I walked into LB's room tonight to read and saw the two of them sitting there joking around, and immediately ran for my camera. Lately LB has been imitating characters out of some of his Dr Seuss books. He is starting to realize how funny he is and working us for laughs. For now he is really beating some of his bits into the ground, so he is exploring the art of comedic repetition, killing the joke and then repeating it enough times it becomes a laugh again. Genius. He is going to love Monty Python.
LB loves bedtime routines, and he makes it hard to say goodnight. He is always at his sweetest right before bed. No matter what happens during our day, we leave that room completely in love with our life.
All the love in the Universe ~ Me
P.S. Will post that Thursday Photoshoot first thing tomorrow. It was a fun one.
HellO, This is to keep you happy until I get the Weekly shoot with LB done today. This isn't work friendly so don't be a ding dong and go blasting the audio on this in the office or you will be raising some serious eyebrows. There are more F-bombs in this baby then in the entire film Platoon. I know some of you might have seen this as it has been out for a good long while. I first found Jon& Al Kaplan HERE, years ago while searching for offbeat musicals when my buddy Devin and I started working on an idea that we had (currently in production). But seriously, treat yourself to these 9 tracks from their Musical SILENCE and check out the other work these guys do. Beyond the obvious hysterical hilarious genius of the whole thing, it is really brilliant composing. This isn't a case of lets just put funny words behind silly music and hope for the best, these guys know what they are doing and have crafted a great piece of work. Why can't we live in a world where someone would scoop this up and put it in the big lights on broadway?!
Enough gabbing, just enjoy the work! It always brightens my day to take a listen to "Silence." One of my favorite tracks is "Are you About A Size 14?" If you're not a fan of thrilling serial killer torture films turned comedy musical gold, then go ahead and unsubscribe from this blog right now, because you just aren't enjoying life. haha that made me laugh to think about someone unsubscribing because of an animated Lego Buffalo Bill.
I will be back later this afternoon with a new pic for the Thursday shoots with LB... Have a great day today. Wash those hands little pigs.
*UPDATE If you are bummed because you are at work and can't listen to this little ditty down here I have a phenomanal post to redirect you to. It made me smile and feel like I could do anything today. So get clicking RIGHT HERE.
Sleeping problems solved? After months and months and months of trying everything we could think to try, we FINALLY solved the sleeping issues we were having with LB. I mean maybe. Possibly. Knock on wood. Hopefully. I mean we were a week away from having an exorcist voodoo shaman witch-doctor rabbi dance around the house, and shake sticks, splash water, and chant curses to chase the "ghosts" out of LB's room. These pesky ghosts that keep waking him up, and encouraging him to aimlessly wander around the house. I mean it had come to that, we started spooking ourselves into considering that there were actual ghosts hanging out in his room at night and playing with him. This theory was largely born from the fact that late at night when I would stay up and write, I would hear shuffling around, and then quiet giggles would start that would eventually erupt into this...
I would sneak into his room and it would be like the needle scratching across the record and LB would sit up, look at me completely dead pan and stoic like, "Dude! What? I was having fun. Close the Fucking Door." and when i would leave the giggling would start right back up. Even louder. OH so now I'm the asshole? LB and his ghost buddies are in there making fun of me now?
It turns out that one of the problems we will be facing in our lives with LB is an ongoing sleep battle that can last a lifetime. His melatonin levels are reversed, and the older he gets the more prone he will be to tire and grow lethargic during the day, and at night he becomes more wired and alert. His melatonin secretes completely differently then ours do, so none of this behavior at night is his fault. It appeared as sleep walking at first. As the night wears on and he wakes up the first few times, he is still cloudy and groggy, so he would just quietly wander around and eventually he would come to be standing at the foot of our bed. A big creep factor on the nights when his allergies are acting up, it would feel like Darth Vader had crept into our room and was standing at the foot of the bed staring at us sleep, breathing heavy. A bizarre thing to wake to. The deeper we went into night, the more awake LB would become. By the time 3:30 or 4 rolled around he was full on giggles, and it would be a struggle to keep him in his bed laying still. If he would lay still long enough he would sleep another round till 5:30 or 6.
The whole thing is a pattern. We control his allergies and keep the house silent and he has a better chance at staying asleep longer. If something wakes him up, like trouble breathing, or the train, or house noise, he is up. Once he wakes a few times, that melatonin is not working and his clock is reversed and he feels like he needs to stay awake. So we have the hepa filter running constantly to keep the white noise drowning out the outside world as much as possible.
Everyone keeps telling me... WATCH OUT when the baby comes you are going to be SOOOOO sleep deprived. And I am like, let me tell you about LB. I handle all of the putting him back in bed since Cole is locked away in her pillow palace and I don't want her getting up anyway. For the most part it is low maintenance, just the mechanical walking him back to his bed, putting him in it and saying like a robot, "stay in bed, be still, you will fall asleep, I love you." We locked off half of our house, so he can't go into the kitchen, or get to any exit doors to the outside, he was contained to the hallway and would just walk the hall to our room back to his. He follows the rules. He never plays with his toys until morning (his morning) which is between 5:30 and 6. So it was just the constant interruptions of him standing in our room. breathing heavy. Like a creep. The more pregnant Cole gets the more he wants to get into bed with us. He knows what happens once the belly gets to a certain size and he is in full panic mode. He wants to be around Cole every second. He has even been forgoing morning TV to play with Cole before school. I ask him every morning, "'Wow Wow?' or Play with Mama?" and he goes running off into our room with a toy and climbs into bed to play. I am amazed at how aware he is and he has been so much happier and balanced now that he has made the choice to build in one on one Mama time. He figured out that if he skipped watching TV he would get to play with her.
So yes. I was going to write out the list of all the things we tried to get him to sleep, but in the end there was nothing we could do. We manage it with rules and boundaries. So we tried something new last week and it has been getting him to sleep more. We put a lock on his door, and now that his wander option is gone, he just gets bored and will go back to bed much sooner then before. I still hear him get up, but he gets back in his bed and lays down and will drift off from laying still. So we have all been sleeping better. He is still an early riser, but he has stopped the crying at night. Oh the crying... he would get upset and cry because he would walk into our room and want to get into bed with us. Some nights he would just stand there a few minutes and then go back and get into bed. Some nights he would wander off and go lay in the hallway and I would find him sleeping on the floor. Most nights he would try and climb into our bed, and as soon as we would say "go back to your room", or I would take him back and put him into his bed, the water works would start for 20 to 30 minutes. another charming move of his was to open and close his door over and over and over and over. So now that we took the option away, he just gets up, walks around his room a minute, and then goes back to bed. We taught him to knock on his door if he needs us, and so far he only knocks in the morning. I hear him get up, and he will play with his toys for twenty minutes or so, and then he will knock.
From everything that we are reading this is all supposed to get much harder, more frustrating, and more complicated as he gets older, and we are just going to deal with it when that hurdle arrives. For now we are going to ignore the horror stories. He seems happy with this new routine and his mood and emotional balance is riding high these days. Big smiles, belly laughs, and his attempts to talk and verbalize his wants are increasing so fast. He is trying to communicate everything. This is an awesome time for all of us and it feels like he knows that these last few weeks are precious and he is draining everything he can out of these final moments where he has his Mama to himself. Another source of his calm and connection is that Cole has been building time into her routine in the morning to do skin brushing and stretches with him before he has to get dressed for school. We noticed a huge difference in his mood when this started. He loves it. Who wouldn't?
I realize that there are new readers here, and so sometimes when I write about LB I get a lot of emails asking about what's wrong? and is he autistic? and seriously, we aren't trying to create any mystery, we just chose not to write about it until we ourselves have a full grasp of it, and that takes a lot of time, and a lot of Doctors visits, which is just about half way done at this point. You can read this entry HERE it clears some things up. We are taking in the full picture and honestly just enjoying LB in this phase of his life. He is about to be 5 and we are experiencing all of the joys of when a child first learns to talk. He said "broke" this morning (referring to a toy not about us :) and Cole and I both lit up, eyes wide and happy. This is a really awesome time for all of us and so yeah, we are not focusing on the what ifs right now.
