anyway. you GUYS, have you heard the news? of course you have, because it was such a shock to everyone that they couldn't talk about anything else for weeks. remember?

so. i'm a little stressed about the whole thing. big surprise, i know, but listen. the more we do in preparation for the little guy, the more we get thinking about all that's required to keep him alive and functioning (not to mention, to keep us alive and functioning), and i have to say that a couple times i've had to consciously pull myself back from the verge of a panic attack. i've heard the transition from living baby-free to having a baby described as passing through the event horizon of a black hole. (you may understand why i like this analogy.) when you're on the outside, there's no way of knowing what's going on inside, because there is no way allowed by the laws of physics for the information to reach you. you can speculate and hypothesize and extrapolate, but you really just have no idea. and as your lifeless spaceship hurtles inexorably down the gravity well and space-time is torn apart around you, you only then begin to understand.

it disturbs me how something so physically small can have such a huge set of needs. i thought we were this advanced, capable species with large brains, or something? apparently no? elephants can hold their heads up immediately. horses can run the day they're born. baby cthulhu was inducing madness in entire civilizations in his first star-cycle. what's wrong with us?

i find i'm having to change my mind about a lot of stuff, in addition to changing habits. i've done a disservice over the last few years in my joyful mockery of my friends' tribulations with their own children. i'll tell you where i'm coming from. first of all, they'll repay in kind, because they're awesome. secondly, as a result of my actions they'll surely never give us a minute of free babysitting. but most importantly, and seriously, i've made light of what is basically the grandest struggle there is—turning babies into people—in a way that has probably trivialized it in my own mind, or at least my subconscious. i certainly don't mean i think it is trivial, which it certainly is not and i don't mean to say that at all. i'm saying that within my mind i've reduced it to just a source of humor without ever appreciating it or even really trying to appreciate what the experience meant to them. and i'm not sure how to feel about this, because they were living their lives just as i was, we were just at different stages in our respective lives. their lives involved the raising of a child. mine involved acting out my chosen social role, viz. making fun of that. but as i face the bizarre prospect of imminently having a son of my own, i'm seeing it a bit differently. as you might imagine.

you guys, my son is going to be a challenge. he's going to be a stubborn, slippery little trickster, and worst of all, he's going to be really damned intelligent. he will of course be quietly cerebral, and when for this reason he goes hours or days without willingly talking to us we will panic and feel like he's shutting us out of his life. beginning the day he's born i'm going to begin filling his head with nonsense but before long he will figure out my game and realize just how full of shit i am, and from that day forward my wife will love him more than she loves me. he's going to have a sense of humor unintelligible to everyone except himself; in fact he will have vast worlds in his head to which no outsider will have access, robbing us of the ability to understand the greater part of him. he's going to be a prodigy with the ladies, so all the parents at the pta meetings will always be bitter toward me. chelsey will try to turn him into the quarterback for the denver broncos and because she's his favorite (and also just to spite me; ref. comment about being full of shit) he'll actually do it, and because he's so intelligent he'll be really good at it and become a superstar and move to bermuda or wherever and we'll never see him again except in signed pictures his publicist will send us at christmas.

so of course i'm stressed. the hell of it is, though, it's not altogether justified. sure, it will be work, hard work, and plenty of minimal-sleep nights and full diapers and colic and fevers and spit-up on my new shirt, but taking care of all that is just mechanics and actually pretty straightforward. later comes the frustrating part: the inevitable teenage rebellion crap when he'll think no one understands him and blah blah. but even that is basically predictable, and even a little boring—even amusing?—from the perspective of having gone through it myself. ('oh, you've become a nonconformist, how original.') it will seem to him as though the world and everything in it is unfair, and to him it will be for a while, but he'll survive it just as we all do and he'll get to experience the absurdity of the next generation at that age, thinking they're the first ones ever to feel angst.

so where does this leave me? who knows. i often say to my co-conspirator in this matter that i'm afraid, and i suppose i am in a way, though it's not truly fear that i'm feeling, mostly just unease. at the idea that soon, this powerless monster is going to invade and turn my life on its head and demand that i keep it alive, and inexplicably i will appease it. a dear friend of mine once said, 'the secret to parenting is to remember that your goal is to raise capable adults.' i imagine i'll be repeating that to myself rather often over the next twenty years, especially when it's my turn for the nighttime diaper shift.

no, i don't want to fall in love
no, i don't want to fall in love
with hoth
with hoth

what a wicked game you play
to make me feel this way
what a wicked thing to do
to let me dream of you
what a wicked thing to say
you never felt this way
what a wicked thing to do
to make me dream of you
and i don't wanna fall in love
and i don't wanna fall in love
with hoth

world was on fire
no one could save me but you
strange what desire will make foolish people do
i never dreamed that i'd love somebody like you
i never dreamed that i'd lose somebody like you

no i don't wanna fall in love
no i don't wanna fall in love
with hoth

nobody loves no one

far across the distance
and spaces between us
hoss has come to show hoss goes on

near, far, wherever hoss are
i believe that the heart does go on
once more hoss opens the door
and you're here in my heart
and my heart will go on and on

love can touch us one time
and last for a lifetime
and never go till we're gone

love was when i loved hoss
one true time i hold to
in my life we'll always go on

near, far, wherever hoss are
i believe that the heart does go on
once more hoss opens the door
and you're here in my heart
and my heart will go on and on

you're here, there's nothing i fear,
and i know that my heart will go on
we'll stay forever this way
hoss are safe in my heart
and my heart will go on and on

ahem.


