As mentioned a few posts back, I’ve been thinking about switching back to Blogger. Thoughts into words into action: the blog is over here.
There’s nothing wrong with wordpress. It was just time to do like I said.
As a parting gift, a picture of my son showing off his talents!
Right. Despite being home all of Saturday and Sunday, laid up with a cold, I failed to post my weekly update. So, just like last week, I’ll post one day late, with the added incentive of looking for something to do while home sick.
The weekend, for me, was inert. But I had the feeling of other people rusing about, in and out of my world. Thursday night we saw Tyler, which was nice since we rarely see him at all. Friday involved a visit from Reg. Saturday I was supposed to run off to the dojo to assist in a grading (and deliver “bun-cake”), but as mentioned I was enjoying a fine quality cough due to cold. Sunday we were to go to church, but I stayed at home to get some extra rest. Kyra had the “fun” of taking Nathaniel alone, which she says was good but a little hectic. Then, in the afternoon, Kyra left Nathaniel in my care while she ran off to a nifty clothing exchange at a friend’s place. Nathaniel was actually quite good, but had a breakdown for a little more than half an hour. He wasn’t enraged, but he was crying (and slobbering, due to his own, toddler sized cold) even while playing with his toys and chasing the cats.
Today I got lots of sleep. I had to wake up with the alarm to see how I felt, and then email my boss to say I couldn’t make it in. (I refered to her as “guys”, for some reason in the email.) Then, after I fell asleep, I had a series of work-related dreams with the theme of not being a responsible employee. Stuff like going back to being a security guard and then forgetting to get into uniform, leaving the building and having dinner across the street, getting lost in the parking lot, and other such things. I even found a bunch of my co-workers somewhere they shouldn’t be and asked them anxiously if we shouln’t be, you know, working or something. Those dreams are especially frustrating to me because I feel like I want to be doing the right thing, but the dream-flow doesn’t cooperate. But I eventually figgured out that I was asleep, and therefore I didn’t care, and the dream began to change focus to something else.
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I’ve been playing with Picasa Web Albums of late, enjoying the face detection and recognition features, as well as the map feature that allows you to connect your photos maps of where they were taken.
Have you ever had the experience of beginning to say something – either vocalizing it or writing it – and finding as you go that what you’re actually saying is nothing like what you meant to say? I’m not just speaking of trouble articulating, but a shift in meaning. You start off with the intent to say x, but somehow the words don’t fit they way you want and you end up saying y instead. Then, as you continue your thoughts, you end up building on y until it becomes capital Y and x seems out of reach. And the really frustrating thing about this drift is that instead of going back and correcting your words to more closely match your thoughts, you often adjust your thinking to match your words.
I’m not necessarily saying this is wrong. There are plenty of people who think best in discussion, using the other person’s opinions and reactions as a way of sharpening their thoughts to a point. The thoughts produce words, and then the words prod the thoughts, back and forth, like two sides of a scale, until you have a balance. But I’ve experienced other times when I can almost see the thoughts skittering away, or throwing up their hands and saying, “Fine, I think what you say!”
Or am I alone in this?
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I’ve been thinking about google amalgamation. There’s something about the google empire that appeals to me, a vague sense of functionality, availability, and ingenuity. I use gmail, Picasa, google calendar, google video (now YouTube), google docs, and a whole lot more that I’m not thinking of right now.
The obsessive compulsive disorder part of me wants to go fully google, or at least as google as google has gone. This means switching (or switching back) to whatever google programs or services I used to use, like blogger. Actually, I’d like to do that because I don’t find WordPress very changeable. The other day I tried to add a widget for LibraryThing, but couldn’t find do it - not allowed. Now blogger, that’s a familiar beast, and it has the bonus allure of being associated with the mighty google empire.
Oh, so tempting.
One thing google doesn’t have but that I badly want them to work on is a google music player. Sure winamp or iTunes work okay, but I tend to think the brilliant search-ability of the google technology could be applied to music to great effect. There are music services out there, like LastFM, that compare aspects of a song, album, or artist, and suggest others of the same to the listener. I’m sure that one of the brains at google could do something similar. I’m thinking more like a inter-connectivity tree, and whenever a song is selected google could learn from that pick, educating the next song’s branches.