The other day i lost my temper in such a way that it actually struck me as psychotic. Nothing that I projected onto anyone else at that moment, thankfully I have the ability to go into a cathartic trance and fantasize about my rage in secret. I had brewed up that white hot flash of fury where you feel like your insides light on fire, and your muscles fill with so much adrenaline you could pick up a building and smash it down into the ground crumbling it to dust, but in all actuality you take all of that force you feel and end up crumbling up a piece of paper really tight, or "sigh" really loud. Which is NEVER as satisfying as a good building smashing can be. I have been losing it lately, "short tempered" asshole would go down as top 3 ways to describe me in the last two weeks. I can't get a handle on it. So I have been intentionally avoiding Cole and LB when I get the most irritable. So what the Fuck is going on in that head of mine? What could possibly be pushing me into this pissy mood? I couldn't figure it out for awhile. At first I thought it might be from feeling like such a failure lately, but then I realized I am totally used to that feeling and gotten over it years ago. Then while I was driving, and had just lost my shit over someone pulling out of a driveway without looking, I realized my body was freaking out. My hands were shaking, my heart was pounding, and I had lost the ability to rationalize minor annoyances. Then it all came together into one big obvious "OH" it's because I have been depriving my body of nicotine. I was in a full emotional rage from not smoking. I have not had a cigarette in weeks now, and my blood is boiling over.
I started smoking when I was 13 years old. My friend and I bought a pack of smokes with quarters out of a vending machine at the Golf & Country Club in our neighborhood that we were bus-boys at. It was a Soft Pack of Camel Non-Filter Cigarettes, and we took them out into the woods to an old concrete drainage bunker and I sat there and smoked till I was sick. I can promise you that I absolutely 100% did this to try and be cool. Nobody likes their first smoke. NOBODY. I sat there and suffered and felt dizzy and scared. I kept at it, and sure enough I started to love it after a few months. I fucking loved smoking. I didn't give a shit that it stunk, that I stunk. I was a teenage smoker. It's always so funny now to see kids smoking, standing around in little huddles all impressed with their rebellion. I realize now how jackass they all look ( and how foolish I must have looked). It's so unnatural, they pull in the smoke too hard and make that dumb "look at me I'm smoking" face, like some bad mouth wide open porno orgasm. They are still in that fascinated "holy shit there is smoke coming out of my mouth and my nose at the same time so I have to cross my eyes and look down at it coming out" phase of smoking. They hold their cigarettes awkward, not quite used to it yet. It is all show at this point. Their smoking is an accessory to their bullshit. I think if I could figure out a way to go around to schools and get kids to actually stop smoking I would do it. I would do my best to try and get through to them without any song and dance bullshit. This ill conceived concept of appearing hip so they trust you and take your advice. This shouldn't be a cool kid contest. At the end of the day, I think I could stand in front of an auditorium of high school kids, take a dying coughing weezing smoking man with a hole in his neck, and half his throat rotted out, push his head back, reach into his body and pull out his lungs that have been reduced to withered stringy tar and black goo... hold it into the air as his lifeless dead body crumbles at my feet and I scream: THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE DOING TO YOUR BODY ASSHOLES!!! there would still be the kids that sit there completely unmoved, shrug it off and say, "Big deal. Fuck that guy, I'm smoking anyway."
(I looked around for a picture of me smoking to put up, and realized that there aren't any. As much as I am camera shy I also tried to never have a cigarette in my mouth for fear that my poor Mother would see it and be broken hearted. So I dug around and could only find this one picture from this Photo Scavenger Hunt I host downtown every year. We were named "The Future Failures of America" and we were smoking cigarettes drunk on the steps of City Hall" That is me on the far right. going for that lighter. What a failure.)
So here I am a 34 year old man. Quitting smoking finally. I just couldn't keep smoking. When I met Cole and LB I knew I had to quit so I started to really cut back. I have always been able to go long stretches without a smoke. I have never been that wake up and smoke kind of smoker. I would avoid it all week and then when LB went to his Dad's I would smoke as much as I could like a nasty addict. As soon as I impregnated (haha impregenated) Cole I knew I had to stop completely and it has been a long battle ever since. Many minor victories but just as many relapses. So I finally planted the thought into my head that I would die and never get to see LB or the baby grow up, and leave Cole lonely and heart broken, and I have not had a smoke since. This is great motivation and I have not had to replace the cravings with much else. Just some over eating and mood swings, and this furious rage that pumps thru my body. Other then that, and the hand tremors, and the oral fixation that has me chewing my tongue off, I am totally good. Almost no side effects, except that I probably shaved 10 years off my life if not more because I wanted to look cool in front of my friends.
I haven't found that magic thing yet to replace the smoking. I've been just riding the urge to smoke and hanging on for dear life until it stops bucking and kicking my ass into the ground. Between Cole being "hormental" and my "psychotic rage" we have been getting into these little bicker fights that have never happened before. Like this morning about cereal or oatmeal for LB. It was all me. I am at fault here. I feel like it is almost over, only because it feels so bad right now. A buddy of mine once went nuts while quitting smoking. It was my friend Devin who I have been writing about lately, he was living out at a recording studio in the middle of nowhere surrounded by cows and orange groves and had no company to distract him. So he started recording remakes of songs at night to distract himself. I would get a random IM and file transfer of him saying: "Yo. check this shit out! I recorded 'Cuts Like A Knife' by Bryan Adams last night." and I would be like "WHY?" and he would have no reason at all. "Because it's fucking awesome!" he would say.
Well I don't live in a recording studio and I am having a really hard time distracting myself from smoking. I will not replace the urges with gum , or patches, or lotions or potions, I just want to fucking quit and to feel like I have control of my mind again. I don't lose my temper. Ever. I hate this feeling. So if any of you that have gone thru this, and you have some suggestions that do not involve binge eating, or other ways to ingest nicotine let me know. Or you can send me your cover songs that you make while going thru nicotine withdrawal. In the mean time I am going to watch gross out videos of lung cancer patients and imagine my own death if I don't stop. Wish me luck
I'm not going to lie and say that Week 30 didn't just completely kick the shit out of my balls. I was happy to end the week and move on. I think I was told NO about 20 times a day last week in regards to things I'm trying to make happen, but I have recovered after a night of pizza eating and bad movie watching. But enough about that. It's Monday and we all know how magic a Monday is. As you might have noticed I am tending to some late Spring Cleaning around here, and I've pestered and bothered a friend who can speak fluent HTML into helping me with a redesign. So I am in the process of fine tuning and trying to make things a little cleaner around here. If you're new here, welcome and please notice the top nav bar. I have linked to all of the essential information :) Basically that nav bar answers most of the general questions I get like what the heck is Cole? Is she Latin? Well now there is a handy link titled "My Family" and you can read the facts. Also you can check out my photography portfolio, or add me on twitter (although I am awful at twittering, or tweetering, or twalking, or whatever you call it, and pretty much just send out announcements that I have a new post.) I don't want to cloud up the cuteness that is Week 30 with a bunch of info about this facelift and Nav Tabs, but figured I should point it out, in case someone thought this was all a horrible accident. Also apparently the reason my blog looked so awful in IE was from some broken links I overlooked in posts. Sorry about that. Don't ignore broken HTML link warnings in posts kids. It will fuck the whole thing up.
So yes. Week 30. Don't they look gorgeous. I did want to mention that yes Cole's Mom got to meet with our midwife and she felt very comfortable with her. I think it was big for Mom to be able to see how much we have all bonded, and more importantly the relationship between our Midwife and Cole. So it was an awesome visit, and the baby is growing right on the mark, and sounds healthy. Whenever I hear the doppler I can't help but think it sounds like the Alien signal from Contact. All of Coles urine and blood work is spot on, so all of her healthy eating and iron drinking is paying off. We have to go pick out a trough soon, so she has a little pool to get in if we decide to float a little to ease the labor of labor. So much to do. And as soon as week 30 hit it felt like everything started moving so fast. That clock is ticking.
Listen along with LB, it's a recording of the doppler of the baby's heartbeat
I also wanted to post this out take from the shoot. LB has been sneaking in every chance he can to cuddle Cole before this baby comes cramping his style. He knows it is getting closer. He has been more and more curious, and knows the routine of a baby in the house. He has a little brother at his Dad's, so he knows he is going to have to share his Mama too now. He has been trying to talk so much lately and has been trying so hard to enunciate his words. It is amazing to watch this little person move his mouth in new ways and figure out how to push sounds from new places. He gets so proud of himself. Well, I just wanted to post this little moment they shared on Sunday. As usual I only had about 30 seconds to get the shot I needed and then he was done. As soon as Cole sat down he was wrapped around her.
