limping — confused people some, it seemed) for the most part. Hit a huge hand in Omaha and took down a $150 pot with the best boat over the second-best boat. Also felt like I was putting people on hands and was able to logically think through people's bets and see where I was really at in the hand. This, of course, was helped immensely by catching some cards. (I sucked out on two flushes for small-ish pots toward the end of the night because the person I was up against let me draw for practically nothing.) A good night. Glad to be on the positive side of winning for the night, and now the year. Game 5 — bought in: $30, up $167, total for the year: +$63

woooooaaaah!

It's time to admit that this whole having a baby is stressing me out. I notice that my usual filters are breaking down. Especially in regards to eating. Brownies in the kitchen here at work? Have one! Have two! Maybe some M&Ms for an after lunch snack, etc. I've obviously gained quite a bit of weight in the past couple of months (I'm afraid to weigh myself at the gym, but I'm going to have to if I want to get any of this weight off. Of course, I'll have to get to the gym to do that...) and that's not all. I just feel a little... constantly on edge these days. Not hysterical, but just not as in control of the old emotions as I usually am. This is not altogether bad, and is understandable, but I've got to gain a little of the tiny bit of composure I used to have back. I don't want to be hugely fat. I want to be able to handle any crises that come up.

I knew that this would happen, really. I expected that, with a new life coming that I will be responsible for, I'd freak out a little. And, entering the third trimester, it's coming into bloom. I've just got to gain a measure of control back. The food thing will be the easiest to measure as far as success or failure goes, I think. And it'll make me feel better if I can stop eating so much crap.

No poker again this week — trying to get the baby's bedroom painted before Amy's folks get here this weekend and we do some furniture shopping (Ikea, here we come!) A taste of things to come: baby first, poker second. Damnit. (I kid.)

what good are flying fingers if they're wrapped around a duck?

I am spending too much time thinking. About how things should be. About what I should have done in situations. About opportunities missed. About minor failures. I keep thinking about the epitaph I'm most afraid of: he had such promise. I am afraid of squandering what meagre talents I have. I am afraid of my children finding things that I wrote and saying "I didn't know that dad used to write." I am afraid of dark, sarcastic mumblings that I would make to hearing such a thing. I am afraid that I am becoming, have become bitter for no good reason. I've written on here, before, about how I am "trying to figure out what place writing has in my life." That is true. What is more true, and which encompasses and envelopes that question is another, stronger drive: to figure out how to deal with the fear I am hiding behind. It's the same fear that I've lived with, fed, and learned to lean on. It's the fear that allows me to scoff and hide, and the fear that keeps me safe from anything that would make me put myself truly in danger of artistic failure, personal failure.

I seem to remember playing hide and seek with that fear for a while, and finding some places to hide from it where I could enjoy creating — writing. I'm looking for that place again.

I've got to put down the duckie.

Yes, all of this started with a tiny jolt from a silly video this morning that made me think, and has kept me humming and thinking all day.

...aaaaaand exhale

I've been busy.

Work has been absorbing far too much of my energy these past two weeks. I've been going nonstop from the moment I get here until the end of the day. But the book I've been working on went out yesterday, and the boss woman doesn't come in on Thursday or Fridays, and so I find myself with a much lighter workload today and not feeling one smidgen, not one jot, not one tittle bad about the fact that I'm stretching out two hours of work to fill an eight hour day.

A long lunch is in the works.

There's plenty to say, mostly about my awareness that the subterranean stress I'm feeling from work, baby, The Future, is popping up as increasing lack of self-control as far as eating and going to the gym and tackling other projects that need to be thrown to the ground, kicked a few times, and told in a stern voice while pointing aggressively: "you will get done."

And that's all for now. Oh, well, except to say that we had folks over for the SuperBowl and played games (RoboRally and Bang!) and ate homemade pizzas and it was pretty damned fantastic and has kickstarted my gaming drive again. Must... play... more... games.

poker? poke me.

poker update: game 4 — bought in: $60, down $45, total for the year: -$104

Not a result I'm happy about, but I'm not really that unhappy with how I played last night. About ninety minutes into the eveing I made a couple of fairly big, incorrect calls (both to Paul) which wiped out the rest of my first $30 buy-in. The hand afterwards, however, I flopped the nut flush and, as luck would have it, ended up heads up against Paul again. I acted my way through the hand, cursing him and betting like I was on tilt until the river when I raised him (and his straight) and took down a good sized pot — probably half of what I'd lost to him.

