Leave it all up in the air

There's cute, and then there's Ada cute!

Today Ada is 75 days old. I have not been counting, but the iPad, which may be moving closer and closer to sentience, informed me of this fact. That means if Ada were to live a full natural life based on current generally accepted actuarial tables, she has one year to live for each day she has been alive. Based on those same actuarial estimates, I would be around for approximately 45 of those 75 years. That's 60 percent. I don't know if I've "been around" for 60 percent of the things she has done in her first 75 days. I've seen a lot in person and a lot on video. I know I won't see everything, but I'm glad to be able to experience as much as I have. I have to enjoy it now before she figures out how lame I am. By the time she's 2 I think she will want nothing to do with me.

Lloyd is back! Truly quite exciting. He was in Iraq, right?

Boom! 1990s on you! Running the option, macking on cupcakes!

More for Lloyd whether he is reading or not: Derogatory nicknames I should have come up with at the end of last season for Nebraska's young QB who seemed to get dropped behind the line of scrimmage with some regularity: T-Minus 10 or T-Sacks. (that last one is also for Keith and Shaleah!).

Speaking of "young" college football players, I say it every year but I'll say it once again to ole' Brent Musburger: it's redundant to call a college football player young. They are all young. Thanks, pardner.

Brent is so ubiquitous that even when I watch a game on mute I can "hear" his brand of homespun nonsensicalness in my own brain. I don't know what this says about me, but I am happy about the return of college football because it just means more and better edsbs.com and @edsbs on twitter. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I invented awesomeness!

Unknown danger of watching the US Open on television: your wife will point out how little you have accomplished in your life. The match: Federer vs. Cilic. The question: how old is Federer? My misguided answer: we're about the same age. Her response: you two have had vastly different lives. The subtext that hit like a sledgehammer: are you ever planning to achieve anything? I tried to comfort myself by focusing on the fact that Federer's greatest successes are already behind him while mine are still to come but it just ended with gentle sobbing. I watched Federer win the match easily. Followed by more gentle sobbing.

I'm excited for Lloyd and Katie's wedding! Truly quite exciting. The wedding is in New Mexico, right?

Recently learned how to ride a two-wheeler!

Prescott is a wonderful place. It's my nirvana because it has nice weather and fun things to do that are close by and inexpensive. For a cheapskate like me the opportunity to hike and bike in the woods for little or no money is great. However I'm not the best bicyclist around. This looks worse than it was.

Ada has made things quite a bit different but in a good way. We've undergone some pretty big changes recently but we were going to have big changes whether she was around or not. Moving, starting a new job, taking care of an infant, hosting relatives, and living in a new place was a lot all at once, but we came through it pretty well. It's one way to avoid boredom. I'm sure we are going to do some of those things again in the future, but I have no intention of ever doing more than one at a time ever again.

I like our house. It has more decks than the USS Nimitz. (not actually true)

Keith and Ada on one of aforementioned decks!

For the first 70 days of her life, Ada went to sleep to a Beatles lullaby CD. You wouldn't think anyone could tire of the Fab Four, but if I hear Octopus's Garden one more time I think I might snap. (Quick digression: why are an Octopus's arms called tentacles? Doesn't eightacles make a little more sense?) We've moved on to Mazzy Star (whatever that is) for lullaby music, so I have received a temporary reprieve. I will note that Ada does not seem to have any reaction when we play "her song." (Or when we play Your Song because we've tried both). I hope she can soon identify and dislike the song she was named after, so she can come up with some alternate explanation for her name that she prefers.

I'm excited Lloyd got back in time for the Husker football season! Truly quite exciting. Nebraska is in the Mountain West now, right?

I'm not sure that joke is even working, but it's not for a lack of commitment! It's in there now, so it stays.