All the Love in the Universe ~ Me
P.S. I apologize if you have read this I will probably be a little redundant about this as it is for my oldest and dearest friend devin but... Some of you might have noticed the new Ad for my best buddies band Rabbit that I blogged about HERE. I wanted to see if anyone else that liked the music was interested in putting it up on their site for a little while to help these guys out. They are not owned and operated by a label. It is just these two dudes, writing music out of a home studio and trying to make their living in music, and they are making huge strides, and doing it all on their own. Minus "the man." So let me know if you are interested and I will send you the code.
We are getting ready to head out for a day of family visiting and devouring Grape Leaf Rolls that Cole's Dad made, a Lebanese treat that he makes when relatives visit. We have LB on a Sunday which is rare so as soon as he gets going again from his nap we are going to hit this Sunday with some gusto. Later afternoon we have a birthday Bar BQ to stop by.
So while I wait for the little one to wake, I figured I would share some randomness.
Cole just emailed me this from the other room from while she was reading one of her favorite sites.
"What is this thing? Where can we find one? Can I nap on it? Is it real? I love it."
Also here is some suggested reading for you. For any of you Lost addicts that need to know that little bit extra, I found this post when I was searching for more insight as to why Benjamin Linus was reading Ulysses on the plane before they all went down again (besides the obvious connection that he was being punished before his return "home") this post was really interesting: You can take a look HERE.
In other Ulysses news I was bummed to hear that one of my favorite blogging buddies Marinka decided to throw in the towel on her journey into Joyce. I was really excited for her when I saw THIS POST just a few days before she called it quits.
This was sent to me by a friend with the warning not to read in front of anyone that you didn't want to cry in front of. It is heavy to say the least. This is one of those things that you read that is a reminder of both the good and the evil in this world. It won the Pulitzer prize for Feature Writing and you can read the article HERE.
Some of you might have noticed the new Ad for my best buddies band Rabbit that I blogged about HERE. I wanted to see if anyone else that liked the music was interested in putting it up on their site for a little while to help these guys out. They are not owned and operated by a label. It is just these two dudes, writing music out of a home studio and trying to make their living in music, and they are making huge strides. So let me know if you are interested and I will send you the code.
Speaking of music my super fabulous friend Chloe has a new shiny blog and I LOVED THIS POST she put up recently:
Speaking of music here is something wonderful that I put on my things I wish I could buy LIST: I love the art on this collection and coupled with one of my favorite bands I am in full drool mode.
And for the nerds: HERE IS A LINK to the new GI-Joe cartoon that is pretty damn good. Some of the laser fire actually puts some people in the grave in this updated version of the Real American Hero. Go Joe. I first read about it HERE. Who also has a link to a new Harry Potter Featurette that any self respecting fan should check out.
I think that should keep you busy for awhile on your day to rest. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.
Before I get posting: About a year and a half ago I met Ryan, he was a bartender. He was one of the super cool guys. He had all of these smooth little catch phrases that swept me off my feet, in the past 10 min I have heard him say:
"Let's put the pee pee in the potty"
"You ready to get soapy dopey? Yeah, let's do soapy first."
Then he bursts into song;"LET'S WASH YOUR FAAAAAAAACE!!!!!"
"Wash that noggin, wash it wash it wash wash wash, scruba dubba, scruba dubba, scrub scrub scrub scrub SCRUB"
hehe, he loves me, and LB enough to not be cool anymore.
What the heck is going on here? Ryan has accumulated too many projects and deadlines to make his mark on his blog today, so here I am being a good wife and picking up the slack so he can finish his work. Wow, it has been awhile since I have been a guest poster here. My world has been a lot of being pregnant, you know the things that you can't see in the photo series he is doing. Things like fat fingers (no more wedding ring wearing for me, seriously, how are men supposed to know I am taken? lol), I am super veiny, my back is achey, sciatic problems, my feet are chubby, my hair is freaking amazing (soon to fall out), and on top of all that I am, as my dad calls: "hormental."
Ryan's been pretty busy taming the beast. One side-effect of this pregnancy has been me being uncontrollably disgusting. I am admittedly on the grosser side of being a woman as it is. But there is a huge difference between farting on your husband on purpose just to watch him squirm so I can laugh wildly at his discomfort, and accidentally ripping ass on a client. It is awful. Luckily most of the windy squeaks are escaping during blow-drys, (so I am hoping), or I have at least convinced myself that the force of the blow dryer is pushing it all away, and covering up the sound. Today I went to say something to Ryan and instead of my voice there was just this devilish posssessed burp voice that came out. And the nose bleeds. I found out pretty quick that showing Ryan the wadded up nose bleed tissue was a complete out of bounds move. Hopefully he will deal with mucus plugs, broken waters, and bloody show a little better than silly old nose bleeds.
He has been a trooper so far, making sure I know he thinks I am beautiful, and sexy. Honestly, I never in 3,000 years would have thought that such a man existed, the Ryan kind of man.
Nesting has been a pretty interesting experience this go around. Some how nesting has spilled into my workplace. Not to say that there hasn't been any nesting going on around the house, because there has been. Lots of little projects, and reasons for me to stand on chairs while Ryan frantically shoos me off because he is certain I am going to faint or fall to my death. But at work it is just getting ridiculous. I have always had this way of folding towels at work, and everyone else has their way too. Recently no one else's way will do. I know how crazy it is, so I am sneaking around unfolding and refolding the towels behind every one's backs. My friend Abby caught on the the neurotic behaviour, and now she won't touch the towels if I am around, she said she could feel my eyes singeing her soul one day as I watched her fold the towels. Other weird things too, I have to use the same pen all day on my chart or I mildly flip out. Today I actually heard myself say,"Where's my pen? where's the black pen, I started with it, who took it?" I will be glad to be back to normal thinking in a few months, or years, however long it takes.
I have been working as much as I did before I was pregnant, and it is starting to wear on me. Physically, not mentally. I am pretty stubborn, so when I get my mind set on something I have a hard time letting it go. The work I am doing at the salon is really starting to show some results, so I am not about to back down now ROAR!! No seriously, I can't bring myself to actually take it easy, because everything is starting to come together. I have actually thought to myself, "I wonder if I could get away with only taking off two or three weeks?" In reality I know this will never happen, I mean I am the lady that fell so madly in love with her son that I took of 2 1/2 years after he was born. Even after that long I bawled my eyes out when I started going to hair school at night when he was sleeping HA. Here's to hoping that I find something in between two weeks and two years.
Speaking of maternity leave, Ryan and I have talked about my leave, but I realized at work that other day that we haven't talked about what we are going to do after I go back to work in much detail.
Today we have a midwife appointment, and my momma is going to come over to "Ask some questions" she is really apprehensive about the home birth so she wants to learn more. I told her to write down her questions so she wouldn't forget, and I got this sassy reply,"I don't have to write them down, I am your mother, I know what I want to ask, because that is what moms do!" Well, okay Mommaface, ask, but please be nice :) Well, because no matter what you may wish, this lady is delivering this baby. We have an exciting Sunday coming up. We will have LB with us which is a special treat, we are going to visit with friends and with family, somewhere in the day there are two photo shoots, one for week 30 and one for a magazine Ryan is shooting for, hopefully a nap, and lots of food. You all have a cheerful Friday and be glad the weekend is here, I know I am.
It is hard to believe that in 2 months we will have one of these rolling around our house.
On the drives back from dropping LB off at school on Thursdays, I usually see the same woman walking her dog before work. She never notices me, she is always head down, almost intentionally looking back away from the street to not make eye contact with passers by, which appears awkward and actually quite difficult to maintain this position so it has to be intentional. I can only guess its shame that keeps her head down. I think shame, because she is not shy about her disdain for this dog that she is walking. I always wonder why she even has a dog. Nobody appears to be enjoying themselves here. Does she always harbor this much contempt for furry little creatures, or just when it has need to poop and pee? She drags this little mess of fur down the same street each morning, and it fights and pulls against the leash. She eventually bends down and shoves the dog along hoping the momentum from her muscle will keep it walking. But it just rears back on its butt and pulls hard the other way. I always laugh out loud. She is clearly in a rush and her shoulders are telling the story of her great frustration. This woman is being defeated every day by this little willful dog.
