Kyle Garret's Blog, page 9

My Sedentary Life

sed-en-dar-yadjective 1. (of a person) tending to spend much time seated; somewhat inactive.2. (of work or a way of life) characterized by much sitting and little physical exercise.3. (of a position) sitting; seated.antonyms: active
Over the last 20 years of my life, I've managed to cultivate a reputation for being outdoors-averse. It's become something of a running joke, one that I go along with. And, honestly, it's based in the truth: I don't do any outdoor activities. I have a bike in my garage that I've only managed to ride a handful of times that will attest to this.
People think that I dislike the outdoors as a rule, but that's not true. Honest to god, I wish I was more outdoor-sy.  I see people who are and I'm jealous. They have a freedom that I've never known. They're also (generally) physically fit and have more energy. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like had I been born and raised in a beach town.
Well known (for many reasons) writer/director/producer/promoter Keven Smith was born and raised in New Jersey. It was big news among his fans when he decided to move to Southern California. He said there were many reasons for the move, but the biggest was his daughter. Her doctor had already warned her parents that she had been born with Smith's genes aka she could become overweight, perhaps even morbidly so.
So Smith made the decision to move his daughter somewhere that doesn't have winters that last 4 months.
I don't live in a place that has 4 month winters and I really can't blame the Ohio winters for my lack of outdoors-iness.  I know a lot of people who still manage to enjoy going outside when it's freezing cold.  No, my indoor tendencies come down to two main issues: time and comfort.
I'm particular about how I spend my time.  Part of that is because I have a full time job, a second job writing, a house that needs work, and a wife that Ilike to spend time with.  Any free time beyond that isspent doing things that I absolutely love.  I have to prioritize.  Number one that list is reading, which is most easily done inside.  Number two on that list, listening to music, goes along with it.  And while I know you can listen to music outside, it's much easier inside.
Influencing all that is my comfort level.  I'm a fairly uncomfortable person.  That's ultimately a result of a) my various health concerns and b) my various anxieties.  I don't like to leave my comfort zone, but I don't mean that in a psychological sense.  I mean that I have a bag full of drugs that I take with me wherever I go, just in case.  It's hard to enjoy the great outdoors when you're constantly worried about your body.
Ultimately, I don't enjoy any outdoor activities enough to overcome those two issues.  But that doesn't mean I won't.
Riding bikes with my kid is a completely different activity than riding my bike alone.  Spending that kind of time with my son -- who would enjoy himself -- would trump my issues.  Playing soccer or throwing the baseball around with him moves ahead of pretty much everything else on my list.
But, for most of my life, the things that bring me the most happiness have been things that happen indoors.  And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Fruitful: Kid Colored Glasses

At first, looking at the world through "kid colored glasses" involved me doing things and then wondering if I'd still be able to do whatever it is I was doing after I had a kid.  "Will I still be able to do this after the Appleseed is born?"  It's a pretty major issue for first time parents, I would think.

But as time went on, I realized that a) There really aren't that many things that I do now that I won't be able to do after our son is born and b) that's not really the issue, anyway.  As is often the case when making adjustments, I was thinking about things in terms of myself, when I shouldn't/can't.  Don't get me wrong, I realize that having a kid is going to impact my life a great deal, but if I'm going to look at my life through the lens of a parent, it's less about what I'm able to do and more about what I'm doing for my kid.

In other words, I started to wonder: How will what I'm doing affect my kid?

Really, my behavior changing or not changing is ultimately not important, because my behavior is no longer just my behavior.  Kids learn by watching their parents.  I know this much from having been a kid.  So I can't help but wonder what our kid is going to learn by watching me.

That's not to say that I do anything questionable, although it's entirely possible that our kid might grow up thinking I have a drinking problem (then again, I would imagine the amount of whiskey I have the time to consume after the Appleseed gets here is going to drop considerably).

What about the TV shows I watch?  How completely irresponsible I am with money?  How physically fragile I am?  Is this kid going to be a social misfit because his parents are either talking in some strange cutesy language or swearing like sailors?

I've never been an example for someone before.

My friend Anne has a younger brother, Greg.  Anne and I have been friends for (good god) 21 years.  My
friends Matt, Rob, Tony, and I spent a lot of time hanging out at Anne's house.  Anne told us one time that Greg had lit something on fire -- I'm not even sure what it was, or how old Greg was at the time.  I just know he was at least five years younger than me.  He might even be ten years younger, which is just killing me to write.