After that, I stayed pretty even. I didn't get a lot of cards, and when I did I couldn't get a lot of players (I got AA three times last night and never made it to a showdown). Well, I stayed pretty even until the end of the night when Reggie went on a tear and took about $25 from both me and Jon in the space of about half an hour. He made quads, flopped a boat, pulled nut flushes (against my top two pair), etc. I'm not sure that I could have gotten away from any of those hands against him. I had good hands, but they ended up being second best every time. It was ugly. All you could do was laugh. And give him all your chips.

So, basically, I had another night where the cards didn't help me much. Still, I played solid (mostly). If I'd made one or two decisions differently... I'd probably still be down, thanks to Reggie's unbelievable cards at the end, but not by as much.

I didn't "wussy bet" very much — a good thing — I only once made a short bet, when I could have tried to push someone out, and Jamie said that it didn't matter, that he would have called anything. So, I came out losing less money than I should have on that hand.

And I made some good folds and calls. Still, I'd like to win some money sometime soon, if that's okay. Poker gods, are you listening?

go forward. move ahead. try to detect it. it's not too late. to whip it. whip it good.

Been on a bit of a rollercoaster ride this past week or so. Some days I feel completely incompetent and at sea, and other days I feel like I'm plugged in and on top of things. A lot of that has to do with this huge project I'm doing here at my day job, without the assistance of my immediate boss who — as previously mentioned — likes to take off for vacation at times like this.

But it's also the coming baby and the mounting feeling that I'm totally unprepared for the realities of having a baby, and feeling like I'm doing the same thing I always do with large projects or events in my life — start out strong and excited and then, start to fade as the work piles up. I need to get my head out of my usual scared place and get back on top of the few things I know I can and should do to prepare for miss Ella arriving in three and a half months.

Change is happening all around me. More friends are pregnant. Two close friends are moving, or have moved. People getting new jobs. And I'm still in the same place, stuck as to what I want to be doing. I'm too damn comfortable being undecided and conflicted. I need to figure out how to make a decision (look HARD for a new job? try my hand at tv writing? figure I'll be at Workman for a while longer and really commit to moving up here?) and make the fucking decision already so I can get a move on.

I'm too much a prevaricator and too little an actor, in the action sense of the word.

busy day

My boss is gone on vacation next week. She only works three days a week as it is. Meanwhile, the latest book approaching its messy deadline time — when all the design work has to be transmitted and all of the art gathered and sent ahead to the printer. This is when she usually leaves, and I'm the one who has to do all the rest of the work.

So, no real time for navel gazing right now. I'm going to have to think about things other than my self for a while and do some work, like an adult. (You're either adult enough to do the work, or your adult enough to not have to do the work and dump it on your assistant. It sucks being the first kind of adult. I wouldn't know about the second kind, but I bet it's nice.)

poker update: game 3 — bought in for $30; won $4; total for the year: -$59

(Played tight on purpose, slowly winning a little money. Was happy with the results, as I wasn't hitting any great cards. Up $20+ toward the end of the night I called Paul's all in with the nut straight. Unfortunately, he'd made a boat on fourth street. An avoidable call, probably. Also, must learn that playing tight doesn't mean making small, wussy bets. Sometimes you have to bet $10 to get someone off of their hand. $2-3 ain't gonna do it.)

short film idea

About a block away from the grocery store I go to, someone has thrown out a crummy old upright piano. Twice now — on my way to the store yesterday, and walking to the subway this morning — I saw people tinkering with it, playing it.

It'd be a fun project to get a piano (probably in better shape than the one that is out there) and put it on a street in New York City and leave it there for several days, filming from a nearby hidden location as people interacted with it. The tough part would be capturing the sound, I imagine. I guess you could hide a mic inside the piano, although it probably wouldn't pick up conversation around the piano, which would be part of the fun. If you put the piano near a tree, you could hide a mic in the branches, perhaps. Could be an intersesting art project.

Somebody get on that.

sickly

My stomach is revolting. Against me, that is.