There she is all dressed for work. She has bad hair, but the kind of hair that she has spent a lot of time and a lot of money trying desperately to make look good with at home box color, when she should have just put down the cash and had someone with taste do it for her. You can tell the way that she is put together, that for her, getting ready in the morning is a chore. A series of tasks, each one essential to the next, she looks like the type that will sacrifice a healthy yummy breakfast so that her makeup is caked on just right, and so of course with all that said, it's the little dog that suffers. I imagine this dog in her house, barking at the door, swelling burning bladder and bulging butt-hole just waiting to explode. Waiting for this lady to get finished already so it can have some relief. She takes breaks from scrambling around to shout "SHUT UP" at her dog as it just keeps the steady rhythm of the bark going reminding her that it needs to go.
And so they go. And it punishes her. Fighting her every step of the way as to not be rushed. She is thinking she is late and she hates this dog. The dog is thinking, I am being rushed, I hate this woman. This is probably one of three trips it gets to have outside and she wants to fit it all into a 3 minute walk and not allow it to sniff the shit from the other dogs that have a better life.
I feel bad for this dog and the life I have imagined for it.
By the time I pull into my driveway I have moved on from this elaborate scenario I have created and the thoughts of kidnapping her dog and finding it a better home disappear the second I walk thru the door. I just wanted to get these ridiculous thoughts down today, because it always amazes me at how insane I can get with my assumptions. I see this lady for maybe 10 or 15 seconds one day a week and I have convinced myself that I know her story and morning rituals. The little judgments people make on things they don't understand or have the full story on become their truths for that person. This is a game I play all the time, painting these scenarios... I am with Cole and we see a Frat boy creep by, and I see him get lost in that disgusting guy stare where he is imagining himself fucking her for a few seconds, and I say to Cole, "Look, LOOK, he's a date raper, I know it." or we see a Mom at the park roll her eyes at her husband and I say to Cole, "she hates his guts and regrets this marriage. I think she hits him." I do this stuff all the time. I never mean any of it. I never say it to anyone else. It is just something I picked up from my Mother. It is a tendency that I've curbed by turning it into a game. I turn these judgments into stories and then take them too far until I annoy an eye roll or a laugh out of Cole over how obnoxiously detailed these stories get.
Growing up my Mother was the master of meeting a person for 5 seconds and then listing off a books worth of reasons why that person sucked as a human. Just the other day I was reminded that she had decided she didn't like a friend of mine once because he left for work with wet hair from the shower. I remember her looking him over as he was rushing out the door and he had stopped to say "nice to meet you" to her, and as the door shut she looked at me and said, "Huh, he goes to work with wet hair? That's not very professional. That says a lot about who he is." and then went on to list her assumptions of work ethic and professionalism. "He is a bartender Mom." to which she said, "Well that explains a lot." My Mother hates bartenders, bartending, anything to do with a bar. They are ALL alcoholics according to her. So of course, I was sure to bartend for extra money that summer. She had a reason why I should stop being friends with every friend I had as a kid. Looking back now it is a source of great material and laughs, but as a kid it was endlessly frustrating to hear all the reasons why people suck, or are cheaters, or liars, or creeps. There should never be a time in your life that you trash another human in front of your kids and assume they are going to just understand your reasoning of how you got to this place of hatred. They are just learning that it's okay to hate. When is that ever good?
My Mother has done her work in these later years to make up for all of this and we talk about it all the time. She regrets how candid she was in front of us as kids about her feelings for certain people and certain things. She reminds me all the time, not to do it in front of LB and to get in good habits now before the kids get older. I think it's great that she recognized all of this on her own and she is so worried about what she has passed on to me. I have caught it early and am building in the edits so that I don't project this nuance onto any little buddies that are going to be in my future. So for now, I just try and turn this old tendency into stories for my stories, which seems to be pretty useful lately.
all the Love in the Universe ~ Me
P.S. I am not going to have time after LB gets out of school to do a picture today :( I have to finish up some work that needs finishing first.
P.S.S. I know that my blog is all jacked up for PC users that are browsing with Explorer. I would try and fix it, but am in the middle of a face lift around here anyway so please excuse the mess for a few more days.
P.P.S. Thank so much for all the great comments on the last post. Cole and I were laughing our rears off reading them together. And to anyone that was reading into my worry a little too much. I never thought that my cock was so long that i could actually poke the baby with it. i was worried about crushing the baby with my body. geez. reverse cowgirl it is.
Catchy title. It all boils down to me not really having a clear vision of what I wanted to write about this morning. So you get the grab bag.
I just sat down. Cole and LB are still in the driveway. I can hear him out there saying "uh-uh" repeatedly, his new attempts at flexing his developing defiance. It is equal parts amusing as it is frustrating. I am of the belief that any dips into the pool of toddler assholery is a good sign of progress. LB was so eerily well behaved and cooperative when I first met him that I started to think he was tricking me, luring me in, and as soon as Cole and I were married he was going to turn into the little boy from "Pet Cemetery" and hide under the bed, taking swipes at my exposed achilles heel with knives from the kitchen. Well he is still the worlds best behaved toddler. That's right I said "The Worlds BEST." and even though he is showing signs of dabbling in defiance, he is still a baby angel. I was actually thinking of helping out his reputation and working on his bad boy image some at school by making him a shirt that read: "I Do WHAT I WANT!" on the front of it. Just to let people know he is a little bit of a loose cannon.
LB is being trained at school to start using a talking box, and of course the second I heard this I immediately had these delusions of the brilliant Steven Hawking, and couldn't stop imagining life with the sweetest little robot voice asking for more apple slices or to watch "Wow Wow." Of course the box he is going to use will sound nothing like Steven Hawking, in fact WE are the ones that record the voice that will be heard into it. We are actually going to start auditioning kids to play the role of LB so that its a kids voice we hear, and not mine or Cole's coming out of the box. Start sending your tapes. We would like something smooth, low, like a young Barry White. "AWWWW yeah, time to eat." Apparently he is getting really good at using this thing and he will be able to start using it at home soon. Between the sign language and the box his frustration levels should diminish greatly once he is able to have an arsenal of commands he can scroll thru. I am excited for him.
I bugged Cole all morning about what I should write about for todays post. She suggested I get into some more specific detail about how I am a little bitch and too afraid to have sex with her, all because I have convinced myself that its damaging to the baby. Well I am certain. I know I will hurt the baby. I just know it. haha I almost took her bait and went for it, but there is just nothing I could write that could do the topic justice like Seth Rogan's monologue in "Knocked Up" where he expresses his fear of repeatedly slapping his cock into the baby's face. It could be that very scene that has manifested into my own personal fears on the subject. I am actually certain that it's because I can see the baby moving around so much under her skin. It really feels like the baby is just laying there, looking at me, and I can't get past it. So I have closed up shop and we have just been living on hand jobs while we continue my intensive therapy. Trying to come to terms with making love to Cole again without feeling like I am going to crush the baby. I am working on my list of terms to make it okay. Like no cumming inside, because it feels like I am cumming all over the baby, and it's just rude. And I can't be on top, because if something goes wrong I could crush the baby with my giant fat body. But Cole hates being on top because she can feel her stomach touching my stomach and the fat slapping together is a turn off. So now all of the sudden the only way I can get romantic with my wife is to kiss her sweetly and then bend her over? It just feels so wrong. So once we start getting into all of these rules and conditions it just never feels like the right time to go ahead and have some sex. We need to go ahead and map out a strategy earlier in the day, like over dinner or something.
Speaking of Cole, a lot of people have asked about her blog and where she writes? And the answer to that is... that she likes to keep her thoughts friends only, trust me I would have her blog in my sidebar if she wanted an audience. She did give me permission to steal stuff out of there from time to time. So until she is ready for the big show, the exact whereabouts of her secret gossip blog with exclusive sexy sex scandal pictures are going to stay locked in a box in a tower.
It has been tough to keep pace here with the blog lately because I have been writing so much other work, and this whole unemployment thing is really taking a toll. Do you ever just get to that point where you start staring at your bank account and just trying to invent some kind of math that can divide it all up so that it somehow becomes enough to cover everything? Like moving it around is going to make it double somehow. It sucks. I stopped opening bills. I don't give a shit to know when things are due anymore. When I figure out ways to make a little money I just pay for the stuff that needs to stay on, and keep food in the fridge. We have a really great house. It stays clean. We have nice things. Great furniture and appliances. I am not living in squaller or anything. We remain lucky. I am just keeping record of how low I feel because I just can't seem to get shit going again for us. I know I'm close, and I have things moving in a good direction. I just need to figure out how to land a few more shoots that will get us back to easy breathing. Figure out some ads that make sense for this blog. I don't want to just randomly place ads.