Of course, the music industry on-line is a bit tricky, what with the arguments and laws about file sharing. Google may want to keep clear of that mire for a long while so they aren’t instigated in any sort of massive illegal file sharing operation. And where do you draw the line, if you’re networking information on songs? Should the program suggest songs from the database it has learned, and then direct you to a site where you can purchase them? Or do like some pages and simply launch into the next song for free, like a radio station? (Actually, I don’t know if this still happens out there. It might have run into too many legal issues.)
In any case, it’s on my wish-list from google. They have all the other media for the computer – pictures and video. Why not music and sound?
… I missed my Sunday post.
Last week we had a good quiet birthday for Nathaniel, wherein we watched him open a present and ordered food so Kyra didn’t have to cook.
Then on Saturday we had much noisier party for Nat, though I guess it was really for us since Nat didn’t have any friends to invite over and we had Rowan, Cynthia, Bill, Tyler, Isabelle, and Lawrence come over. There was a chocolate cake with mint icing, and marzipan figures of unorthodox birthday shapes. There was a little wine, some good conversation, and then people left shortly afte Nat fell asleep, so we could crash as well.
On Sunday we found too much snow on the ground to navigate a stroller the 15 or so blocks to Mass, and I was battling a weird around the head sort of headache that didn’t hurt inside, but more like a headband pulled down over my eyes and my brainstem and yanked tight. Maybe a holdover from Saturday’s semi-cold that I thought I had subdued.
And my back. I really hope this isn’t a sign that I’ve done something wrong, or that I have permanent damage to my shoulders or spine, but my back hurts in this zig-zag sort of pattern from my left shoulder to my right ribs to my lower back. The usual suspects could be to blame, from terrible posture to martial arts training hazard to the cold weather to pushing massive puddles across the parking floor with a too-small squeegee… Like I said, I hope this isn’t chronic, or at least I hope I can fix it. Maybe Sue and her hard-core yoga can help me out.
Read a bad book (the Shack), a good book (Wise Blood), and I’m part way through an interesting one (the Language Instinct).
Now I sleep, perchance to dream of…
I am not a carpenter.
Today, with the last of the scraps of wood from the old bed and the drill I got for Christmas, I proved this.
The project was a frame to go around the television, so that we could have a shelf over top of it and throw a cover around it when not in use – out of sight, out of mind. Now…
… this looks nice enough. A navy blue drapery around the television, a nice flat surface on top. But something terrible lurks beneath…
… here are the shattered bones of the horrible contraption. I was short one board, I miss-judged the placement of a few, I forgot to drill pilot holes more often than not, and my wood screws weren’t long enough. And the wood was cheap pine, and liked to splinter, just for fun.
I was expecting this, so when I triumphantly placed the wooden cage around the television, Kyra and I could not help laughing, hard, and at length, over the fruits of my labour.
I’m no carpenter, that’s for sure. But then again, this is only the fourth thing I’ve made outside of junior high projects, and my inspiration was brilliant, even if my execution was not. I hope, of course, to get better with every project.
Now, to cheer everyone (all once of you) up:
A film noir version of my Bailey. Perhaps he’s skulking in a dark alley outside a house of ill repute, hunting after that one clue that could wrap up the case…
Happy New Years, and the Feast of Mary, Mother of God!
First Resolution: contribute to my blog once a week or more, for fifty-two entries or more between now and 2010. I haven’t been very consistent in blogging, and I think I ought to give it one last go, and for a consistent stretch, before I give it up for good.
Second Resolution: Kyra and I will make a short list of things we want that aren’t strictly needed, like pop-corn poppers and seasons of Buffy or Angel. Then we will allow ourselves to by those things and nothing else through the year. If we come across something that we think we need, we can talk about it, and if we think the expense is justified, then we can get it. Otherwise, no more movies or games or gadgets or anything else for the whole year.
Third Resolution: Actively defeat my anger. When I was much younger I had a terrible temper which has mostly gone away. I have found that a few things can bring it to the fore again. A continuous application of emotional stress and an extended deprivation of sleep are the two most potent causes of anger. As luck would have it, I can’t avoid either of those causes because I have a nearly one year old child and all the situational antics that go with having one. I don’t like being angry, and I don’t like fighting, and I know I should do my best to conquer my anger instead of hiding from it. So over the next year I will make an effort to acknowledge when I am angry and act better than my own impulses and emotions dictate.
There were lots of other things I wanted to resolve to do, but I was using a specific criteria for picking them: I should pick things that are designed to bring me closer to God. I got that idea from something Kyra paraphrased from one of the blogs she reads (sorry for the concrete reference.) Sure there are plenty of other things I could resolve to do, like meditating or working out regularly, and those things are good in of themselves, but they don’t turn me away from myself and toward God. I may try a few of them, like a work out schedule, but the core should be the above three.