she was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene
i said don't mind, but what do you mean i am the one
who will dance on the floor in the round
she said i am the one, who will dance on the floor in the round

she told me her name was hoss reinsteen, as she caused a scene
then every head turned with eyes that dreamed of being the one
who will dance on the floor in the round

people always told me be careful of what you do
and don't go around breaking young girls' hearts
and mother always told me be careful of who you love
and be careful of what you do 'cause the lie becomes the truth

hoss reinsteen is not my lover
she's just a girl who claims that i am the one
but the kid is not my son
she says i am the one, but the kid is not my son

for forty days and for forty nights
the law was on her side
but who can stand when she's in demand
her schemes and plans
'cause we danced on the floor in the round
so take my strong advice, just remember to always think twice

she told my baby we'd danced till three, then she looked at me
then showed a photo my baby cried his eyes were like mine
'cause we danced on the floor in the round, baby

people always told me be careful of what you do
and don't go around breaking young girls' hearts
she came and stood right by me
then the smell of sweet perfume
this happened much too soon
she called me to her room

(chorus)

happy anniversary of the start of a war! eighteenth century britain can suck it.

firstly: obama with guns and lightsaber, from ted. this is the change i can believe in. also the change that can kill me silently in my sleep.

secondly: a perfect example of the male mind's filter, from walter.

thirdly: the one ring claims another victim.


also. i'm getting over a cold. at least i think that's what it was. i mean, if you feel sick in the morning, but fine for the rest of the day, that might mean you're pregnant, right? OMG LOL

do not do it. without exception babies are a losing investment, for many reasons which i'll break down for you:

financially, gads, they're a nightmare. one baby will eat, wear, drive, and matriculate six figures of dollars of money before it is legally its own human and you can with good conscience stop pouring money down its maw. if you're to receive any kind of return on your money, you have to wait forty, fifty, maybe even sixty years and then your little youngster will gladly pay to lock you up in some geriatric warehouse that smells like hemorrhoid cream and old people's feet. great r.o.i. there, gramps.

their primary export is poop. actual no-fooling human poop. you are wasting good food by putting it into a machine that turns it to poop. there are starving children in africa, and you're making poop machines. bravo.

they have all kinds of compile errors. at first they sleep almost randomly and execute any dna they come into contact with. then they start blatantly doing the opposite of what they're told. (and have i mentioned the poop? I'M SERIOUS HERE. POOP.) they are congenitally idiotic; at some point in its debugging stage one will willingly jump off the tallest tree in the park and destroy every cell in its body requiring outlandish sums of your dollars to nurse back to health. (it won't die, though. they're robust little buggers; i have to give them that.) they are intolerably needy especially around late december, and when you get them what they think they want they will just break it and then want something else.

they get larger but their brains apparently do not, and the runtime errors continue. they will think they have this 'love' thing figured out and give it a shot for themselves, but of course they did not; they will eventually collapse into a sobbing puddle which you must mop up. they interpret neurological signals of fear and stress as fun and will drive your cars at too fast a speed and wreck two or three of them. they are bad with dollars themselves and will constantly beg you for yours. and when they finally stop exhibiting buggy behavior they leave, and will be totally normal for someone else. but not you.

and perhaps the most compelling argument is that everyone else is investing in them. there are plenty of (perhaps even too many) humans in the world already. do you remember what happened when all of a sudden everyone wanted a house? everyone started getting houses and then the economy exploded. there is no room for growth in the market. this is the reason eskimos don't invest in ice. or poop, for that matter.

p.s. poop. poop! IT IS POOP, HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY FAIL TO UNDERSTAND THIS

of course, this year's were not so bad, but not so good as to leave no room for improvement.

also! three cheers and a tally-ho for friends' free hot tub! ask him (or his personal financial assistant) how much this 'free' actually costs. go on, i dare you.

in my life i have seen faces i do not recognise. i have learned to swim. i have questioned the authority of my parents. i have screamed. i can quote shakespeare and blake and my mate simon from the pub.

i have had a shower on a train. i have stared into the sun and i eat salad and i have been where i wasn't supposed to go. i have said 'i love you' and honestly meant it. i have spilled my dinner.

i have fallen over in front of people; i have worn inappropriate clothing. i have had to be pulled away from hitting on a friend's mum. i have mourned the loss of someone i knew and admired the courage of.

i use words i don't understand. i have seen snow and sand and lived on a boat and been beaten up by someone i didn't know. i have acted in films; and i have been someone's favourite person in the whole world. i know why the sky is blue and i once deliberately set fire to the carpet of the room i was in at the time.

i have been beaten, i have drawn, and i have won. i have been moved to tears by music and i never wanted to let her go. i have let people down and i have pulled through; i have pushed someone in anger and i am a good backgammon player.

some say i have everything going for me. i am twenty-two years old; i am defined by everything i have ever experienced.

so if that's what you're asking me i don't know. but i'm never going to be anyone else, and that's fine. don't worry if things are different to how they used to be. today i made someone smile. that's my ambition for tomorrow, too.

THE WORLD IS CRAZY and made just a bit smaller by this little knot that ties us all together; this profoundly satisfies me.

this double-variant of chess is perhaps the awesomest thing, ever. four players, and insane strategy-breaking cards. chess is to this … this beast as whack-a-mole is to global thermonuclear war.

oh, did i mention we built the board from legos? we are infinitely adaptable, you see.