The thing that sucks about production freelancing is that people that handle Gov't Aid have never heard of this concept in their lives. Production work to them means Hollywood. "You mean you work on movies?" They just see that I made money, and so they deny us for Food Stamps. And then you say, well that was just a one time gig, that isn't a weekly job. And there minds explode. 'huh?" I know those fuckers have heard of a labor pool and day labor, it's the SAME FUCKING THING! I had a one day job. All of the sudden they think I am making too much money and deny us for aid. So basically you not only have to be poor, but you have to have a really consistent shitty low paying job in order to get aid. They want me to file for unemployment, and I say well I don't want to because I keep getting freelance jobs and so my benefits will just get denied so it's a waste of time. And they say; "So you have a job then?" And I'm like, 'Well, no. Not at the moment. I am looking. I am a freelancer." and to which they say: "So you're unemployed. You should file for unemployment." no thank you.
So we are on our own again. No help from our really uncomplicated system. They make it so hard to deal with these agencies that you can't ever get a new good paying job because you are too busy sitting on hold dealing with people that don't give a shit about you. You are treated as annoyances and burdens and are continuously set up for failure. If you process something wrong, they do not notify you to fix the mistake. They deny you. Then you have to start over, from the beginning. Someone somewhere decided that they had to make this as complicated and frustrating as possible so people give up and move on. Enough about all of that.
I have dreams to chase.
All the Love in the Universe ~ Me
P.S. Are you new here? Have you just started reading? If so, please go HERE and consider clicking that click. It makes me more confident in bed, which I am going to need as soon as Cole talks me into having sex again.
Sorry for the delay today on the new picture. As you might have read it was our first year wedding anniversary this weekend. Sunday to be exact, and so to celebrate I took Cole on a canoe trip to the Springs, and we had a picnic on the river. I wanted her to be able to lounge and relax during the trip, so I had her just lay up at the front of the canoe, and I did all the paddling. Some super manly man shit. So now of course I can barely move my arms today and have to say despite the pain it was well worth it. It felt amazing to be able to paddle her around and see her enjoy the scenery. We saw a ton of wildlife: gators, baby raccoons, herons, turtles, tons of fish, a giant snake wrapped in a tree, and it was a perfect spring day. We paddled by a couple on the river and the girl yelled out to Cole: "look how adorable you are!" and then turned to her guy and said: "That's how I want to look when I'm pregnant." It was so funny.
We didn't do gifts or anything, we just opted for this nice day trip and we decided to finally pick out a picture from our wedding to get printed and mounted so we have something in the house to look at. So there it is, our anniversary without the gory details. (it fucking hurts to type)
Hope you enjoy the new picture. This weeks picture made me laugh because of the pee thing. Seriously Cole pisses more than a kid at a keg party. It is freaking nuts. So I was glad I had my finger on the button when she was goofing around about having to piss. It ended up being the perfect image to remind us of one of the side effects of the pregnancy.
P.S. Don't forget about the new Place Holder I posted this morning and to go visit our friend Gabi and take a look at Honest Fare it will change your life :)
Thanks to everyone for the Happy Anniversary wishes, it was fun digging around in the archives for those pictures.
This morning we are off to take LB to the developmental Pediatrician... so I will finish up the final touches on the new post to the "maternity series" when I get back home. So until then, here is a Place Holder. This week instead of a band, or movie trailer, I wanted to share a voice mail we got from Cole's Grandma, who we all call "GG Mama." Cole and I have been wishing we could share these amazing heart warming messages we get from her for awhile now, and Cole finally figured out how to email them to me from her phone. They aren't roll on the floor funny or anything, they are just sweet. It's hard to actually answer the phone when she calls, because her messages are always so much fun to listen to. The best part is when she starts asking and answering her own questions. And of course the way she says "okay honey." We are going to start saving them more often and when we get some more good ones I will post them.
Here she is...
In case you couldn't make it out, she was asking for a recipe for brown rice that Cole made for her and it is DEEElicious.
Speaking of recipes. I wanted to point you in the direction to our friend Gabi...
Gabi writes a damn good food blog called Honest Fare that Cole has quickly become addicted to, and so she has been trying out a bunch of her recipes. Cole has been eating so healthy this pregnancy (and it's finally rubbing off on me), the creations Gabi has been sharing on her blog deliver amazing taste along with having the courtesy of actually being good for you. So if you're into that sort of thing, or if you're getting ready for bathing suit season :) or if you have a dinner party coming up, or if you have the time and are looking for a new food blog to follow, this one is a great candidate. We all had dinner together last week, and so Cole and I had the pleasure of actually eating some of Gabi's creations first hand. I don't know what she does to vegetables to get them to taste so good, but for a guy that pretty much has only eaten blood rare meat for the last 34 years of his life I caught myself chowing down on a green bean salad and didn't stop till my plate was clean. How the fuck did this happen? So anyone that could accomplish this feat deserves a look and a link.
This girl could easily have her own travel/food show and I feel like her blog is going to blow up big. Maybe she will be the first blog to TV star. Has that happened yet? I don't know these things. She just started the damn thing and she gets more traffic than I do, and nobody even knows about it yet. I really hope you enjoy this one... take a look at Honest Fare It's still a fairly new blog in the making and so she is adding bells and whistles all the time.
Hope you all come back later this afternoon to take a peek at Week 29.
I wanted to make a quick reference back to my post about my Mom for anyone that read it. I found a picture that I had never seen before until yesterday. It was on a disc of a 1,000 pictures that had not been edited and that I had not looked at before. It made me feel amazing to see it. This picture is one of the few times in my life that my Mother and Father have looked at me like this. I remember the moment. My father had just given me one of his old handkerchiefs to keep in my pocket in case I needed it during the ceremony... because he knows that my nose runs when things get intense. It was the first time I could tell that either one of them were excited for me to be getting married. They had been very mild about the entire idea even up to the morning of. I had asked: "Aren't you happy for me?" to which they responded: "Sure. I guess." Both my parents are very matter of fact people. You tell them something truly earth shaking, and they say stuff like: "Well, life doesn't always feel good and you can't get upset about it." They are extremely grounding. The point is, this little moment that was captured is the happiest I have ever seen my parents look at me.
So I am not going to make a big sappy stink about how much I love Cole and how happy I have been to be married to her this first year, I think it's pretty clear how we feel about one another, so no reason for a confessional. But since our anniversary is this weekend, I wanted to post some pics from the wedding and our honeymoon and then bow out from the blog for the weekend. So as I was looking thru wedding pictures to post, I kept coming back to one image, it kept making me smile. I couldn't stop looking at it. I feel like it truly captured our day. It isn't the sweetest or most gooey "aw" moment. It's a picture of 3 people scared shitless and exhausted from all of the work and emotion that was spent getting the ceremony ready. This picture was taken after a hundred hugs and handshakes and congratulations and thank yous and pat backs and we were spinning. We all just wanted to be together for a few minutes so we could freak out and be excited about what we had just done. LB passed out cold soon after this picture was taken. He slept on a lounge inside the reception area for an hour and we had his Dad come grab him. I love this picture because as certain as we were that we were in love and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, this picture looks uncertain, it's honest. Thru all of the big love, and sweet moments, and mind blowing sex, and the belly laughs, and the chills from how calm we make one another, somewhere deep down we were still smart enough to be scared. That is one of the biggest reasons I think we work so well. We are never surprised that this is work, we are never surprised that we can be irritating, the quirks and annoyances run side by side with the good times. I just like this picture so much. Scared shitless :)
None of us looked like ourselves in this picture, it was like we were this brand new little family and we weren't quite sure how to look when we were all together.
Our ceremony was the perfect day (as it should be) for the both of us, and neither of us have a single bad memory of it. We wrote our own vows and we planned the entire thing in just 3 weeks for 160 people to which 180 showed up. It was the party to be at I guess. The food was mind blowing, and everyone looked stunning. Cole's Dad of course was the one responsible for giving us this day and he certainly made it so his daughter could shine, Those two are such best friends and I love their relationship.
And as far as our honeymoon goes one picture says it all.
