It's a BOY!

By the way, did I mention I'm pregnant! I'll be 19 weeks tomorrow, and one week shy of being half way to term! Kind of unbelievable how fast time flies! Of course this time around I'm working full time and when I come home in the afternoons I try to get in as much quality time with Eva as possible (with Michael too of course, but much of our quality time now is spent sharing quality with Eva). Strangely enough though having less time idle has given me more time to worry about all the possible complications that could potentially happen. The excitement of having a boy this time around kind of ups the ante too. The prospect of welcoming a new life, male or female is thrilling in and of itself, however after already having gone through the experience of having a baby girl, the whole "new and different" aspect of raising a little boy has both Mike and I kind of on the edge of our seats!

I suppose now you all might be too! ... Although many of you already knew I was pregnant, because the very day I found out I blabbed it to just about everyone in our immediate families. It was Christmas day, and my mom and step-father were here visiting. Mike and I had started "trying" again in early December (since I nursed Eva until mid October) so I stocked up on pregnancy tests a couple weeks later. By Christmas day I was down to my last test out of three, (the first two were negative of course because I took them much too early) and with it being Christmas day and all I fantasized about what a wonderful gift it would be to find out that day! The digital stick promptly read "pregnant" and a second later I was announcing it to Michael, my mother and step-father (and Eva)! I followed the announcement by insisting we keep a secret at least until it was doctor confirmed, but then my sister called to say Merry Christmas, and it just popped out of my mouth! - And then I just couldn't stop!

It didn't occur to me at the time, but now I'm sure the reason I couldn't hold it in, even for a minute, was because when I got pregnant for the first time it was a surprise even to myself. Although I couldn't have been happier, there was a bit of uncertainty surrounding the issue. I was slightly nervous to tell Michael (but he quickly alleviated every once of that within moments of my telling him), I very a bit more nervous to tell our families, and wracked with fear to tell my grandmother, with whom I was living with at the time. It took me a month to muster up the courage to tell her, but when I finally did she offered her blessing just as happily as everyone else! This time around, our situation, being married, and already having a child, seems to

automatically lend itself to celebration! So with no fear of judgements being passed this time, any hesitation to announcing my pregnancy was tossed to the wind!

I'm not going to get into it here, as my husband might on one of his infamous diatribes, but I will suggest to you all to watch Kill Bill II if not for the genius of the film alone, but for the wonderfully hysterical scene where Betrix first discovers she's pregnant while on an assassination mission.

There a beautifully awkward, yet honest exchange between her and another female assassin just after she realizes what it means if the strip turns blue. Needless to say the other woman lets Betrix and her unborn child live, and ends the scene as any typical woman would after finding out such news! Trust me, it will leave you with a smile, if no other scene does!

Returning to our story though, the pregnancy was indeed confirmed a week or so late

r and we've been anxiously anticipating "the" ultrasound to find out just who exactly is in there.

The day finally arrived last week and we were both happy to find out that the new little life we created is a boy! Had michael not been holding Eva when the ultrasound tech informed us, I do believe he would have jumped clear through the ceiling! Having some more testosterone in the house will be an adjustment for me, as 90% of my family consists of estrogen! Eva has made it quite clear in the past several months that she is die hard daddy's girl, so I am deeply hoping this little guy will turn out to be a mama's boy! It will be fascinating to watch Eva interact with her new little brother too of course, and how she deals with no longer being the baby, and to see if all that we've taught her on how to be gentle with the kitty will transfer to how she is with him. Mostly though I can't wait to have another infant in the house, and ALL that, that entails!

It will be another 21 weeks before we get to welcome him into the world, mean while he's movin' and a groovin' in his cozy home inside my belly, and I'm enjoying that quite a bit! The actuality of being a mother and raising a child is wonderful, but all that leads up to that is just as amazing if not more so! Creating life, carrying life, and bring it into the world is, to me, by far the most spiritual experience there is. I struggle to find adequate words to describe how pregnancy, labor and delivery make me feel, the closest I can come is; Fulfillment. I adore being the vessel with which to bear life, and could do it a hundred times if I had the opportunity! In fact the the idea of being a surrogate has crossed my mind on several occasions, and if my body allows might one day seriously consider it.

For now though, I'm enjoying OUR little boy and planning for his arrival in early September!

