Fatherhood.

Ella was sick, so we stayed home yesterday. Since I hate stories of this nature I'll give the six word recap:
No poop
six days
then disaster
Outside of that, fatherhood has been a dream. We couldn't ask for a happier baby. She basically smiles, giggles and sleeps all day. Basically she's a living teddy bear.
Congrats to all the parents out there.

I hate thank you notes...

There is something about writing them that I just dread. It's a socially awkward thing for me to do, so I try to avoid it all costs. Because of this odd compulsion, I remember just about every note I ever wrote, and every note I never got around to. People have given me nice stuff that I never thanked them for. I've gotten money, watches, jewelry, nice clothes, etc. and had the social ignorance/ weirdness not to thank people. I also remember one person in particular that I remembered to thank. About three years ago, I sent Senator Kennedy a thank you note for all he was doing for my family. I watched him a few times on C-Span, and he always picks the battles I would dream of picking. I am more than a little sad that he has finally been silenced. At least I remembered to write him a thank you note.

Hopefully, I'll have an Elanerd.

Just in case, I'm going to start buying space ships. Perhaps a giant mobile made up of famous movie starship. Vaders fighter, The Enterprise, maybe some old NASA stuff. Throw in some transformers like Starscream and I think I may create some high nerd art.

Being sucked in...

I don't want to join a social networking site, but I can feel myself being sucked in. Sometimes, I feel like playing a word game. I am truly interested in finding out what happened to some people. I blame it on watching Stand By Me. The final five minutes of him writing about the friends from second grade being the best friends of his life got me nostalgic. Now I really am curious about the people what sat around me in lunch that year. Of course, I think my favorite thing about school that year was ketchup.

I also want to see more baby pictures, oddly enough. My niece is pretty mobile now, and probably getting into everything, and I could see more of it on facebook. This month, I;m making a resolution to give facebook a go. We also got pictures of Lila from Jersey who is now mobile, and I can't wait to read a haggard figs' updates.

On a completely related nostalgia subject, I sat down to watch Stand By Me, but I ended up sitting through The Evil Dead II. It's classic Bruce Campbell in a classic Grotesque. Things that I remembered: a shotgun, a chain-saw, buckets of red syrup, Bruce Campbell enjoying soap opera lines, plenty of three stooges humor. Something I forgot, an extended corpse dancing scene, I fast forwarded through most of the dance macabre. THe overall movie was as good as I remembered, even better.

World's last man...

not on facebook. I like having this little corner office in the world. Out of curiosity, I randomly flipped through some profiles, I think I could get through my entire high school in three degrees of facebook separation. A month before high school graduation, I confided in Trim that I would miss high school. He assured me I would find a way to keep in touch with those I wanted to, and the people I never really wanted to hang around with would disappear. Working in a high school now, I constantly wonder why anyone would facebook.

Every few years, randomly show up in the lives of people who have inspired me. I always see the same thing. They may have grown wealthy, or happy, or struggled, but they never actually changed. They are the great parents I knew they would always be, or the transcendent contemplative wandering spirits they always were. The clothes changes, often they put on or dropped weight, wrinkles may have appeared or disappeared, but angstroms under the surface, the same great person is still right there. Same thought process, same personality, slightly different looking.

They usually have beautiful and happy children, but I could have told you that would happen without having to look them up. Sometimes I try to find them and their lives have become so busy that they can't hit pause for a few minutes. Even in the silence, I can still the same great kid from second grade pretending to be an adult. I know if were to randomly see Trim today he may look ever so slightly changed. Sure, he would have figured out some things about life, the perfect way to woo a woman, and somethings would still be an absolute mystery to him, like his inability to accept humanities collective insanity.

I think of facebook as passing those same people again in the hall. You exchange some pleasantries, ask about life, knowing it's awesome before you even ask, then move on to your own office, or whatever important meeting you have on your agenda. I stay in my office as the world is down the hall, interacting in this giant social network that is so alien to me. I can only assume the fact that I'm not on facebook signifies some social deviancy within me that is absent in almost everyone else. And dropping in on people's lives over the years has also taught me that when you show up unannounced, you often get the same great reception as the prodigal son.

It's girl!

Excited to let people know the baby will be a girl. Life is good. Already assembled the crib, play pen, and two strollers.

Reggie Harding with apologies to Reggie Theus

http://thegregger63.wordpress.com/2007/07/

His NBA career done by the time he was 26, Harding returned to the streets of his youth and fell into the wrong crowd. The story is legendary of him putting on a ski mask and robbing his neighborhood liquor store at gunpoint.

“What are you doing, Reggie?,” the proprietor asked of the seven-foot-tall robber.

“It ain’t me, man,” Reggie replied.