We flew into San Francisco, stomped around the city a couple days, rented a car, and drove the PCH to Los Angeles, stopping in the middle for a few days in Big Sur. The only blemish on the trip was that I was still hobbling around from a back injury from a stupid fender bender (not my fault by the way). I had a herniated disc, the L5 pushing on my S1 nerve and so sitting for longer than 30 minutes would leave me in horrible pain. I was hunched over and grimacing most of the time. It was insane how cavalier people can be about our sex life when they would find out that it's our honeymoon, and then noticed that my back was hurting.. the shit people would say to us was unbelievable. When is it ever appropriate to look at a couple and say things like: "So you two must be getting crazy every night right?"
We had agreed that we would only pack a small backpack each, and would travel light so that all of the hopping around wouldn't become a drag. It was such a good decision.
We stopped in Santa Cruz and ate fish tacos and drove the cliffs and I was soaked by a rogue wave while trying to take a sunset picture of Cole, one of my bigger I'm a loser moments.
This was the first time Cole ever tasted In & Out Burger which I was happy to introduce her to.
By far Big Sur wad the best part of the trip. Who goes there and doesn't dream of living in this place? Who? I want to know who does that. Because they are off my friend list.
Something may or may not have happened on the other side of that bluff in that cluster of trees and it was amazing :)
In the end, Cole got really homesick for LB and who could blame her? So while we were in LA a super good buddy had bought us a night at the Standard in downtown LA as a wedding gift and we checked in and were shut ins, and decided we would drive hard for San Fran the next day and get our butts home. I took this picture of Cole while she was sitting in the window and looking particularly sad just after telling me how much she was ready to go home. How could I be upset?
This was also in the Standard, we thought it was hilarious how small Cole looked in this tub. The bathroom is just all out in the open studio style in the middle of your room, and so we had fun with it :)
Anyway...
I will be back full force on Monday with a new picture for the maternity series!
All the Love in the Universe ~ Me
If you haven't noticed there is a Flick link on my side bar in the line of little link icons over there. It is the "Fr" if you're not hip to the Flickr icon. Well that is a link to some of our wedding pictures. It is mostly a link for our friends to see the pictures of how great THEY all looked, but in the beginning there are some of the ceremony and stuff. My best buddy Chloe Rice took them of course.
So I didn't think I was going to get a chance today to do a shoot with LB but thought we might get something fun while we were at the market noodle shopping. I ended up buying mostly produce because it was so much cheaper and Cole ran around gathering up seaweed and fish flakes. LB has been starting to fade again for an hour in the late afternoon. He was plowing thru the days for awhile, but something has him nodding off consistently. This one came on fast. He was jumping around and then his head started going. Of course he is incapable of sleeping without his hand jammed into his pants and his fingers stuck in his mouth rocker style. So anyway, here is the Thursday photo shoot with LB.
Of course with our first anniversary coming up I have been getting all misty and nostalgic digging thru pictures and memories and so I figured I would post a couple pics from our wedding week. Of course first up was the my big bachelor party. Now, I had made a decision a long time ago that getting shit-faced-wasted and staring at strippers tits a couple days before getting married felt disrespectful, and so I didn't want a thing to do with it. I couldn't imagine standing there on the day of the ceremony thinking: "I hope she doesn't find out about the other night." No offense to the guys and girls that get loose before they tie the night, I am just not into the traditional bachelor thing. I had just seen too many bachelor AND bachlorette parties from working at the bar over the years that would get gross. How am I supposed to stand up in front of my friends and profess my love to Cole, if the night before they saw me stumbling drunk shoving money in a girls thong and getting my dick dry fucked by a naked stripper? It doesn't make sense to me. You don't do that shit until you've been married for a few years and she makes you mad :)
So anyway, I chose to make my bachelor party a family affair, and so I invited all my buddies (guys and girls), and Cole and her family to come eat like pigs, and win LB as many prizes as possible at the Central Florida Fair. One of my biggest weaknesses on earth is Carnival Food (Turkey Legs to be specific). So if you're supposed to be gluttonous before you get married I figured... let's eat! So we all paled around and won prizes, and goldfish, and walked the midway, rode throw-up rides, Cole rode the mechanical bull and gave erections to all the pervy carnies creeping around videotaping girls riding the bull. Cole did have a rough time with LB being in a huge chaotic crowd and lost her mind with worry a couple times. Despite being surrounded by so many pals and her family, she was convinced that he was so cute some carni would take him, put him in a box and charge $10 to see the worlds cutest kid. At the end of the day, it was just nice to be with my friends, knowing in the back of my mind this would most likely be one of the last moments when we would all be together.
Brand new Family to be
My first Wife
Prize Winners
Bullrider
I am not sure that I am going to have a chance to do the shoot with LB today. I have a ton of work to do and well... that feels good to say. Working is good. I am taking him to the Asian Market when I pick him up from school today, so maybe we will see what happens on our outing. We need to stock up on noodles and when you need to eat Ramen, there is nothing like the noodle aisle at the Asian Market to overwhelm you with choices, so yummy.
I was born and raised on irritated soil, and so the grass tasted funny to me here on this side of harmony. It certainly is delicious and I'm devouring it now, it was just hard to trust it at first. Now here I am happy and large.
I try and not write about my Mother and Father in this place very often because at the end of the day it feels like a slippery slope to pure streamlined negativity. I didn't have an abusive or terribly cruel childhood to speak of, we just had our problems, our disconnect. When it's written down it comes off whiny in comparison to the evils that fall upon some children in this world. I'm not going to be the guy that is wetting himself over trivial traumatic times. It's like complaining about your legs being sore from jumping and playing to a paraplegic. The one thing I can say about blogging that makes me uncomfortable, is that whenever you write about something that bothers you... no matter how many disclaimers you slip in, the comment section snowballs into sympathy somehow. I know for some it is their nature to comfort others, and they really like to get in there and hug it out with sweet words, but for me in some cases it makes me feel small minded and petty. Someone I just started reading recently wrote a great post (and then deleted it) about feeling the suck of life, and she was unapologetically feeling bad, and really wanted someone desperately just to say: "YES! Life DOES indeed fucking suck a big bag of dicks right now." Instead of the flood of well wishes that usually follow when someone feels low. I completely get what she was saying. She wasn't looking for a doomsday party, just some acknowledgment that sometimes life kicks you in the face, and it fucking hurts, so don't try and put a positive spin on it. Just say, you're right it hurts.
I started writing all of this because I have been working on a new piece for an assignment. And not to ruin the story, but it's simply about not letting yourself slip into such a working and parenting chasm that by the time your kids are teenagers you have no idea what the fuck they are saying, doing, listening to, watching, reading, and the gap is so insurmountable that your kids just can't relate to you on some levels any longer. Sound fun? Well, it has really been stirring the shit-storm in my head of the problems and memories I had with my Mom and Dad. It really is a shame that things got so bad. It's to the point now that 90% of the time I can never tell them about anything I am doing because they just don't understand. Everything is followed with a: "Is that good?" or "Is that a big deal?" and the famous "So... we should be happy?" Having someone pretend to be happy for a hard fought accomplishment feels about as good as a sympathy laugh when a joke bombs. It just falls at your feet and leaves you empty.
So my Mother and I finally had it out last week. Our conversations had been reduced to just a minute or so because I just wasn't telling them anything about my life anymore. Trying to explain to my Mom what I'm doing with this blog and with the book, and with freelance work, and trying to assist for photographers is almost impossible. "How do you assist someone taking a picture?" never mind Mom...
So yeah, we have been just sitting on the phone, waiting for the other person to ask something that will actually lead to a conversation. "LB is doing fine, The baby is coming along fine, and Cole and I are really great" and then I ask:"What are you and Dad doing?" she says, "Same thing we always do." and then silence. I was finally fed up and launched into a rant, "Ya know why we NEVER talk? It's because I can't tell you ANYTHING about my life... NOTHING!" It was so 13 year old angst and the tears and the shaky voice just leapt up and out, and the grown ass man hiding inside my brain was like, "Holy shit, you are losing it crybaby." and I just kept going and going and letting her know all of the stuff I was doing, and trying to do, and how she has never in my life once said she was proud of me for anything I have ever done. I suppose this was a breakthrough in the respect that we talked on the phone for almost an hour, and that we didn't end the conversation angry. I am not sure that it resolved anything but it felt good to finally at least say what I am doing. In the end she finally told me she was proud of me. Not for anything that I was trying to do creatively or in the workforce, but she was proud of me because my one year anniversary being married to Cole is approaching on Sunday, and while reminding her that it was this week, she asked how did I feel about the milestone? I said that: "If you're marriage is supposed to shake and crumble when the times are tough with money and stress, then I married the right girl, because I love her as much as the day we said I do despite all of the problems we have been handed. All of this economic turmoil and uncertainty with LB has made us fall even harder for one another, instead of turn against one another. My marriage is the most important thing in my life right now, I am so in love with her." To which she responded: "Well there you are Ryan... I am very proud of you." and then she hung up so that I couldn't ruin the first time she said she was proud of me.