Courage

It's nearly 2 PM now, creeping toward the time when Eva wakes up, and is either surly and groggy for an hour, or is bright, chirpy and running all around. In either case, especially since it's raining intermittently, it spells the end of my quiet reading/writing period of the day. (I resume somewhat when Kate comes home for the evening, but only for a little while.)

I mentioned in the last blog that I'm back to reading history of the American oil industry, which is fascinating in so many respects, including that it forms the unseen skeleton of the general histories of this country you might read: our population explosion, our expansion across the continent, the rise of our industrial and military might. Oil is the only reason we've become militarily involved in places like Iraq and Libya (agree or disagree with the interventions as you will).

But I think oil could really serve as the exemplar American industry, exactly how Herman Melville thought whaling was in the mid-1800's. He published Moby Dick in 1851, only 10 years before the first successful oil well was drilled, in Titusville, PA by "Colonel" Drake. Melville's choice of the characteristic American industry--whaling--was eclipsed within two decades by oil. Still, his choice for a symbol--the white whale--of the nemesis each person carries within works much better than The Great White Oil. Or whatever color you'd want to make it. The whale's a living thing and just makes a better symbol.

Of course, that's all nonsense. The point of this blurb was altogether different: courage. See, between 2001-2008, I wasted a lot of time watching cartoons. During study breaks, after the day's work, whatever. I pretty much knew the Cartoon Network's whole lineup, and the (few, honestly) shows that I liked. One of these was Courage the Cowardly Dog, about this little pink dog named Courage, who's afraid of everything.

He has bad teeth and somehat mangy fur and his main abilities are: (1) pulling all kinds of equipment and costumes out of his butt when he needs them in an emergency; (2) screaming; and (3) doing absolutely anything for the love of Muriel, the kindly old woman who takes care of him. (Muriel's husband Eustace hates the dog, of course, the source of much of the cartoon's humor.)

Muriel is a sound sleeper. Her snores shake the timbers of the house. In one episode, an insomniac Sandman snatches Muriel's ability to sleep, so that he can get some rest, and leaving poor Muriel without a moment's bit of slumber for weeks. (Of course, it's up to Courage to get it back.)

That puts me in mind of another reference to sleep I enjoy, from one of my favorite action novels: The Three Musketeers (worth a post of its own, but in essence: D'Artagnan is not the true hero of that story. Who is?). A few of my favorite quotes come from that book, especially:

-Wine makes a man either happy or sad. It makes me sad...

(Athos, drunk, beginning to tell the story of his past to D'Artagnan in the basement of an inn)

In this case, the passage I have in mind isn't so much a full quote, as just the use of what I'm sure must have already been a cliche in Dumas' time. On D'Artagnan's first full day in Paris, having rented a room and having no money for food, he lay down on the floor and "slept the sleep of the brave." That phrase was new to me, and it grabbed my attention hard. That the quality of sleep could describe a person...well, of course. Those with sound consciences, masters of their fear, sleep well.

So I look at Jasper on the couch next to me, and think, Damn, if I could sleep like that, I'd be twice the man I am awake.

Captains and Kings

Real quickie post here. Kate and I have Netflix, and our latest disc was the first two parts of her favorite miniseries (one she watched while I was in the Gulf last summer), Captains and Kings. (I guess it was a bestseller book before it was made into a miniseries, but since I ignore bestseller lists, I might never had heard of it otherwise.) It's about this Irish immigrant Joseph Armagh, who so far is an amalgam of Joe Kennedy and John D. Rockefeller. I'll pick up other historical references as they're tossed into the mix. So the guy becomes rich and powerful and goes through all kinds of family tribulations and betrayals, same old thing.

The movie so far is better than I expected, though Kate and I were pretty much laughing at the first bedroom scene between Armagh and his then-lover Martinique. The actress playing Martinique is pretty creepy and not all that attractive, with heavy black curls and one eyelid that droops a little lower than the other. She's supposed to be some darkly passionate enigma with a murky past but she comes off kind of like a bat. And their bedroom scene could have been lifted from an old-school horror film, with foreboding music, rain pelting the windowpanes, and frequent lightning and thunder. Makes you think Martinique will have some sort of unfortunate influence on things down the road (think Roy Hobbs), but I confess to not caring.