Was up and down between the bathroom and the bed last night. Today I feel tired and groggy — slightly dizzy even — and my stomach feels like there's a cue ball making its way down my intestine.

So, there's not a lot of complicated thought to go around today, while there is a lot to write about. Some notes, perhaps for later:

1. The closest thing I ever came to a "mentor" (which isn't very close at all) died last Friday. I'm surprised and yet not surprised at how little I'm feeling in response to the fact. He was a difficult, very negative man who had a lot to teach but who couldn't get his personality out of the way a lot of the time to give it without hooks and barbs attached. Perhaps if I was more involved with the theater he ran, and of which I am a member, and I'd had more interaction with him these past years, I'd be harder hit. I don't know. Part of me wonders if this reaction is foreshadowing to how I'll feel when my father passes — a lot of that personality description above pertains to my relationship with my father, too. Don't get me started.

2. Spent three hours working on the apartment on Sunday — throwing things out, making piles to donate to charities. Poor Amy has the worst of it, as her "massage room" will become Ella's room, and she has a hard time throwing things away. But it felt good. I like clearing things out. It gives me the feeling I'm starting afresh. I used to like to re-arrange my bedroom when I was a kid. It was like sorting out my brain and allowed me to get that same feeling of "newness" I get from throwing things away. I think it also allows me to imagine that all the mistakes I've made have been washed away with the "old" me. Silly, I know, but true.

3. Holy shit, there's a baby coming and I'm not ready. (repeat x infinity)

4. I'm convinced that people can be broken down into two categories: creators and consumers. Consumers get joy from taking in "culture," however you choose to define it: music, theater, painting, opera, televised bowling, live sports, etc. Creators are people who find their joy in creating and participate in those things. I'm afraid that I've become an consumer. Or that I've always been a consumer, masquerading as a creator.

5. I had a conversation with a therapist and being amazed at how emotional I got when asked what I was looking for (it was a long conversation up to this point, and it was mostly about how I have so much going on in my brain and so many emotions about all the shit going on around me, and all that's happened before) and I came up with the word "peace." Yesterday, it occurred to me that I may not ever have the luxury of finding a kind of peace that is sustainable longer than a vacation, or a movie, or book, or an orgasm. I may just not be that kind of person.

6.While we were cleaning the other day, the song I Will Follow You Into the Dark came on and Amy and I joked about how we wanted to die before the other person did (hahaha?) and I came out with "think about it, though... with Ella around, we'll never be alone again." We both got very quiet. We will always have Ella. It had just never occurred to us in quite that way before, I don't think.

Enough for now.

comfortably dumb

Finished reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion this morning. I was surprisingly unmoved. I'm not sure what I was expecting — I think I wanted it to hand me irrefutable evidence that I could wave in the faces of any future religionists who wanted to argue the existence of a god or challenge the validity of evolution. I suppose it does that, to a certain degree. There are plenty of inflammatory quotes from boneheaded theologians that fly against common sense and are worthy of a firestorm of derision. There are plenty of logical arguments of why a religion-based approach to viewing the world makes no sense, and that the supposed benefits of wearing god-colored glasses are, empirically, untrue.

And yet, I didn't close the book with a satisfying thump and a smug feeling of "this'll show 'em!" Truth is, reading the book made me realize that it doesn't matter what you say — anyone who really wants to believe, will believe. Going through the book I played devil's advocate (or, well, god's advocate) and found plenty of wiggle room to refute Dawkin's rather perfunctorily constructed arguments with easy appeals to faith. ("That's why it's called faith. I feel it's true, regardless of what you say.")

Don't get me wrong: I pretty much agree with everything that Dawkin's is saying. I think religion as a force in the world has turned sour, if it ever was sweet, and we would be better off if more people would use reason to experience life, rather than faith. The use of faith as a person's primary source of light in the world dims that person's view of reality and the people he or she comes in contact with. I also believe that we are at a time in history when it is important for rationalists and atheists to stand up and raise their voices to counteract the ignorance promoted by faith-based "reasoning."