All the Love in the Universe ~ Me
*UPDATE - I love my Mom. In the way that a boy SHOULD love his Mom, meaning if anyone ever tried to hurt her I would do everything in my power to ruin them. She has been there for me my entire life. We just happen to barely get along. We do not share the same belief system, but I respect her choices. She doesn't give out praise or hoorays very often, and the ones she does give out, are all hard fought. It has made me who I am. I love her for that. I feel like I needed to make that clear. Thanks for all the comments on this post. I can't believe how many people are connecting with these words. It is overwhelming and so very appreciated.
I regularly struggle with self esteem issues, I attribute it to being awkward at a young age way before the rest of the jerks I paled around with... so I was the hideous buck-toothed, pimple-faced, afro-headed freak WAY before any of them were. So it's easy for me to think of myself this way when things start to run down. It doesn't take much, the other day while I was standing next to my wife, out of the corner of my eye I see her staring at the side of my head, her thumb and index finger poised to pluck and next thing I know she has lunged and grabbed hold of a hair growing out of my fucking ear. I was like what the fuck? Are you kidding me? So now I'm the dude with ear hair, and yes there have been a million bits written about hair sprouting and all of the creepy aging stuff, but it was unreal how depressed it made me. Now my reaction to being depressed is maybe a little different then others, maybe not. But when i start to physically feel like I'm falling apart I like to make it worse. Like if I can tell I'm starting to pack on the weight, I will eat like a hog for a month and really get as gross as possible. And that is where I'm at today. I'm on day two of a detox from a solid 2 months of eating like a 13 year old boy after a night of hitting a gravity bong with his buddies. I'm not on a detox because I am trying to lose all the weight I have gained. I am doing it because if I eat food it makes me so sick that I think I'm having a heart attack. My stomach is such a wreck that I get sick if I even eat white rice.
So after last week of visiting Cole's Gido in the hospital with lung cancer, and then her father after his heart surgery, and then the visit with our midwife about our baby on the way, life tackled me to the ground and forced me to scream uncle and made me promise I would get my shit together so I could live a healthy adult life. I am on day 11 of no smoking, and only day two of not eating piles of heart stopping processed food. It feels different this time for some reason. I am weighing in at 200lbs which is actually smaller than I have been. It's frightening when you consider that when Cole met me I weighed 175, I certainly got happy and large as they say. But again, this isn't about muffin tops or a big great big fat stomach, it's about feeling like my heart is going to explode when I eat anything. My body has reached the gross out. It wants to shut things down and do some overdue spring cleaning. So I am going to try and over do it the other way around and become an obnoxious health nut to the point that Scientist will label this house a blue zone for healthy living... and they will try and figure out how we are actually aging in reverse like Benjamin Button over here. The first step will be to eat something without getting sick, so I am going to have to get my body back to that first.
Along the same lines of feeling gross on the insides, I realized that I had fallen into another trap. I was taking a piss last night before bed and I am standing there with the door open,I look over and Cole is lying there in bed watching me right as I'm saying: "Man, my dick smells like sweaty shit!" and this was just a couple minutes after we discovered the band-aid still stuck to my heel from over a week ago when I was mowing the yard, and that was just before we were laughing about how my right underarm smelled like a ripe vidalia onion, but my left still smelled like deoderant, and finally just after I had done my very own version of Ally Sheedy's scene from the Breakfast Club when she scratches the dandruff out of her scalp to make it snow on her landscape sketch. I was officially disgusting. Cole tried to remember the last time I had showered, and neither of us could pin-point it. so all of the sudden I am the asshole that just falls apart because he has a gorgeous wife that loves him. It made me feel rude, and so it is also a big reason for the toxic clean up of my life.
I'm not going to be updating about any of this or trying to keep track, or looking for cheers, I just wanted to have an entry I could go back and read to remember how disgusting I let myself get. I don't want to turn into the fat guy in the sitcom with the hot wife. So I can either become a feeder and turn Cole to the dark side so we can be like Roseann and John Goodman, or I can just be slightly responsible, work a little hard, and shower at least once a day and keep myself pretty for Cole. I do need to mention that she is fine with me the way I am, except for the heart exploding, she doesn't even mind the smelling bad. She's the best!
This week I just had to take a picture of Cole wearing her makeshift maternity outfit. She did this the last pregnancy apparently as a money saver to avoid buying costly maternity clothes. She wore skirts for shirts. She just pulled them up, folded them over and felt fine. She walked out of the back earlier this week and I was all like: "WOW you look so cute... where did you get this outfit?" She was wearing a pair of her friend's husband's old jeans she cut into shorts, and then pulled up one of her American Apparel skirts to wear as a top to go with it. So adorable and hilarious. I would have never guessed.
week 28 was truly an exhausting week for all of us, LB included. We are happy to be hospital free this week and I actually have a bunch of writing to do. I might be letting the cat out of the bag sooner then I thought about the book I have been working on, as some new shit has come to light. A hero has gotten involved and things just might be clicking enough to really start yapping about it. Fingers crossed. I really do feel bad for Cole and how uncomfortable she is all the time. I know it doesn't work like this but the fact that I'm 100lbs heavier and so much taller, I feel like the baby is giant and way too big for her. Of course our midwife assures me this isn't the case and things are normal, and she educated me down to normal levels of panic, but still. I can't help but imagine this baby as big as Godzilla in there stomping around on her guts.
Thanks so much for anyone that has been linking to the Panic Room lately, it's so rad to see so many people connecting with this photo series. Now of course I want to see them published somewhere in a magazine so I have been writing annoying emails trying to make it happen. We shall see. Nothing ever happens if you don't ask.
All the Love in the Universe ~ Me
ALSO- If you're looking for a great post to read try this one out - Dooby & The Bean one of my favorite posts I have read in a good long while.
P.S. Is it annoying if all my P.S. messages lately are hot links to the big super spectacular Blogger Choice Awards? I have no idea how long voting is open. When it closes. What its for. What it means. Why I care other than I have never been nominated for anything before. So just in case you haven't please take a look AND VOTE IN THIS CATEGORY.
I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to have that new picture for the series done until around 3EST today. Possibly even 3:30. Things just were not in our favor last week, and I found myself excited to wake up this morning just so I could get everything finished that I had to do today. Almost out of nowhere I am slammed with these things to do. Hopefully some of them will lead to bigger better things.
I really enjoy a good place holder and wanted to switch it up from music today and get excited together about a movie coming out. It's called "9" and it is animated. It is a post-apocalyptic story. It is the end of man kind. It has Crispin Glover in it. It looks freaking rad. Now I am a huge sucker for Hayao Miyazaki and this movie looks like it is the closest we are going to get to anything like his work here in America. For some reason seeing this trailer reminded me of how much I loved the Secret of Nimh as a kid before Don Bluth ruined it with that American Tail sequel :). I guess it had me wondering if kids are getting any stand out animated films these days that deal with anything heavy or dark? And I'm talking outside of their video game consoles, cause I know there are plenty of games like Gears of War and Halo and I'm sure there is plenty of it out there, but when High School Musical and the Disney Channel dominates as it does I wonder what else is getting thru. I'm sure there is no shortage of it, I just can't think of what it is because I'm OLD and out of touch already.
Like what's the new Old Yeller? Marley and Me? Do people sit around Hollywood and say, ya know there needs to be a new movie that can make boys cry and Old Yeller is just too old timey and "folksy" to get it done any longer. So if this is how it works than I'm wondering what the replacements are. And more important are they working?
Back to work. See you later this afternoon with a new picture for the series.
Isn’t it beautiful to not care about tomorrow? That only happens when you love your today, your immediate right now. And when was the last time any of us managed to do that for more than a few seconds at a time? I know that LB can smile and freeze time, and feeling the baby move or hearing its heartbeat will keep me firmly grounded in the now. But the second it’s interrupted the thoughts come creeping back in, and I see my family, and I fill with fear that I am not doing a good enough job of protecting them.
Isn’t it beautiful to make mistakes that you can learn from? That usually happens when you try and do something new. And when was the last time any of us tried to do that?