I'm more into the historical references to the oil industry and the war (like I didn't care about the white whale allegory in Moby Dick--I have no idea what the whale stood for. I was into the portrayal of whaling). Anyhow, from the reading I've done (not all that much, sort of dilettante-level), Captains and Kings is pretty accurate about the oil industry and the war, including the reference to Standard Oil's system of rebates and penalties with the oil-shipping railroad companies.

So my point? Just this: the movie makes me think of one of my favorite U2 songs, Silver and Gold (which never made it onto one of their regular albums, at least in its studio version--I think it was part of some benefit CD). I love the low pitch and echo of the guitar, and I love the images in the lyrics (albeit images of oppression, but they're evocative). The lines which come to mind:

Captains and kings

In the ship's hold

They came to collect

Silver and gold.

I love that song, and the line. I suppose Bono had read this book, seeing as how he's Irish and all. Just a neat little connection. Maybe he'd never heard of the book at all and then got slapped with a copyright infringement suit after the song hit the airwaves. Dunno...but it's fun to think that he had the story in mind.

Sheen's Giant Bomb of Suck

Gorgeous early spring day here, topping out around 60 degrees, though quite windy at the park. We went there this morning (getting out of the house by 11:15 AM on a weekend counts as a victory of warlockian proportions for us). After about 15 minutes at Wilson Park--one of Kate's happy places, and Eva is quickly taking after her--my hands were cold, and I was quietly looking for excuses to leave. It didn't help that I was looking wistfully around at the play area itself--a small section of the park as a whole--and the people in it.

Wilson Park is the center of children's, and even adults', outdoor sports in North Kingstown. There are four tennis courts, three or four baseball/softball diamonds, and room for up to five soccer/lacrosse fields. (It was a tykes' lacrosse game there last spring which gave Kate and me the lacrosse bug...yeah, we've really followed up on that.) In addition to the athletic playing fields is a giant sandlot with several climbing jungle-gyms and a few swingsets. It's becoming Eva's little empire, since she's not used to sand.

The ground around our home is pretty hard-packed, with well-established grass, and a few thickets of trees or else hedges, and of course the paved driveways and road. There's no sand, and very little diggable dirt to speak of. So sand is still a new thing to the little girl, and she hugely enjoys just picking it up in her hands and throwing it into the air. She was doing that today, and tackling a few of the jungle gyms, as I surveyed the park and the many families, not unlike the three of us, taking the sunny spring morning outdoors as well, and wondering how long any of this will exist.

Of course we all have fits of thought driven by surges of emotion, which come and go like waves up and down a seashore. Still, I consider how the ultra-rich are doing their very best, out of sight, to terminate democracy and gather all available wealth to themselves, and I wonder for how much longer towns like North Kingstown will be able to provide even simple things like parks for the general public. An irrational thought, you might say, a weak theory of conspiracy baked too long until it's hardened into a cinder. But I read about the state-by-state lobbying groups funded by the likes of Charles and David Koch, at the state level pushing savage policies attacking the working class, such as the abolition of collective bargaining rights for public employees, and in Maine, even the abolition of child labor laws. It's hard not to read this news and feel the kind of foreboding which makes it difficult to keep food down.

And there's the case of Fox News, run by another billionaire, Rupert Murdoch, and wholly dominated by his persona and outlook (as well as that of his hand-picked deputy Roger Ailes). Fox News, including every one of its news and opinion hosts, has a slender allegiance--at best--to the facts, and often an outright antipathy, as the network as a whole acts to forward a libertarian viewpoint often blurring with anarchy. (Bill O'Reilly proudly touts his belief that the moon has nothing to do with tides. It's worth wondering, if you watch O'Reilly or any other Fox host, how rudeness, insult and the display of willful ignorance have come to be so prominent in major American media.) In short, Fox News is not legitimate news. But in the words of the immortal Sheen, at the moment they seem to be on the side that's winning.

That is as far as I'll go into social and political issues now, as this is a family blog. But a deep and growing fear for the future of my country is very much a part of my thinking these days, and it's not something I can altogether avoid when I write. I believe in some collective sacrifice on the part of every individual for the sake of a community, whether on the local level, or for states, or for our country, or above all the whole planet. Paying a fair amount of taxes and doing perhaps some physical service for the community are certainly part. The further we turn to an attitude of securing only our own benefit, the more we destroy this nation we grew up in and are protected by.