Anyway, the next time we were at Anne's house, we gave him a little bit of grief for his brief dalliance with pyromania.  We did it in a brotherly manner and Anne later told me that he was mad at her for telling us.  I'm not going to say he looked up to us, but he at least cared what we thought of him.  I would imagine these days he'd acknowledge how crazy that was.

What's even crazier is that I was definitely doing shit that would have been really bad for Greg to know about.  Hell, Matt got arrested for lighting something on fire.

Thankfully, Greg only saw a certain side of me, at least until he was older and wiser.

But the Appleseed is going to see sides of me that perhaps I don't want him to see because he's going to be living with me.  And the idea of an impressionable mind being impressed upon by me is terrifying.

I'm sitting here on a Sunday night, typing away, sipping my Scotch, listening to Pearl Jam, wondering what my son will make of this behavior.

He'll probably think I'm old and weird.

Which, all things considered, isn't too bad.

Week 34!!

Fruitful: Kid Poor

When Nicole and I first bought our house, we heard the phrase "house poor" a lot.  That mostly had to do with all the things we needed to fix in the house, not to mention all the things we wanted to update.  One of our neighbors actually warned me not to end up "house poor."

The general concept behind being "house poor," as I understand it, is that you own a really nice house and that's it.  You are flat broke in all other respects, perhaps even underwater, but you have a beautiful home.

So far we've managed to avoid being "house poor," but I think we're on the verge of being "kid poor."

We're getting a lot of stuff from friends and family (in fact, this blog post is late because of a busy weekend that involved a baby shower where we received an unbelievable amount of gifts from our insanely kind family and friends).  It's incredible the amount of money we're not going to have to spend because of the things we're getting from everyone we know.  One of the upsides of waiting this long to reproduce is that everyone has already been through it and they're dying to get rid of stuff.  And the stuff we're not getting used it being given to us brand new by very generous family members.

We would be even more stressed out by the cost of having a kid if not for these gifts.  It would be impossible to overstate that.

But all of those items don't pay for day care, which is crazy expensive.  It's almost prohibitively expensive.  They say there are a lot of costs associated with having a child that you don't even realize and clearly I didn't realize day care would cost so much.  It is the single biggest expense, and will be for years to come.

I've heard the joke a few times now when I tell people we're having a kid: start saving for college now!  That seems to be a knee jerk response for some people.  But forget college, we're saving for day care now.  At least our kid could end up getting a scholarship for college.

The cost of day care is particularly brutal when you consider what you're paying for -- you're paying for
people to take care of your child for you.  There is no amount I'd be unwilling to pay to make sure my child got the best possible care, but the thought of leaving him with people who are not us just kills me.  This little guy isn't even here yet and we're already making plans to leave him with strangers!  How can that not break your heart?

My pipe dream has been, for a long, long time now, to get paid to write, which is something I could do from home.  Even if I made half of what I make now, we'd still break even because we wouldn't have to pay for day care.  Yes, that's right, day care is going to cost half my salary.

I feel like I should be able to make that happen.  I feel like I should be able to find a way to write for a living, for half of what I make now, not even that much of a living.  It's the kind of thing that would be amazing for everyone involved.  It's the kind of thing you work your whole life for.

Funny enough, the sticker shock of day care has made the idea of paying for the things our son needs in the future much easier to handle.  I feel like we're going to be able to provide him with everything he needs and then some once he starts going to school.  But, man, does that seem like a long ways off.

And that's assuming we don't have another one.

I really hope he gets a college scholarship.

Week 33!

Best Albums of 2013

This was a weird year for music for me.  I didn't listen to a lot of new releases.  Instead, I picked up a few things that had slipped by me over the last couple of years.  I also revisited a lot of music from my past, including a bunch of albums I bought on vinyl for the first time.  In other words, the list of albums I bought this past year that actually came out in 2013 is pretty short.

In the end, I bought a decent amount of music, but not enough stellar music for anything beyond a Top 3 list.  I know, I'm as shocked as you are.

Let's get this party started...

Honorable Mention

Pearl Jam -- "Lightning Bolt"

Pearl Jam certainly did a media blitz for this album, didn't they?  It's been years since I'd seen them on TV shows, online, possibly on the radio (which I never listen to).  And they had reason to get out there and celebrate, as "Lightning Bolt" marks their 10th full length album.