Now that I've written enough that I'm sure no one is still reading, I want to get serious with you. Ada is an awesome baby. She's cool. She has opinions. She likes all the same stuff I like. (Or I do the stuff I like near her and she puts up with it with only moderate crying) I can't recommend her highly enough. It's no great achievement to be a parent. And your progeny's successes probably have less to do with you than you think. The same goes for failures. There's plenty of randomness at work. So I don't take pride in Ada and I don't plan to, but I do get plenty of joy. I'm just happy I get to hang out with her (and the law says I can hang out with her until she is 18 and there is little she can do about it!).

A Special Message

We have reached "any day now" status, so Kat and I took the opportunity to enjoy our day off. We filed this report:

Nick Carraway Day

"No . . . I just remembered that to-day's my birthday."

I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.

-The Great Gatsby

An Inventory of Failed Attempts to Become a Man of Letters

Attempt #1: Adventure Story – Third Grade

The main character was named Thelonius after Thelonius Monk. Most other details have been lost, although an actual copy is probably located in a garage in Friend, Nebraska. I seem to recall Thelonius climbing over a wall and finding the sought-after object just sitting there unprotected. I guess one could charitably say I was aiming to turn the well-worn concept of the long quest against impossible odds on its head, but I lean toward the explanation that I was not creative. Ultimately, it just was not very good.

Attempt #2: The Little Rascals – a German playlet – Ninth Grade

Though it did allow me to play my dream role of Alfalfa – complete with natural cowlick – this stage production was not ready for off-off-off Broadway. Nabokov could write beautifully in multiple languages, but my feeble attempts to turn terrible English wordplay into German succeeded about as well as you would imagine. At least I learned to stick to the native tongue. Ultimately, it just was not very good.

Attempt #3: Dirt Track Racing Novel – Title Unknown – age 20

This was written during my days reporting on dirt track racing and was the first of many subsequent attempts to follow the maxim to “write what you know.” This particular story was rather “themey.” It focused on issues of race and class, two words that are racing terms that just happen to also have double meanings! If you don’t think I ran that particular conceit into the ground then you really don’t know much about me. The central conflict of this story centered around a plan to build a dirt racetrack – a place of joy for the common folk! – that was being held up by a zoning dispute orchestrated by the idle and evil rich who run government and like refined things that don’t involve cars going around endlessly in a circle. Budding writers remember this: a zoning dispute is always a great concept for a story. I’m pretty sure Macbeth was about a zoning dispute.

I wrote this story out in longhand, which was a terrible idea because it was quite long. I wrote it out on reporter’s notebooks, and by the end there were so many that I had to hold it together with a rubber band. I enjoyed writing it, and I have no idea where it is now. Ultimately, it just was not very good.

Attempt #4: One-Act Play About Technology, Humanity, and a Struggling Economy – age 21

This was written during my “I’m pretending I’m an anti-materialist because I secretly want a better car and CD collection” phase. The absolute worst thing about this particular play was that I wrote it for a class in college, so I actually showed it to other people and thought it was good. It did have a lot of bad language because I’m an adult now and I can say what I want! It did not work out quite as I had hoped. Ultimately, it just was not very good.

Attempt #5: True Crime Story – “Six on La Mesa” – age 25

Continuing my “write what you know” concept – which is really a thin disguise for my complete lack of creativity – I wrote this true crime nonfiction story about a sextuple homicide that I covered while I was a newspaper reporter. Unlike my actual news stories, which I knew were not good, I thought I could fill in the blanks with my own theories and create an arresting narrative. The story suffered from a lack of information, but I don’t think the police knew a whole lot more than I did. I believe the murders remain unsolved.

I still have the computer, I believe, that contains the explosive first draft of “Six on La Mesa,” but I don’t know if I can actually get the computer to turn on. And that might be for the best. Ultimately, it just was not very good.

Attempt #6: Law School Novel I Never Even Bothered to Write

I did not write this, but it was not for a lack of thinking about doing it. Once again, I was going to write what I knew and become the next Scott Turow, but I tried to focus on studying instead. I often wanted to write a spec screenplay of Legally Blonde 3, but LB1 and LB2 were so good, that I just knew I could not follow that! And, of course, I knew that ultimately it would not be very good.