But reading this book it became clear to me how much thinking and piecing together of evidence and making connections and blah blah blah ... zzzz. It's not simple stuff. Understanding the theory of evolution is not intuitive. Quantum mechanics is not a walk in the park. Explaining why and how our brains can trick us into seeing and feeling things we want to see and feel can seem kind of mean, when you're bursting people's faith bubbles. Basically, the faith-based view of the world is easier and more enjoyable. God is the great, big, fluffy pillow to lay your head on when someone starts droning on and on about probability and the likelihood of a creator making something so complex.

I found myself looking forward to the book being over. Aside from the fact that many of the arguments were old and ones I already knew and agreed with, and that Dawkins' sloppy, casual writing style was dull at times (and some of the arguments not well supported—which is understandable, this being a "popular science" book and not a textbook), what I really craved was a story. I couldn't wait to finish so I could go back to something easier to read, something that was more enjoyable and would engage me more emotionally. This is not to say that my righteous indignation wasn't raised by reading his book, or that it didn't have me shaking my head at the quotes from those boneheaded xians, but that's not really satisfying, ultimately. I tend to alternate between fiction and non-fiction for this very reason: I want to be emotionally satisfied. And isn't that what religion does for people? It gives them a story to be part of. A safe, simple, easy-to-understand, comforting story to feel.

game on

I've not written about this, aside from the mention of RoboRally in the last proper entry I made here — but I have really gotten into board games in the past couple of years. In case you didn't know, there's a kind of renaissance going on in the board game world these days, which started about ten to fifteen years ago. It's been lead primarily by companies in Europe (Germany and Italy especially, it seems) but the U.S., ever ready to pick up on something that can make money, is has come around.
And the thing that I'm finding, over and over again, and which I'm impressed and slightly amazed by is that many of these games defuse my very competitive need to win.

Which brings up a whole other question for me as to how I can be very competitive (I hate to lose, in general, at anything) and yet be, as I said, not that interested in "the game" of life. I suspect it has to do with having to deal with, and influence other people that I have problems with — not to mention the stakes. But I digress.

I've heard people say and sign, read fiction and non-fiction, and seen movies which all try to explain to us (oh, and been to plenty of meditations about this, too) that it's not the destination, but the journey that matters. Yeah yeah yeah. Whatever. I mean, okay, we can all agree that we should stop and smell the roses and you don't know what you've got until it's gone and all that — but we're all result oriented.

So it comes as a pleasant shock to me that these games (the aforementioned RoboRally, plus Bang!, Memoir '44, Tichu, Carcassonne, etc.) all inspire fun in the process of playing them, in addition to winning them. I still play to win, and still want to win, but find that I'm getting off on the actual gameplay as much as the competition.

There's no real point to this, other than to put down in words something I was briefly ruminating on as I crossed the street, coming back from lunch today.

If you're interested in these kinds of games, check out the BoardGameGeek link to the right there.

abstention

"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact." — George Eliot

tuesday's monday

I don't have much to say today — at least, not at the moment. But I feel the need to put a buffer, to create some distance between me and the last post. All weekend I thought about it. It felt like having an open wound that everyone could see. (Not that there are all that many people who read this thing. Although it is odd to check the stats and see how there is a not-insignificant amount of traffic from people just bouncing randomly from the Blogger front page. Especially if you post late at night — folks who are up and surfing around will see the blog as being "recently updated" and click through.) It bothered me that those were the words that were left out here, when I'd finally cooled down enough to feel distance from them.

I had a good weekend. I got to spend a good amount of time with friends, and with Amy. I spent some time working (freelance design and writing), so I didn't feel completely useless. I got to play some games. (RoboRally rules!) and we saw a really good movie (Children of Men).

I also did some painting. No, not like that — some geek painting. Friends Mike & Andrea P were coming over Sunday (to hang out and play RR) and I thought it'd be fun to paint the little figurines that come with the game. I bought the paints and some brushes on Saturday and then thought I should try it out that night — just to make sure the paint took, you understand. Just one figurine. I ended up painting three of the RR figures and one from another game. It made me incredibly relaxed — that feeling you get when you're completely focussed on a task and forget the world around you, and let go of the voice in your head that criticizes and reminds you of other things you should be doing. Geek therapy.