I enjoyed some of the songs on "Backspacer," but as a complete album it fell a little short.  "Lightning Bolt" feels like a more complete venture.  The opener "Getaway" is a great song, a classic grown-up Pearl Jam rock song ("grown-up" being anything after "Vitalogy").  And while "Mind Your Manners" and "Let the Record Play" sounds like PJ trying to be other bands, "Infallible" might be the most innovative song they've produced in some time and the title track rises and rises and make the perfect anthem for the album.


Top 3
3. Minor Alps -- "Get There"

Take Nada Surf at their most moody and atmospheric and you have (almost) this entire album.  Consisting of Matthew Caws from the aforementioned Nada Surf and Juliana Hatfield, Minor Alps' debut dark without being sad, peaceful but still conflicted.  There's a wonderful dichotomy at play on nearly every track, from the beautiful duel vocals in "Buried Plans," to the imagery in "I Don't Know What to Do With My Hands," to incredibly singable "Lonely Low."

I'd even go so far as to say this album feel like a concept album which, now that I think about it, is going to stick in my brain and force me to look into that.  The one seeming odd duck among these tracks is "Mixed Emotions," not unlike the way "Electioneering" felt kind of out of place on "OK Computer."

I'm sure a blog post is coming about this whole "concept album" thing.



2. Minus the Bear -- "Acoustics II"

"But Kyle," you say, "there are only two original songs on Acoustics II.  All the rest are just new versions of older Minus the Bear Songs."  To which I say to you, dear reader, that you are correct, and that it doesn't matter, because these new versions do amazing things with those older songs.

Yet again, Minus the Bear has released an album of acoustic tracks and made me appreciate songs from albums that I've long since dismissed.  "Planet of Ice" disappointed me a great deal, but the acoustic version of "Burying Luck" from the first "Acoustics" is one of my favorite Minus the Bear tracks.  With this release, it's a few of the songs from "Omni" that the band resurrects, namely "Summer Angel" and "Dayglo Vista Rd."  Both songs are fantastic and both are songs I'd given up on because I didn't care for their original versions.

"Riddles" and "The Storm" are the two original tracks and they're both wonderful, but the stand out has to be "Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse."  It's always been a favorite of mine, but it's taken to another level in this new form.


1. Queens of Stone Age -- "...Like Clockwork" 

The Queens of the Stone Age are, for me, one of those bands that I don't realize I missed until they release another album.  No one does dirty, gritty rock n' roll the way Queens does.  No one captures, in both music and vocals, both hating yourself and thinking you're a god the way Josh Homme does.

There aren't whole lot of barn burners on this album, but what that's fine, as we get plenty of amazing grooves with layered instrumentation.  Besides, straight ahead rock songs would be out of place on this album.  This record is a slow burn, meant to be imbibed as a whole, not piece by piece.  "If I Had a Tail" and "Smooth Sailing" are the album's best rock songs, but the slower numbers are every bit as good.  "The Vampyre of Time and Memory" sounds like it could have been written by Aimee Mann, which is a good things.  The title track is perfectly balanced, a sincere, 70's style ballad that is a perfect closer.

Honestly, listening to the album again as I write this, it's hard to pick just a few songs to talk about.  "Keep Your Eyes Peeled" is a slow, grinding song, with trademark guitar riffs that stop a bar short for effect.  "My God Is the Sun" is nearly upbeat, but it's core riff is covered in that Queens dirtiness.  From start to finish, this record is phenomenal.

And that's why it's my pick for best album of 2013.

Fruitful: Here We Go

Found here.Assuming everything works the way it's supposed to, this post should go up on the penultimate day of the year.  And while I'm often wistful even when the year isn't coming to an end, I'm perhaps more so as my last year without a dependent closes out.

I have a thing with numbers.  It stems from my synesthesia.  For those who don't know what synesthesia is, Wikipedia says it's "a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway."  There nine different ways this can manifest itself, and even variations in those nine ways.

I first noticed it with music.  Songs have colors to me.  I later read an article that issues with numbers is also a symptom, which is something I've dealt with for as long as I can remember.  Numbers are living things in my mind.  Some feel right, some feel wrong.  That's what it boils down to, really: how it feels.

Nicole and I were married in 2009, which was hard for me, because I wasn't a fan of that number.  I'd have preferred a year earlier, as 2008 felt better.  The remaining dates in our anniversary are great, though.

All of this is to say that 2013 never felt good to me.  Odd numbers can often be a problem, but just the combination of 0-3 in this way made me feel off.  But 2014, 2014 feels regal.  It's yellow, which is a little weird because I'm not a fan of yellow, but still, it could be worse.  Colors don't carry personalities for me, and it's numbers are okay in my book.