Wait, you say. How does keeping up this blog, once a week, for a full year, constitute turning away from myself and toward God? We, you sort of have me there. I guess I really only have two resolutions, then. Oh well.
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We went to Mass today, since it is a day of Holy Obligation. But when we got there we found that Father Henry was still in the rectory, and wasn’t well. The whole congregation waited quietly with occasional announcements, requests for a doctor, and plans for a prayer service. In the end Father Platt, who is ancient and lovely, arrived half an hour later than the service should have started and led us through a brief Mass.
I’m worried about Father Henry, of course, but I’m also sad about the state of the Church here, that we had to call an elderly, retired priest to do an emergency Mass for us. Not too long ago there would have been several priests in attendance, and the absence of one would have already been accounted for. This is why we’re praying that Nat finds a vocation in the priesthood.
I hope Father Henry recovers soon.
We just got back from out second family trip*. This time it was Molly and Angus in Niagara on the Lake, seeing their newly build home for the first time. We also met their new kitten, Betty Davison, who was purchased as an anniversary gift and happy moving into the new house. All in all the visit was great. They seemed flattered that we would chose to spend our precious vacation time with them as opposed to somewhere else. Silly, parents – they’re wonderful, why would we not want to spend time with them?
One of the things I find myself doing when I spend any time with my father is acting more like him. Actually I do this with most people – I act a little more like my co-workers at work, like my dojoites at the dojo, and like my friends when I’m with them. I’ve wondered if I might me more socially changeable than other people, for good or for ill. I’m not sure. I think most people change the way they behave around different people, but I think some people, like myself, are more prone to the change.
Either way, especially when I see my dad, I think I act more like him than normal. That’s not a problem – he’s a good man, and I can see little wrong with trying to emulate him. I find myself subconsciously behaving more like him without deciding to, copying his mannerisms and his foibles.
It’s not a big change from my normal behaviour. It’s remarkable how much like my father I turned out despite years of estrangement and years more of tentative reacquaintance, and still more years before all this of teenage contrary instinct. When I began to renew my relationship with my father years ago, I was alarmed at how much we were alike after years of no contact and no reminiscing about him. The phrase “like father, like son” seems so cliche, but in my case it rings true.
None the less, the degree to which I emulate my father when I visit seems more than my usual social chameleon nature. I think part of it is an unspoken admiration. I’ve really come to look up to my father in many ways, though since we are both adults now and I have Nathaniel we seem to be closer to equal footing than before. Or maybe it is because of this relatively equal footing that I do admire him more. Either way, I find myself being him, saying what he would say, getting exasperated at what he would and becoming interested in his interests.
Where I think this all leads is this: Like it or not, I’ve already shown a predisposition to following in his path. I’ve seen where it leads, so I’m no worried. But I think I try on his shoes from time to time, seeing what I will be like in a little more than twenty years. Kyra has said that she sees my father and sees who she’s going to be married to in twenty years, since that’s what I’m going to be like.
I think the shoes fit fairly well. I think I like the look.
Poor Kyra is going to have echoes of the visit for the next week until I drift back to my normal self, though. She’s very patient.
* In this case, family trip means a trip including Kyra, Nathaniel, and myself, in which we do the driving, which sort of bypasses previous trips where other people come to pick us up or we take the train, etc.
As I see things, there are several kinds of politics. There are Politics with a capitol P, which signifies votes and parties and government and ridings and so on. Capitol P Politics are largely uninteresting to me, not because I don’t think they matter, but because the mechanics of the machine seem so unwieldy that it hardly matters. I try to vote conscientiously, but how do you when most of the politicians you know lie and misdirect and use spin to try and make themselves look good? It’s hard to have an informed opinion when the media casts everyone with a bias? It’s not hopeless, but sometimes it feels like it.
My next category of politics is little p politics. This is actually a natural consequence of social interaction. There is no way around it. There are votes about which place we go to for dinner. By brother and I shared a room, but his half of the room was his riding, and my half was, well, it I was my riding, but I’m sure he was exerting influence over it. This machine is much more organic, and the players and rules are both inherent and flexible. These politics never really bothered me much because there is something natural about them, even when they are frustrating and seem to lead in circles. Let’s face it, that’s an apt description of life.