Happily, many of the games I've collected over the past two years have figures that could use painting...

r.o.a.m.e.r. in session

Walking to the subway this morning, crossing 8th avenue, this woman plodded through the crowd ahead of me. I came up pretty close to her, I guess, because she heard the music leaking from my earbuds and turned to look. I brushed past her, muttering "how 'bout walking a little fucking faster?" and came close to throwing an elbow at her. Apparently, I'm angry today.

I was angry yesterday, too, but it didn't really come welling up until poker. I played poorly and got behind early. Lately that's been a problem for me and I haven't been able to recover. Instead I just found myself increasingly annoyed by the whif of b.o. coming from the player to the right of me and the chatter that kept bouncing around the table while I was trying to make decisions. Most of those decisions were poor ones, and I don't blame anyone at all for their behavior — I'm probably the biggest mouth of all the players, with my bad puns and re-interpreted song lyrics. In fact I was having, overall, a pretty good time. And then, at some point... I think after losing a four-way all-in which made me buy in for the third time, I got angry.

It went downhill pretty quickly from there. Ultimately I went all in again with my last $28. A reasonable bet, considering. But, of course, I lost. The other person had the single card I was worried about (A to my K) and pulled the flush I wanted on the four-way all-in earlier, and I made a meaningless straight on the river. I got up and left; got my friend in a cab and ended up walking home — a good hour-long walk.

I figured by the time I got home I'd walked off the rage, but it welled back up again when I walked in the door — because now I'd have to/get to voice it to Amy. And I did, using the word "fuck" with several "motherfuckers" thrown in for good measure.

Apparently a semi-decent night's sleep didn't help either.

I'm pissed at myself for being the way I am — I feel like my self is on a little inflatable dinghy atop a huge sea of emotions. I have no control which way the wind blows and how high the water swells. I'm angry because I have to swallow all the petty condescentions and disrespecting remarks of my boss. From her, it isn't personal — she treats everyone like shit. Not just me. But day-in and day-out of that gets to me. There's a kid coming — and I'm not who I think a kid should have for a father. I'm horrible with money, to begin with. And I'm just not — I don't know how to put this — I'm just not interested enough in playing the game. I mean by that, that I am not upwardly mobile. I don't have a five year plan. Or a one year plan. Or a six month plan. I look at the moment and the moment after this one, but that's only when I'm not obsessing about the past and how I've failed, or the distant future when I forsee failure.

When I was in my theater lab, every year we'd have to sit in a chair "on stage" in front of everyone and grade how we did the year before; and then we'd have to say what our artistic goals were for the following year. I hated this. It stressed me out to insane levels. (As did lab in general, at times — but in a good way. It forced me to do difficult things all the time.) One year, when it was my turn, I walked down from the chairs in the risers and across the stage and to the back of the room, where there was a curtain that stretched across the width of the room. It hid all the small set pieces and boxes of props that were left in the room. I went through the curtain, closed it behind me, and then shouted at the top of my lungs "Fuck You Fuck You FUCK YOU!" I took a moment, and a deep breath, and then walked back out onto the stage, sat down, and did my thing. I felt better for it.

I need a Fuck You Room. I need somewhere I can go and vent and scream and get all the dark shit out. This blog can't be it. I'm too polite and censored here. I suppose my journal, which I hardly keep up anymore, could be it — but that's not visceral enough, not physical enough. The gym doesn't really do it (perhaps, partly, because my workouts are so easy these days) although it helps, some.

I think I'm finally coming around to accept the fact that I am an angry person. I don't know how to deal with it, but I am. At least, last night, I left when I started to get really angry. I didn't throw down my cards or push my chips angrily away. I just said "I think I should go. I'm starting to get really angry." So, that's a plus. But it's still seething and roaming around inside of me — I can feel it bubbling under the surface. I want to hit someone. I want to give someone the poison that's in me — make them feel it and hurt them with it. That's not healthy. It's not helpful. It's not good.

For now, I'll just keep smiling at the receptionist and saying a (hopefully) cheerful "Good morning" and telling bad jokes and trying to act normal. This will subside. It always, eventually does.

poker update: game two — bought in for: $90; lost: $90; total for the year: -$63.

jersey? my goodness.