Yeah, see, all of that up above this line?  You thought I couldn't get any weirder, but I just did.

My entire life will change in 2014.  It's not every year that you can make such a statement with so much certainty.  This is the last year there won't be a little human being depending upon me.  Heck, this is probably the last time I stay up past midnight for a while (that's assuming my pregnant wife makes it that late).

Here's something that has occurred to me a lot lately: having a kid is a perfectly ordinary facet of life that completely changes a person's life.  There is this thing that happens all day, every day, and it impacts people
in ways that they can't even comprehend, and it just is.  This is just what happens.  It's what people do.  They have kids.  They (ideally) raise children.  Life moves forward.

I spend a great deal of my life putting myself in other people's shoes.  I spend a great deal of time sitting at this desk, imaging what it would be like to be someone else.  Even if I'm not writing in the first person, I still have to know my characters, I have to understand them.

I can write about children and parents all I want, but I only understand one side of that equation.  That's going to change, and it's going to change in 2014.

Honestly, I don't do much that would make this transition that difficult.  This isn't some romantic comedy where I have to change my partying ways to take care of a baby.  I don't even sleep that much as it is, so that adjustment, while bad, won't kill me.  I'm not in line for the big promotion at work, but lose out because I'm spending time taking care of my kid.  I don't suddenly realize that Nicole is the one for me because I realized that a long time ago.

But, still -- little person.  Dependent upon me and Nicole.  That's going to wrinkle my brain even after he's born.

So onward to 2014.  It should be a crazy year.

Week 32!!

Choice Cuts

Happy Holidays!

I know many of you have some down time from the daily grind this week.  I'm sure you have plenty of things to fill those free hours with, but if you're looking for some things to read (both online and off), here's some stuff I've done that I think is pretty good.

Blog Series
Every Monday, I post about my impending fatherhood in a series called "Fruitful."  They've been getting more and more traffic lately, so it seems like people like them.

I also worked through something of an existential crisis in a series called "What's Important."  It's probably not finished.  These got a lot of nice attention, too.

I recently re-watched the first five seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and decided to write reviews.  Season six has tested my resolve, but hopefully I'll finish off the series.


Comics
Way back when DC's New 52 launched, I wrote a piece for Comicsbulletin.com on DC's seeming decision to sex up their comics, particularly sexing up a character that was mostly known to a larger audience as a cartoon.

My explanation of why I think Batman is the greatest superhero has gotten more traffic than nearly anything else I've ever written.

I also came up with a simple timeline for Batman that allows for 5 Robins.  It makes way too much sense to ever really happen, though.

I also rattled off some quick comments of some great comics currently being published.  There were enough that I needed not one (superheroes), not two (horror and noir), but three (sci-fi) posts to do it.


Books
Most recently, I had a short story published in Best New Writing 2014.  That story is an indirect sequel to another short story of mine, which is available in two formats.

I wrote a book about my grandparents that was released in 2011 by Hellgate Press.  People seem to like it.

I have an essay in a big book of essays about the work of Joss Whedon, if you're into his stuff.

A short story I wrote appeared in an online literary magazine and has been republished a few times in physical collections.

I hope you'll check out a few of the links above.  Happy holidays and happy reading!

Fruitful: Holidays

The holidays are not a big deal to me.  They never have been.

I don't come from a particularly sentimental family.  No, scratch that, I don't come from a particularly outward sentimental family.  I currently live in a house full of things that Nicole has some emotional attachment to because of her family, but I would be hard pressed to find such things in my parents' house.

I'm not saying any of that as if it's bad.  I don't think it is, really.  I think there's something to be said for not forming borderline unhealthy attachments to inanimate objects.

Classic example of how my family operates: My mom once told me that she wouldn't be upset if Nicole and I stopped coming to Ohio (where they live) for Christmas.  The caveat was that we'd come some other time during the year.  In the end, seeing us trumped having to see us at a particularly time, a time when the weather is miserable and everyone in the country is traveling.

I really appreciate that about my family, but I suppose I would, given that it's my family.  All that mattered to my mom in the above scenario is that she got to see us.  The rest was all unnecessary details.

It is strange for me to be with Nicole's family during the holidays if for no other reason than I don't really understand the appeal.  They all really love Christmas (and Thanksgiving) and it just doesn't do much for me.  It's hard for me to really get into it.

And Nicole's family has a bunch of traditions that absolutely, positively have to be upheld every year.  There's no question about this.  It's like breathing.  There's no debate.  These traditions have to happen or...well, there is no "or," because it's not an option.