The last, and least favorite kind of politics are politics with italics. This level is much like the lower case p politics because everyone faces them. They are like capitol P Politics because they involve a larger mechanism (or, if you’re lucky, organism.) You can’t help but be involved, but the size of the thing is often overpowering. This is the kind of politics you’ll find at the work place, at a sports club, a residence, a smaller community. This is characterized by currying favour with the boss, backbiting, and passing the buck. It’s the game of gossip, of haves and have nots.
This level, for me, is the hardest to deal with. In my home and with my friends, I think I manage to cut the politics to a minimum and, when they are unavoidable, I try to keep them as brief and pleasant as possible. In my city, province, and country, I try to keep an eye on the Politics that develop. When I have an opinion I try to express it as a vote. But Politics is so high up the chain that it seems vague and impersonal. But the politics at work and at the clubs is hard, very hard. How do you avoid it? It would be nice to rise above the dirt and filth like a lotus blossom and not be changed. It would be great to go to work and just work and exchange pleasantries with your co-workers without getting pulled into that familiar phrase, “Did you hear what he did yesterday…?”
Politics. politics. Politics. Unfortunatly, I don’t think I can escape them. I’m still learning how to live with all three kinds.
One new lesson learned about parenting: your life is now always shifting and changing, transmuting into something often unrecognizable. This is a problem if, like me, you resist change that you have no control over. It’s not a bad problem. Problems exist to help us grow.* But it is a little frustrating to be constantly struggling to come to grips with the changes only to have them change again. I guess the novelty isn’t that things are changing, since things always are if you’re alive, but that the pace of alteration is greatly increased. Maybe this is linked to how much faster babies and children grow and change compared to us relatively settled creatures.
Being Nathaniel’s father has been a chance for me to come to grips with that change, which should help me face it later on when the changes are bigger, if further apart.
There have been many sacrifices recently. No change is really comfortable, but some is downright painful.
Kyra went back to work two nights a week at the book store, which meant I was at home those two nights either alone with Tan or with one or both of the Inlaws for support. This started of fine, but in the past few weeks Tan decided that if All-Important-Life-Sustaining-Mother wasn’t there, just one person wasn’t good enough. He became miserable would cry at full melt-down as soon as he was alone with me (or with our generous friend who Tan-sat for us once for an hour and a half). This crying would last until either Mother was home, or he was asleep. So we made a hard decision, and Kyra quit.
We’ve really traded several sacrifices for one sacrifice. The sacrifice we have now is money, or the lack thereof. But really the money isn’t as important. We’d much rather have Kyra home with Nat most of the time, have a baby who sleeps better because he’s not crying for hours before collapsing in his crib, have a mother who isn’t worried for hours at a time while she’s at work (which isn’t fair to her, to her employer, or to Nat.)
But now this spurs another set of sacrifices. We need more space, not less, but the chances of finding a big enough apartment for less money is slim as long as we’re looking somewhere that’s good for raising children. And I’ll have to get another job, or a better job**. And we’ll need to start doing what we should have been doing all along – we’ll need to be frugal.
All these changes can be good or bad. What the outcome is depends on how it sits with yout heart, I think. If I were to do any good thing, change in any good way, with bitterness in my heart, then it would corrupt the change. A person can lord their self-sacrifice over others; a man can be kind to the point of stifling the recipients of his generosity. Likewise, a small act of sacrifice or kindness can become magnificent if the heart is set right.
The work of the father, then, is to attend to his heart while he performs the simple tasks of holding the baby, changing the diapers, or doing the dishes. He must do so while he changes his daily routine, cutting out activities both unnecessary and necessary for the sake of the agent of this endless turmoil – his son. He must do this with a glad heart, for if he resents the major sacrifices and alterations to his life, he will soon begin to resent the lesser and lesser ones until the smallest of changes or the smallest task will make him resent his child as well…
Scattered thoughts, a work in progress. Like everything else right now.
* This isn’t proper theology, of course. It’s a lie, but it’s a very helpful lie. More proper to say that problems are a negative consequence of the Fall and the perpetuation of sin, but that part of wisdom is knowing how to face problems and overcome them. To quote a man of modern wisdom, “It’s okay to have problems, so long as the ones you face now are not the same ones you faced last year.” Take them and grow.
** Better in this case is defined as earning more money without driving me insane. I like my job right now. There isn’t anything wrong with it except the money, which just won’t be enough.