Amy and I climbed into the taxi as acquaintance and co-worker Mike slid in behind us. He was continuing to talk about the area, saying which parts of Jersey were nice, and which weren't — pointing out that where we were wasn't bad, and that the area we were headed to was certainly pretty decent. He was trying to sell New Jersey to us, and specifically the area his apartment is in. He and his wife and kid are moving at the end of the month and he sent a company-wide message about the place they're vacating, and I was quick to respond. After a brief PATH train ride, here we were. I slid in first, so Amy could be on "the hump" which affords her an unimpeded view out of the window. Amy gets carsick pretty easily, and being able to see helps.

There was a baggie on the seat. Inside was some kind of envelope. I picked it up as I sat down. "What's that?" Amy asked. I pulled the envelope, which appeared to be a bank deposit envelope that was torn open, out of the baggie and looked. There were a bunch of $20 bills. About 15-20 of them, I'd guess.

My very first thought was that I wish nobody had seen me pick it up. I could have just put it in my bag. Nobody would have known. I had even thought, when I first saw it, that it had money in it. But now I was caught. "It appears to be a bunch of twenties in a bag," I said. "Oh no," she said. "The last person who was in here must have lost it."

We then had a slightly confused conversation with the driver. I quickly shoved the baggie through the partition and he took it, and told Amy yes he knew who the last rider was. Eventually we got a kind of acknowledgment that he'd hold onto the money in case someone called the cab company looking for it.

As we finally pulled away from the curb I leaned into Amy and quietly said "I think the cabbie just got a lot of free money." She nodded.

The apartment turned out to have some real great things about it, and one huge negative — the kitchen is tiny tiny. About the size of a canoe, tiny. Plus the oven looks like it was installed about twenty years ago, which was about the last time it was cleaned, I'd guess. (Not meant as a slam to Mike or his very nice wife — it was one of those things where, you know, after it gets to a certain level of disuse... what's the point?) The bathroom was about the same size. And, even though the enormous livingroom (you could play squash in there) almost made up for the kitchen, it didn't really even come close. We decided then and there not to take the apartment, which we confirmed with each other on the PATH train ride home.

It was kind of a relief, actually. If we'd wanted the place we would have had to move in a little over two weeks. Of course, if it was a great apartment, I'd have been up for it. But coming home and realizing that, for a while longer yet, we didn't have to cross that bridge and/or tunnel... we were relieved.

Walking back from the train stop Amy said "I'm sorry I made you give the cabbie that money." I said, "Oh, that's okay. I would have given it to him anyway."

Now, I like to think that I would. I'd like to think that I'd have gotten into that cab and looked at the envelope and maybe slid it in my bag and then thought better of it and said something to the cabdriver and then had the same confused conversation with him while handing off the bag. I think there's, perhaps, a 50/50 chance that I would have.

It's gotten me thinking about morality. I tend to think of myself as a moral person. Really, though, I don't know that I am. I have a lot of music that I haven't paid for, for example. I once killed a man by pushing him onto the subway tracks. Okay, that's not true. Okay, how about this — I'm a moral person, except when it's easy and not dangerous to not be. But what good is that? As long as someone isn't watching, and I can get away with something, I have no problem with acting in my self-interest? Even when it will definitely hurt someone else?

Is that what religion is for — to help us curb those tendencies? If you believe in an omnipotent god, then he's sure as shit watching you when you climb in that cab. And if you don't do what you can to return that money to it's rightful owner, then he's gonna shake his head and suck on his teeth while he picks up the phone to St. Peter telling him to take you off The List. Perhaps you'll spend the rest of eternity in Hell, chasing after a cab that has a jar with your soul in it. And every time you think you've caught the right cab, you see another one pull away that really has the jar in it. If you believe that — deep down believe it — that's enough deterrent right there.

But what if you don't? What stops you? Wanting to do "the right thing?" Being raised "correctly?" Philosophy? Belief in karma? I don't know. I'd like to think that the idea of "the right thing to do" is a strong enough chair to sit on. I plant my ass on it enough. Of course the line between right and wrong is a created one and if you hold on to the seat of that chair and hop around enough, you can find yourself on either side of it. But you have to believe in somewhere. You have to draw the line. You have to believe in something. But how much does it take to get you to stop looking down to see where that line is, so you can say you didn't notice when you passed over it?