So these thoughts, and fingers turning white in the chilly breeze, had me wanting to leave the park well before Eva did. Sometimes I'm the crump in the family, the one who backs out of a thing because I'm not feeling up to it. I don't even have the perfectly good reason, like Kate, of being pregnant to just check out of commission for a day. With me, the trouble is usually in my head. My body just follows along.

Except for yesterday, when I did a bit of work for Kate's boss Cheryl, spring cleanup of their yard. Cheryl and her husband have a very nice log cabin--a genuine log structure, not a frame house with log-looking siding--on a small pond. (The small pond has the look to me of a kettle hole, a big hole in the land left by a melting chunk of ice as the glaciers melted back. If the glacier had been floating on the ocean, like Arctic ice, such melting chunks would have become icebergs. Over land, they fall onto the ground, rivers of meltwater pile sand and gravel all around them, and they gradually melt to leave huge holes where the ice had been--kettle holes.)

So Cheryl and her husband live on the shore of a kettle hole, surrounded by oak trees. And with all the terraces and retaining walls around their place, there are plenty of spots where the wind eddies around and drops oak leaves. It seems the oak leaves from half the pond's shoreline end up in Cheryl's yard. Eight inches thick in places, wet and starting to mulch. I can tell you, raking, pitchforking and then hauling these things away in a tarp was a tougher full-body workout than anything I'd done at the Y in the last two years. I practically had to drag myself back to the car when I finished (for the day--I'm going back next Saturday), with sore quads and hamstrings, sore hips, extremely sore shoulders, and wanting to go to sleep. This was the kind of whole-body fatigue and soreness that makes it painful to roll over in bed.

So this morning, the blahs were probably 65% in my mind, but still a good 35% was post-strain soreness still, and wanting just to flop down in a comfortable chair, dig into a good book, and start thinking about something. Standing in a park with the wind whistling through my fingers just got me onto a mean path of thought that took me to the bleak place I described just above. This morning, I suppose my body led my mind.

As for the reading, I'm back into the history of the petroleum industry. I'm taking a break for a bit from philosophy and the whatever-it-is you'd call Finnegans Wake. If reading Kant is like using a pickaxe to get through a bed of coal, reading the Wake is like blasting through granite, and reading some history is like digging in sand. Compared to the first two, it's practically a vacation. Besides, it has me thinking about yet another writing project (beyond the Deepwater Horizon project) that I'd like to embark on.

Meanwhile, on the way to the park this morning, we listened to a bit of sports radio. Kate and I have the rough policy that the driver picks the radio station--common sense enough, though when the family travels together I usually drive, so that means I dominate the radio.

I adore sports talk. I fell in love with it in the fall of 2005, when I was living in North Kingstown and taking classes up at Harvard, and I would drive up and back once a week, and for the two-hour trip started listening to those guys yelling and screaming about local teams all day. Only, by and large, listening to the noonday and afternoon hosts, I found them to be pretty reasonable guys, by and large, though certainly pushing certain issues which would get a response out of listeners (such as critizing an underperforming player or team).

The real trick of a successful host is to successfully manage the callers, who range from very knowledgeable to idiots oblivious to the facts. Entertaining shows draw many callers, and of course a slew of regulars who don't mind spending an hour a day on hold just to talk on the radio for 30 to 120 seconds. (I confess to having called in five or six times, once to advocate that the Sox sign Barry Bonds to a one-year contract. If the Red Sox, after 2004, were viewed as the Evil Empire Lite, well, why not eliminate the "Lite" part? Anyway.)

So I like sports talk radio. We listened this morning for about half the trip out to the park, before I changed the station to one of the pop-dance stations that Katie likes and I despise so much (she says sports radio puts her to sleep, so I try to listen to it at the start of our trips to and from Maine). The weekend shows tend to be pretty dull, I admit, since the top-line hosts have the days off, and the majority of games are in progress. So this morning the guys were talking about Charlie Sheen.

I'm not exactly a pop culture maven. I grew up on pop and rock music, checked out of rap, and have been more or less unaware of new groups and performers since 1995. (I think U2 is a modern Rolling Stones--great lead singer, good lead guitarist, plus two guys--and I believe that Led Zeppelin might never be approached for musicality, once they narrowly edged the Beatles in that category.)

