Ever seen the movie "Pursuit of Happyness", with Will Smith? It's based on a true story (every story is ultimately based on a true story, and let's not get into a discussion of truth just now--but this movie hews pretty closely to the biography of a man who's still living), of a working fellow out in San Fran who wanted to become a stockbroker, but getting an opportunity and qualifying for the business proved more difficult and traumatic than he'd ever have expected, since he was broke and without income for several months during the process. It's a well-done film, not without its departures from the facts of the living man's life, but the central sequence of aspiration, tribulation and redemption are the same.
In the movie, at moments, Will Smith narrates his own character's life, announcing chapters to the movie by saying, "This part of my life is called..." followed by various things such as, "riding the bus", "running", and "being stupid". One chapter, which he names "paying taxes", features the IRS attaching his bank account and draining it due to unpaid income tax. That's what forces him and his son onto the street, so it leads to some of the most heartbreaking events in the movie, but the chapter title is so plain that it's comic. And, of course, the concluding chapter he calls "happyness" (and as for why the "y" insted of "i", watch the movie).
Anyway, to sum up the last two months of my life or so, since my last post, I'd call it, "getting busy again". Not that I'm exhausted or overworked--I get decent sleep, and I'm working 45-50 hours a week, which is light compared to any entrepreneur--but with two different part-time jobs, it certainly feels pretty jostled at times. One job is with the Navy--I'm contracted through a private company--and another is with a local environmental consulting firm. Both are interesting, science-based jobs. One, the Navy job, dropped more or less out of the sky while I was working in Alaska last fall. I was riding back from Homer to Palmer--Dave Musgrave was driving because I was passed out in the back seat of the truck after a sleepless, asthma-ridden night and an 0530 reveille to load the equipment back on the truck--and I got a call from the contractor (somehow--while in the middle of the Kenai Mountains), and so the process began. The other job came through my advisor, Dr. B, who referred me to an old student of his who was looking for a geoscience intern. So now I'm working again, slightly more than full-time. And that's a great change, and we're now almost back to breaking even. That's a big victory, even though from day to day, my greatest stress is still the various shortfalls we still experience.
I'm not going to turn this into a political or economic rant, but I will say this much: it's outrageous and it should be criminal that the very banks, and the people who run them, which nearly ruined the American--and world--economy a year ago, were not only saved by taxpayer dollars and now reward themselves for their success, but punish people like Kate and me with 30% interest rates for missing a payment--when I was employed only 20 of 52 weeks last year! These people are not the friends of working Americans. And that's as far as I'll go because I don't want this to become an angry post, or an angry diary in general.
So we're pulling ourselves back up again, and I'm working some long days and weekends. That's fine with me--it's a satisfying feeling that I'm taking care of my family--but I do get ornery at times. And I blew off going into the office today, even though there were some outstanding tasks, because it just felt like a good time to have a family day, especially when we lost last Sunday to my six hours at the office.
Nor will this post become a simple record of hours worked. The point is, this is the chapter of my life I'm in: getting busy again. Though two things I've laid aside while resuming paid work: completing my dissertation, and developing my long-term interests. I'll need to summon more energy and discipline to do both, but hey, it's about time I start expecting a lot from myself. Every field I've ever pursued, I sometimes think is a mistake, not my real talent or interest...mothers being always and excessively complimentary, my own mother would tell me I was too talented, with too many interests. I had too much to sort out. Yeah, maybe, mom...but it might also be laziness. I got out of physics because I hated math, got into geology...now that I've done geology for a few years, I find myself warming back up to math. Not to mention, I love ancient history more than either of those. Hence the coastal archeology...I want to study the environment and artifacts of ancient seafarers. But it does require my finishing this research project on Narragansett Bay first.
Now while I've resumed work, and now set about resuming serious schoolwork, little Eva continues to grow and to show more personality every day. It still feels like a gift every time she looks at me and smiles, even when I'm grinning at her or goofing off by doing some silly dance or something. She smiles a lot but not always, and sometimes, like today at our weekly family date at Starbucks, I make her cry. Or at least start to. See, Kate's the one who deals with Eva best. Kate does 95% of the work with her, including changes, feeding (of course), putting to bed, and general attending-to and fussing over. (I need to step in sometimes and squelch some of Kate's fussing, though. The poor little girl doesn't need her zits popped at four months.) So Kate's got all kinds of cute little games she plays with her daughter, and Eva really responds.
The baby girl's discovered the thing called her voice. She's generally quiet, and still sleeps a good 7-9 hours a night straight through--takes after her mom that way--and is pretty docile all around. But one visit to a neighbor's condo last week, including meeting that neighbor's six-month-old, motormouth girl, has changed Eva forever. She now talks to everything. Which is to say, sometimes, nothing at all, too. She'll babble or murmur (often just sort of singing a vowel for several seconds, like "eeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuhhhh", or "ooooooooooo"), either at a toy, or a picture nearby, or at a person. Like me for a good 20 minutes tonight, or at passersby at the Starbucks. She's becoming a real talker.
But the loud outbursts come when Kate's playing with her. The latest favorite is when Kate is sitting, holding Eva upright under the armpits and lifting the baby off of her knees into the air. The baby girl flexes her legs as soon as she's in the air and she yelps as she rises, and then smiles and laughs as Kate brings her back down, laughing with her. Eva will yelp and laugh for minutes on end as Kate keeps lifting her up.