What if that had been a $5 bill? No doubt in my mind: would have pocketed it without a second thought. $10? Same thing. $20? Yep. $40? $50? Well... now we're getting to that shady place. I don't know. I'm not sure what the amount is that makes it a small enough offense that it "doesn't matter" if I keep it. Somehow that bag, the deposit envelope, the amount... that should be returned. I'm clear on that. I should hand that to the cab driver.

Except... c'mon... that cabbie's going to keep it. Cab drivers make shit money and he'd probably had a horrible day and his kid's probably sick and his wife is probably angry at him because his job has god-awful hours and doesn't pay well enough, and he's been stiffed plenty of times driving that damned cab so why the hell not? Why shouldn't he keep the money? Isn't that karma? What comes around, goes around? Isn't this his payment for putting in the hours?

So, then, if he's going to keep it, why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I get that XBox360 I've been coveting with the money? But that's so shallow and trivial — obviously I shouldn't steal the money for that. What if I kept the money and spent it on Amy? Took her to a nice dinner... a show... maybe finally get away upstate for a weekend like we keep saying we're going to? What if I gave the money to charity? Would that make it okay? What if I walked down the street and gave $20 to each homeless person I ran into? Does that justify it?

Of course not. And of course I wouldn't do that anyway. If I'm willing to take this money and remove the last tentative connection it has to its rightful owner — at least by giving it to the driver I'm making my link in the chain that might actually get the money back to the person who lost it — then I'm going to use it selfishly (because I can — because I am fortunate enough to be at a place in my life where I wouldn't need that money, say, to pay my rent, or buy dinner).

Maybe that's why this is even something I would consider: I don't take money seriously. I've always had enough. Sure, I've lived paycheck-to-paycheck for years. But I've never been almost homeless. I've never been without a job long enough where I couldn't eat and I didn't know how I was going to live.

Perhaps there's a basis for morality in there somewhere: a deeper connection to the things around us, and to our actions. I don't know... I'm just looking to wrap this up neatly somehow.

I want to be a good person. I think I know what that is. I think I know how a good person would act in certain situations. I also think that a good person acts good regardless of whether he or she is being watched. That's maybe a true test of goodness, and moral strength: when the only person who is watching is you, what do you do?

well played

At last night's poker game I played the best I have in a long time. I made some very good, very difficult folds (I want to play every hand! I must play every hand!) and some good calls. I ended up winning $27 (could have been around $10 or so more if I didn't loosen up at the end and start playing "hopeful" poker — i.e. "Well, maybe I'll get lucky and that exact card I need will come up and nobody will have any idea what I have and then I'll take them all for a lot of money!"), which is a good start to the year. I also would have won a lot more had I not taken two bad beats (1. lost to a runner-runner suck out to beat my flopped nut straight; 2. river suck out to a flush when I made a big enough bet that he should have folded instead of chasing it). But, hell, I was glad to win some money and really glad that I played well.

Things I learned last night:

1. Certain people are never going to fold, no matter how much you bet (unless it's a huge amount, and even then...) and you have to identify those people and play accordingly.

2. You have to be willing to expand your comfort zone in betting against anyone. If there's one thing I know I've been doing differently since my run of wins last year is that I am more tentative with my betting ("maybe $3 will push them out of the pot... I don't want to risk $8. What if he calls and sucks out on me?"). You have to push people around. Small- to medium-sized ($1-5) are, very rarely, going to push people off any kind of hand with a draw to come.

3. Always always always practice putting people on hands when you're in or out of the action. It keeps your head in the game and makes you not just stare at your cards and do probability math. Poker is more about playing the people than the cards.

4. Play the rush. If you win a couple of hands in a row, people assume you're bullying them and that you're going to win.

I'm going to keep track of my poker ups and downs here on the blog for the year. So, after one week: bought in for: $30; won: $27; total for the year: +$27.