I resolutely ignore reality TV, since it's more contrived than anything, and I have a visceral dislike for people intentionally making fools of themselves for the sake of attention. (Physical comedy is something else--that requires talent. But people being petulant, violent jerks to one another is simply demeaning, to everyone who participates and watches. Kate watches BrideZillas, and it makes me wish I had an office in another room.)

My reality TV is live sports. Here you've got guys--or women, when I watch skiing or skating--who are among the very best on the planet at what they do, honestly competing. (Okay, some dog it from time to time, and sometimes the refs are questionable, but that still doesn't approach the all-around voyeuristic worthlessness of reality TV.)

I avoid sitcoms for much the same reason--dullwitted characters, with uninspired writing, foundering their way through contrived plots. Though I do watch cartoons, including (occasionally) Dragonball Z. Any watcher of reality TV or sitcoms might want to skewer me for that, but (a) the writing is often better, and (b) at least the ridiculous nature of the cartoons is obvious, not concealed.

I don't want to go into an even longer digression here, but there are two television shows (aside from live games) I do watch: House and Breaking Bad. All I'll say now is that, I'm proud to have introduced Kate to two of her favorite shows and characters: Metalocalypse (and Pickles), and Breaking Bad (and Walter White). She introduced me to House, and has compared me to him on numerous occasions. So every once in a while I play along and walk with a limp.

I've seen, total, maybe ten minutes of Two and a Half Men. It fits perfectly into the category of dullwitted sitcom I so despise. Charlie Sheen has been part of some pretty fun movies--Hot Shots! and Major League come to mind--but I had pretty much no reaction at all to his ongoing role on this show. Of course, it's impossible to navigate to a news website these days without idiotic Lilo-Britney-type gossip prominently getting in the way, so I've seen more than I ever cared to about Sheen's professional meltdown. (I suppose it's been accompanied by a personal meltdown of sorts, but who really knows?)

He got himself fired in spectacular fashion from a very successful TV show, while revealing a huge amount of disgust (concealing even more jealousy?) for the show's creator. During a round of interviews Charlie gave, he let loose with a series of almost inspired quotes, including drinking tiger blood (I hear he's trademarked it and has sold the name rights to a drink manufacturer--PETA will love that), and my favorite, riding the mercury surfboard. (Mercury is liquid at room temperature, though Bill O'Reilly might not be so sure--but in any case, who cares? The idea is too much fun.) Winning, the warlock thing and "defeat is not an option" are much less clever and much more mockable.

So Sheen torched his present job (though there's a small possibility he might have it back next fall), and then arranged a 20-city tour of his new one-man (and two-goddess) tour, the "Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not an Option" tour. He might have called it the "Huge Bomb of Suck/Defeat is Highly Likely" tour. The first show occurred last night (April 2), in Detroit, Michigan. Why not on April Fools Day?

Apparently Charlie rambled pointlessly, the audience booed frequently and Sheen at many points derisively mocked those who heckled him, including with the taunt that they'd already given their money to him. Too bad, because he could've really turned this tour into something. Apparently Sheen wrote the whole thing, if you can call it that. That was his first mistake. Furthermore, he goes over the events of his divorce from CBS and subsequent talk-show rampage. That was his second.

I say, Sheen should've hired five or ten good comedy writers to put together a series of vignettes, of comic one- or two-person scenes illustrating various ideas, or really not related to anything at all. The whole show could've had a general thrust in the direction of life as a star, or some of the reality of putting together a weekly show, or something actually new to the audience. You know, something vaguely educational, a comic show about a slice of experience unknown to the people attending.

Rule #1: don't even mention Two and a Half Men, or anyone associated, or CBS, by name. Let any reference be implicit. Rule #2: have a planned, rehearsed series of one-man character vignettes (Sheen could play two guys at once, like one-man-show actors frequently do) that he's rehearsed and knows cold. I think Sheen has the charisma and acting ability to hold a stage for 90 minutes by himself. If he'd followed those two rules, I think this tour might have turned into something pretty successful. As it is, it's likely to end before he wanted it to. I don't see the theaters in cities #10-20 hanging onto such a lame no-show. (Apparently those extremely quick sellouts weren't people going...they were scalpers and secondary ticket agencies, who are now losing lots of money because they can only sell the tickets at a loss.)

Tough luck, Chuck. At least Sarah Palin--another charismatic dope--has a few handlers who know what they're doing.