Lately I get excited about going to sleep. I like to lie there and dream about trying hard.
And then one morning I wake up, and I decide that all of the unbalance and bad feelings about my joblessness and health and self-esteem are manageable. So they are written out with care and intention, and placed into a punch list. Within a half hour, I have scratched off half the list and feel like a hero again and the laughs come back.
This is the face I make when I laugh? It’s kinda stupid man! I have become judgmental about my personal happiness. I have found myself thinking I don’t deserve it right now. It feels like I am eating a golden turkey in front of starving children, there they all are staring back at me with filthy sad faces thinking: “who the fuck is this guy?” Why do I get to laugh right now? I need to keep my head down and set to trying hard every second so that we are all laughing together, and comfortable.
I think I could use some privacy while I pull myself together. I tend to just try and tell everyone everything.
Hi, my name is Ryan, this is everything that I’m thinking and feeling right now, and I am going to burden you with it. Don’t drop any of it or I will judge you. This is a frown. Would you like to wear one while you sit across from me? You’re going to need it, trust me. It feels so insane to be honest with yourself sometimes. Try it. Write it down and read it out loud. Let that darkness you disguise out for a little stretch and stare at it some. Holy shit we are crazy.
I feel like I need to let everything out so I can pick thru it all and figure out the starting line-up for the victory I am planning.
I am locking up the big relaxed belly laugh in a tower. This life shouldn’t be laughing so hard right now, it has work to do and people to inspire. I will let it out for the celebration of the next accomplishment. When I say I’m going to do something and it’s going to be great I mean it. Cole believes me when I say it, so when am I going to start having some faith in myself.
I am just trying to get back to that shine that I’m used to. How am I supposed to know which way to go? That carrot dangling in front of me has rotted and crumbled years ago, and now I'm stumbling around with these cloudy instincts. The storm needs to lift and let some light back in so I can start finding my way. I cracked the windows and let a little fresh hope seep in and crossed the fingers that it won’t be a disappointment. In my youth I just did things and they worked. Now I am baby stepping around and looking under my feet making sure I haven’t squashed anything along the way.
Another Thursday Photoshoot with The Littlest Buddy...
Not to put too fine a point on it, but The Littlest Buddy is completely obsessed with the laundry. Ever since he was first introduced to these front loading dreams he has not been capable of leaving them alone. I'm not mentioning this as an aww that's cute kind of thing. It's more of a we are crippled by his focused craze for the spinning... we have to wash all our clothes at night when he is asleep or over the weekend when he's gone, or else he will stand in front of the washer and dryer and count every spin until it's finished. It is the first glaring and most severe obsession he has developed so far. If the washer is on during dinner he will insist he isn't hungry and go stand in front of the machines. If the TV is on and the Washer is on, his face fills with fright over the hard decision between watching Wow Wow, or watching the spin cycle. He darts back and forth from TV to Washer. We are constantly fishing him out of both machines, timeouts don't matter, nothing works. He is a man on a mission.
We learned recently that LB will develop obsessions like these over the years, and we will just have to try and redirect him as he grows in and out of them. Why couldn't he be obsessed with the laundry when he is older and capable of just doing it all?Fingers crossed. Knowing our luck he will have an obsession with smooth jazz when he's older and insist on playing it all hours of the night as long as his obsessions never reach the fever that mine did for Olivia Newton John on the Xanadu poster. She was practically my first wife... yikes.
So anyway, no venturing out today for the Thursday picture. LB has had a pretty hectic week and we wanted to keep him at home base for today.
On the days when LB is at his Dads and our house is creepy quiet and still, I usually get lost in my computer and sit typing away about this thing or that. A few days ago as I was slugging it out and far far away sunk into the couch and intensely writing a new story, Cole emerges from the back of the house and plops down on the other end from me. She was just wrapped in a towel from the shower, and before I had even looked up she spreads her legs wide open and says: "LOOK at this thing!" "Just look at it."
She was close to tears, it sounded like worry in her voice. I'm caught off guard, busy, completely thinking of other things, and have no idea what to say. She repeats: "LOOK at this thing. It looks Humongous!" "Right?"
So there I am, one second immersed in a story and characters and the noise of my own head, and the next thing I know I have an emotional wife jumping from the hilarious silliness of the moment to actual worry, sitting there naked on the couch, spread eagle, demanding I inspect her vagina... she's convinced it is deformed and going to stay this way forever. She keeps prompting me for a response: "Well?" WELL?" she keeps asking, while she sits there poking at it and saying: "It's swollen right?" and "It feels like it's filled with squid or something."
Now. I'm smart enough to know that I need to be extremely careful at this point. This is what they call dangerous territory. I have a 27 week pregnant wife on my hands, filled to the brim with hormones and a nonstop kicking baby, and she has just emerged from the shower after an unsuccessful attempt at shaving her vagina (which she informs me I need to learn how to do for her before the baby comes, because she doesn't want to have an out-of-control hairy beast staring at everyone when she is in labor.) as I was saying, I'm smart enough to know that I need to choose my words carefully and offer support and comfort to her changing body, and offer up reassurance that it all goes back to normal when she is feeling out of place with these changes. So what do I end up saying?
I say: "It looks like a football."
whoops.
She is sitting directly across from me, naked, legs spread, frown on her face, blinking back at me. I can see her trying to figure out if I really just said this to her and waiting to see if I am going to offer a follow up or an explanation.
I do not.
I know I've made a horrible horrible mistake, and instead I just put my head back down and start typing away, just wishing this whole moment would just please go away. Someone make it stop. I know I'm not going to get out if this. So she asks me : "WHAT did you just say?!" and I say "It's fine honey, it just looks like an exaggerated vagina?"
This is one of those moments when you open a closet and something falls and sets off a chain reaction of fumbles and stumbles and gaffes. I mean I don't know what to say, it's swollen. It looks like it has a bike tube running thru it and someone filled it with air. It looks pumped up!
I keep going on and on about it being puffy and watching this frown deepen, and I wish I could just stop talking but I can't, I am launching into a speech about how everything will go back to normal, and how she needn't worry and to just relax. It's of course much MUCH too late for any of this. This is also the point where I can tell she isn't listening anymore and I know what is going on. She is repeating over and over in her head that her vagina looks like a football somehow. And in the middle of my "oh honey everything is going to be okay" speech she says: "Football? Like, because it looks like fucking Pig Skin?"
and that was when I knew I was really fucked.
The rest of the days and week I was reminded of this gross error and my careless fumble a few times. Usually in mid conversation about other things, a sad little voice would say:"like a football?" and I would just crumble inside knowing what a fucking bozo I was in that moment.
For any man reading this, that has not faced a moment like this and thinks he might. This is what you say instead: "What?! No honey your vagina looks amazing, like it ALWAYS does. In fact, let me put down this computer and make love to it right now" I think that should work nicely for you.
So flash forward to yesterdays visit with our midwife where Cole proceeds to tattle tale on me and I am sitting there red-faced and in shame and the both of them are laughing at my stupidity as she retells this story. As the laughs lighten, and before the conversation can move on, Cole is sure to pounce on the opportunity to ask about her vagina... "Seriously though, what is going on with this thing? it's going to go back to normal right?" and says to our Midwife (who we love) "I feel like after this birth it's going to just deflate and get all droopy, I mean I don't want to be at the beach and have to be all worried about lips hanging out the sides of my bathing suit and stuff"
Oh man I love this woman.
Seriously though it goes back to normal so don't worry about it. For now I just get the pleasure of her exaggerated vagina... whatever that means. I am a complete idiot sometimes. Thought I should tell you about it.
The Littlest Buddy's dad sent this to us last night. He said LB fell asleep while they were hooking him up for the sleep study as he was exhausted. It was our job to keep him from taking a nap all day yesterday. So he was good and sleepy. We will get the results back in 3 days and maybe have a few answers to all of this sleep walking and early rising. I am sure he will be fascinated with this picture when he is older.
To clarify. LB was amused and not freaked at all by this study. He was really excited and in a great mood when I picked him up this morning. I think he thought it was cool to have a sleep over with his Dad in this new place. LB always does amazing at the Doctor. We think it's because he has gone so much since an early age. He never cries when he gives blood, or gets shots, he is always hilarious with the Doctors and Nurses. I didn't want to freak anyone out. It is just an amazing picture to see all of that electronics gathering answers to his sleep patterns.
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bedtime rituals,
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