Maybe I'll even make a cool little graphic for the sidebar.

another wednesday

Back to the daily grind of work and the argument with myself of how to spend the rest of my waking hours. Been pretty productive the past couple of days — trying to catch up on projects I've had a debt to for a long time. I'm actually going through the dvd of our wedding pictures. We finally got the hi-res files. There are about 900 pics on the disc and I'm trying to sift through and get rid of the ones that aren't even worth thinking about printing. I know that when I get this done it'll be a huge load off the psyche ("oh, and that's another thing that I've never taken care of..."). Just trying to move forward. Lots of things pinging around the old head these days. But, as promised, I have decided what writing project I'm going to work on. I've got to finish a draft of the time play. It's the one that won't go away. Whether that's because it's lodged in my brain as The Last Project I Didn't Finish, and therefore symbolizes something deep and telling about me, I don't know. I do know that I had a minor moment of realization when I told myself that I wasn't signing on to finish the play in one draft — I just am re-opening the case to see if there are any new clues I can glean by writing another draft. It'll be an accomplishment just to get through the play again, no matter how illuminating the rewrite is. So, that's the plan. And, maybe, I'll like it better after I'm done. And, maybe, it'll get me to think about writing again in a more serious-part-of-my-life kind of way. Who knows. I'm just trying to move forward, man. Just keep on keepin' on.

late night musings

Can't sleep. Not that I've tried for long tonight, but I'm just not tired at all. I found myself feeling my overful stomach and noticing the patterns of light leaking from under the curtains on the cluttered floor next to the bed. Perhaps I'm up because the new year is stretching out before me in all its possibility. Obviously a lot is going to happen this year, what with Miss Ella on her way. And I've entered this period of restlessness — probably egged on by the same upcoming event — which I'm trying to figure out what to do about. Possibility is a good word for this year. This looks to be a year of new beginnings. I have this sense that I need to shake off the dust that's settled on me — this crust that I've allowed to cover over the connection between me and whatever metaphor you feel like using for creative energy. My self, which tends toward the complacent end of the spectrum, needs, I think, to be smacked a little bit around the face to get him to wake up and start looking before he puts his foot down, or opens his mouth. Or, as I've said before and will say ad nauseum for the forseeable future, my self needs to get his increasingly wide ass off the couch and start moving forward, and to start looking ahead again. My life is going to change, as I'm being told by everyone who has a child or knows someone who has a child (do the math — that's a lot of people), and I know that. I know that. It's seeping deep in my bones. Perhaps that's the aching I feel in my chest — like a child's growth spurt —that stretching of my mind to wrap around what my new life is going to be about: which is someone other than myself. First and foremost: keeping that someone alive. Second, and equally important: making that someone into a good person, capable of happiness and fulfillment. Third and even more equally important: never letting that someone forget that they are loved.

Somewhere along the line I decided that that was job number one of a parent: to instill in their child a sense of unconditional love. The key word in that sentence being unconditional love. And I mean that in the completely ungrammatical sense of the word(s). Those two things should never be sundered, and I make that the first platform of my tenure as Father.

Alright. There's more to be said — and I had originally planned on spilling all kinds of thoughts and worries on you — but I ran into an old friend on IM and we started chatting about, well, Ella. So, I've lost a lot of steam and am starting to think I can grab some sleep. We'll talk more later.

happy new year

Had a good holiday break. Spent some time here in the city. Saw the lovely Phoebe as well as her parents on Christmas Eve and, after a late train ride home, opened our bountiful boxes full of goodies together. We spent a quiet Christmas Day together — cheering on the Jets to victory over the hated Dolphins — and then Amy worked on the 26th while I ran around did some present exchanges (for size, mostly).

Speaking of size... we spent the 27th through the 31st in Michigan with Amy's family, filling up on sugar and fat. It's truly shocking how many cookies I ate. Bad bad bad.

Returned yesterday after noon and, after a quick rest, ran up to the UES for a casual NYE shindig with some friends. I wasn't planning on drinking. I did drink. And I ate more cookies. Shocking.

I drank, and we stayed later than we'd planned, because our New Year's Day plans got torpedoed. We were supposed to start the year off right with a Lord of the Rings marathon. But, once again, as has happened every time we've tried to get together with M&A to geek out... someone has gotten ill. Last time it was me and Mike. This time it was Andrea (and Amy).

So, today has been spent putting away the Xmas decorations and unpacking, tidying the house and relaxing. The Rose Bowl game is on and I'm rooting for Michigan, out of in-law solidarity.

Hope you all had a fantastic break. I'm looking forward to 2007 and everything that comes with it. I'll have a less diary-like entry tomorrow with some New Year's plans and... what do you call them...? Oh, yeah... resolutions.