I find the rigidity of traditions frustrating as hell, but I've learned to adapt.

But next Christmas I'll have a son, a ten month old son, and I'm starting to get excited about creating our
Probably how my wife feels.own traditions.  Even better, next year will be the first time that Nicole and I will be hosting the Christmas Day festivities.

For me, this is a blank page.  My family has a few traditions, but nothing that I'm desperate to hold on to when creating a holiday celebration for my son.  Nicole's family has plenty of traditions, but I'm hoping those will be covered on Christmas Eve.  I'm hoping what we create will be brand new and specific just to us.

I think about things like getting to open a single present on Christmas Eve or a traditional Christmas Day breakfast, maybe cinnamon buns and hot chocolate (as if a little kid would need more sugar).  I think about setting up the tree with an enthusiastic kid to help.  I think about Christmas morning when it's just the three of us (and the cats), our little nuclear family getting to spend the day together.

And I get to be Santa Claus, people!  I mean, not really -- not like I'm going to dress up or anything, because our kid will be smart enough to see right through that.  But Nicole and I get to sit up late and put together toys while our son sleeps.  We get to sneak all the presents under the tree and experience that crazy euphoria that comes from a child who has just had a visit from Santa.

I can't wait for the holidays with my son.  I suppose this is a regular thing: suddenly enjoying things in life that were ordinary before, because now you have a child to experience them with.

It's going to be a whole new world.

Week 31!

Dragonlance

It was the summer of 1988.  I was in a bookstore in Anne Arbor, Michigan.  I was there for the national competition for the Future Problem Solvers of America.  It was exactly as nerdy as it sounds.

It should come as no surprise, then, that these are the three books I bought from that bookstore: The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien, and Dragonlance Chronicles Book 1: Dragons of Autumn Twilight and Dragonlance Chronicles Book 2: Dragons of Winter Night, both by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman.

I never cracked the Silmarillion, mostly because at that point I hadn't read the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings, so it was all Greek to me.  But I read the two Dragonlance books.  Oh, how I read those two Dragonlance books.

In some ways, the original Dragonlance trilogy was a Lord of the Rings for a new generation.  It was epic storytelling in a fantasy setting.  They had a type of character for everyone, from the stiff, honor bound Knight, to the half-elf who walked the line between good and evil, to the serene priestess of a new religion.  They covered all the bases in Dragonlance.  They also made dragons scary again. 

When I returned from the trip, I begged my parents to take me to Walden's (how's that for dating myself) so I could get the third book in the trilogy.  I read it in a single day.  I can't remember the last time I did that.  Heck, I simply have too many responsibilities these days to read for an entire day.

The Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy debuted in 1984, which meant I was 4 years behind, which meant there were four years worth of books to catch up on.  I quickly devoured the Legends trilogy, the first Tales trilogy, and moved on to the Heroes trilogy.

My book buying habits were sporadic at best.  I was dependent upon a) trips to the bookstore with my parents and b) how much money I had (which was usually not much as I was horrible at saving).  I think the
first book I actually managed to buy relatively close to its release date was Dragonlance Preludes Book II: Kendermore.

At that point, I started becoming particular about which Dragonlance books I bought, which seemed to coincidence with TSR releasing more and more of them.  I skipped the Elven Nations trilogy all together, but bought the six books in the Meetings series -- how could I not?  They were about the characters from the Chronicles, after all, which is mostly what I cared about.

Dragonlance's expansion was problematic for me because I only cared about those main characters.  The additional books ultimately pushed me away, pushed me towards the Forgotten Realms universe of books, because those were upfront about being self-contained.  They weren't predicated on an initial series from which the rest of the universe expanded.

Thinking about it now, I don't know if I ever even finished reading the Meetings sextet.  Looking at the list of Forgotten Realms books released by year, I think I stopped reading much fantasy fiction after 1992, at least from TSR (I kept reading fantasy fiction until college, at which point I more or less stopped reading anything other than comics for pleasure).

A few years ago, I started tracking down copies of all the trade paperbacks I'd gotten rid of.  Specifically, I started buying up copies of those Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books, the vast majority of which are out of print, but can be bought used for cheap.  I bought them and I devoured them and it was fantastic.

Now that I've joined the world of eReaders, I'm buying up digital copies.  I have a library of fantasy fiction and it's wonderful.  I'm not able to read as much as often as I'd like, but whenever I get the chance, I'm overwhelmed.