So this afternoon, while Kate was getting something from the car, I tried the same thing. Held Eva around her sides, lifted her off my knees with a "whoooop!" noise, and smiled at her. No response. Silence, and a blank face. I kept trying. Finally, her lower lip began to curl and her eyes to squint closed, and she was on the verge of crying. Way to go, Dad. Make your baby cry. Again. (She doesn't like loud noises, and, well...I can get loud from time to time. It's never deliberate, but yeah, I do spook her into tears every now and then.) She didn't actually cry this afternoon (at least, not due to my lame attempt at the leaping game), but she was about to.
But the afternoon was all about her. See, Eva's huge. She's over the 95th percentile for length and weight for babies this age--at not quite five months, she's wearing 12-month baby clothes. She doesn't have the muscle strength or control of one-year-olds, of course, but she's got the size. She just learned how to roll over on her own last week, so she does that constantly now. It's kind of cute when she traps herself on her stomach, and gets too tired to prop herself up any more, so she just collapses face-down on whatever she's lying on and starts to complain. And then Kate or I will roll her back over, and the process will start again.
But she's nearly too big for her little bouncy chair that she's spent most of her waking hours in while here at home, and she's getting close to outgrowing her carseat, too. The carseat we can use for several more months, but Kate and I wanted to price out likely replacements, and also scope out bouncy seats--not the chaise-lounge type bouncer she reclines in now, but the cockpit type that allows the baby to sit upright and play with toys on all sides. So we did that. We do need to have some basic hardware for the baby to use (coming fairly soon, too, will be a high chair), and even while we're barely getting along as now, we need to spare some money for the little girl. I don't complain about that.
But going into a store, and seeing things I'd like--whether for me, or for Kate, or for Eva--but which I know I can't afford, puts me in a terrible mood. So today was informative, but my patience was fraying badly before long and I was struggling not to take it out on my wife (who didn't deserve any of the hostility I was feeling). That's been a frequent dynamic of the past several months: frustration, anger and shame at not being able to pay our bills, stokes me to the point of being ready to lash out at the woman who's working along with me to get through this.
So I decided that a bit of therapeutic shopping would be good: rob peter (in this case, the creditor financing the Z) to pay paul (whoever we bought some baby hardware from). Kate and I agreed that the bouncy cockpit would be necessary, since she was almost too big for the bouncy lounge, and we both want her to exercise her legs before walking. So we went to several different stores, did our price comparisons, and came up with what we both agreed was a spectacular bargain: 33 bucks for what's definitely not the fanciest seat we saw, but a useful piece of plastic to tease her through the 4 or 5 months before she starts walking.
Like parents before Christmas, we spent the rest of the afternoon, which included our Starbucks date, anticipating our daughter's reaction to her new toy. And her reaction? You can see it in the pictures:
There's no feeling of success quite like pleasing a child.
Granted, the baby girl (I've got my nickname for her: Rocky, because she often sleeps with her arms raised over her head as if in triumph) can't quite hold herself up straight for very long, so Kate stuffed a towel around her in the cockpit seat to keep her sort of erect. And she still wound up slumping forward after about ten minutes or so. But Eva was very interested in a few of the doodads on the console. And she only discovered one or two of the doodads...so I think this little device has got some future to it with this little girl.
In short, as the Japanese would say, Hoomurun!
So anyway, that was our afternoon: dirt-cheap, bargain-basement therapeutic shopping for our baby. And then a big slurping cup of coffee, while I dug into some of the fluid dynamics I'm dying to start learning again. And then home for dinner (homemade Hawaiian pizza! Awright) and a movie, Apocalypto.
I'm no Mel Gibson fan. I don't respect militant fundamentalists, of any religion. But the man put together a spectacular, compelling film. It was Kate's recommendation, and I wasn't sure I wanted to sit through something so heavy on a Sunday night, but I'm glad we did. The film was visceral, sleek and visually captivating all at the same time. Subtle, no. Enthralling, yes.
Okay, this post is pretty much a box of popcorn, each piece a different flavor. (Probably not the best analogy since I hate popcorn.) I had no overarching vision for the post when I sat down, and this is the kind of thing I wind up with when I do that. (Somewhat like at school--on two occasions, I've had professors hand papers back to me and say, "I had no idea what grade to give this. You made some interesting points, but what was it about?" Suffice it to say, I wasn't really enthusiastic about either of those classes.) Anyhow, this is a mishmash post. Too big and rambling to be any one thing.
So I'll close with a typical complaint of men whose homes have been invaded by a female: she's changing everything around. I started it, by clearing out my storage locker (to save the monthly fee), and setting us into a round of clearing out and reorganizing closets. Now, also since I got booted from my former office to make room for the nursery, Kate's finishing the job. The downstairs living/dining room, now become living room/dining room/office, doesn't resemble its former self. While I'm at work, she craftily moves furniture around. So this is what we have now (and there's still a lot of clutter, because not all of the storage locker stuff has been stowed away...and there are a few spare boxes lying around too):
I'll admit, Kate's good at it, and I don't mind the changes...but one man's pad, this place ain't no more. For good.
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