It strikes me that, in many ways, fantasy fiction is one of the last remaining fortresses of nerdiness that hasn't been accepted by popular culture.  Those playing D&D are still regularly mocked.  Someone who, say, blogs about Dragonlance, is opening themselves up to ridicule.

And I actually kind of enjoy that.

Dragonlance isn't responsible for me being a nerd, but it certainly helped.

Fruitful: The Appleseed

We have yet to start referring to the child that Nicole is carrying by his name.  Part of that is because, while we've narrowed the list about as far as it can possibly be narrowed down, we want to give ourselves time to make that decision.  There's also the simple fact that by not referring to him by a theoretical name, we're not letting that name out into the ether, so it can't be ruined for us.

And, you know, to a certain extent it prevents this all from seeming too real.

In public, I've started referring to our unborn child as "the boy."  This seems to be fairly well accepted by people.  I would imagine it's a common way to refer to a son.

But Nicole and I have a different name for him.  We call him The Appleseed.

Every week, Nicole gets these automated e-mails from a couple of different pregnancy web sites.  The e-mails give general information about whichever week you're on, so for, say, week 20, they tell you exactly what you should expect for week 20, where your baby is at in development, that kind of thing.  One of these web sites always says how big the baby is, and uses some kind of fruit or vegetable as comparison.

At one point, very early on, the aforementioned e-mail said that our baby was the size of an apple seed.  For whatever reason, that was the description that stuck.  I started referring to him as The Appleseed.  Then Nicole started doing the same.  And now it's more or less the only thing we call him.

He's quite a bit bigger than an apple seed now, but that hasn't stopped us.

He'd already been an apple seed by the time we made Nicole's pregnancy public.  At the time, I debated
whether I should refer to him as The Appleseed in public, and ultimately decided not to.  It was our name.  It's what Nicole and I called him.  It was for us, not for anyone else.

So why am I talking about it now?

I'm not entirely sure.  Part of it, I think, is that the closer we get, the more I want to share.  Because I think it's adorable that we call him The Appleseed.  I think it's adorable and I think it's loving and I think people should share such things.

Also, there's a reasonable possibility that, once he's born, I will start a new series of blogs about being a father, and I've learned that if you're going to blog about your kids, you should give them an alias.  And, well, he already has one.

He's already a superhero.

Week 30!!

Fruitful: Don't F This Up

As I sat in the Best Chairs Tryp Recliner Glider at Buy Buy Baby, waiting for Nicole to finish comparing mattresses, I started to worry about fucking this whole thing up.

Did you know you can't put blankets in a crib with a baby?  I learned that a few months ago.  That is basic information and I lacked it until months after Nicole was already pregnant.

It's terrifying.

I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I will spend those first few days at home just sitting in whatever room our son is in, listening and watching him (hopefully) sleep.  I will be on alert, or as on alert as my sleep deprivation will allow.  I am going to be that parent.  I am going to play through nightmare scenarios in my head and I'm going to prepare for them.  I'm going to count out the rhythm of his breathing.

I know I will do these things, and I know I will do them in addition to all the other crazy things that I have to do, the crazy things that are actually real, the crazy things I don't even know about yet.

Babies cry.  They cry when they want something, they cry when they don't, they cry because crying is a thing that babies do.  They cry because they can't tell you what is going on, so you have try to fix everything that could possibly be wrong and hope that it doesn't take an hour to finally hit on it.

I worry.  I worry about my son's safety and his health and I worry about my ability to take care of him because it seems overwhelming.  I think about the fact that people have been doing this for centuries and that it will be okay, but then I worry because I don't want it to just be okay, I want it to be great.

I worry that Nicole is going to have some supernatural, earth mother power to take care of our son and I will
Found HEREfail to hold up my end, because I'm a dude who hasn't carried this kid for nine months so I don't have the preternatural connection.  I worry that I will get up in the middle of the night to comfort him and he'll have none of it, and he'll scream his little head off until mom crawls out of bed and rocks him to sleep.  I worry that Nicole will have to carry the bulk of the burden.

I know that I probably won't make any major mistakes.  I know that there are people in this world even less qualified than me having kids.  I know that I will get a never ending stream of advice -- both good and bad -- from an incredible group of family and friends.  I know that I have a partner who will always have my back, and who will always help me do my best.

But I'm still worried about fucking this up.

Because I can't.  Because it is the single most important thing that I will ever do.  Because this matters.

And, in the end, that's exactly why I don't think I will fuck this up.

But I still worry.

Week 29!!