Attempt #7: Essay About Past Failures

The idea was to collect all of my terrible past writing attempts in one essay and use humor to write something that a reader might actually enjoy. My hope was that such an essay could be both funny and wistful and lead the reader to think: I might like to read some of those things he wrote. My hope was that this would then lead the essay to get published, and then I would finally and truly become a man of letters. But alas, well, ultimately this essay is not very good.

Real Books That I Wish My Writing Could Be Like and Ultimately Are Very Good:

Dirt Track Racing (and somewhat similar sports that have rabid fanbases): Sunday Money by Jeff MacGregor; Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer by Warren St. John; To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever by Will Blythe

Technology, Humanity, and a Struggling Economy: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

True Crime: My Dark Places by James Ellroy; The Corpse Had a Familiar Face by Edna Buchanan

Essay About Past Failures: Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt; How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley

Try Not to Hurt Anybody I Like*

An enormous box of infant clothes found its way to 4242 this week. It has dozens and dozens and dozens of little outfits and they are all adorable and pretty and precious. Baby clothes can really only be one adjective: the four-letter c-word, but I try to keep it out of my writing for obvious reasons.

It’s pretty cliché to say that looking at those clothes, which all are for boys but great nonetheless, made this whole baby thing “real,” but that was sort of how it felt. [1] Obviously, it is both exciting and scary to contemplate caring for this little life yadda yadda yadda [2], but what interests me most -- other than what (spoiler alert Terrence!) this little girl is going to be like -- is whether I will really change all that much. I have been the same person for almost 30 years, and while I have literally grown quite a bit, I don’t see myself as all that different from a younger version of me. I think the same things are funny, I spend way too much time thinking about sports, and I like reading books. I fully expect this kid will change me greatly; that is undeniable. But I am interested to find out in what way. I am more interested in meeting the little person, but, in a nod to the self-interest we all have but conceal with varying degrees of success, I want to know what it will mean for me! [3]

People I know with offspring warn me about how many Disney movies I will watch and how conversant I will become regarding the minutiae of princesses, but I have a hard time envisioning that. However, I remember being younger and having a hard time envisioning having two dogs and an iPhone (obviously, this is not too surprising considering dogs hadn’t been invented yet!). But what I really mean is this: can I hijack this child’s life to teach it to like only things I like? And, if yes, is that a good idea? The likely answers are no and no, and that is probably for the best.

Today, Kat and I were discussing whether you could keep a little girl from liking pink. She said it was not possible, and I agreed. Unless you resort to offensive scare tactics or manufacture childhood trauma [4], I think there is nothing you can do. But I guess what makes it exciting is that you get to watch as a little person becomes who she is. That seems wonderful to me, but I also know she has to overcome her DNA. However, I think she can do it.

In addition to this pile of baby clothes, Kat bought a car seat, which I guess means the kid will be quickly shepherded into our brave new world of frightening motility and devastation of natural resources in the name of “being somewhere.” [5] It just means the kid can ride in the car -- apparently, as a baby this was the only way to make Kat fall asleep, so hours of driving around aimlessly may be in our future -- and be safe while doing it. Kat’s mom also sent a very nice dress for the kid. It seems so small, but I guess she will be able to wear it for up to a week. That will be a very pretty week.

I don’t know anything about childen. I don’t know anything about girls. I don’t know anything about girl children. But I’m very excited to be a part of this project! [6] I hope to catalog how it goes. In thinking about what is to come, I lean on the mantra from The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit:

It doesn’t really matter.
Here goes nothing.
It will be interesting to see what happens.

While I don’t know if I always agree with the first part (rather than child-raising, the titular character would say his mantra before jumping out of a plane as a paratrooper in WWII), I definitely agree with the last two. I do have a good attitude toward the baby, and it definitely will be interesting to see what happens!

* As a bit of an occupational hazard, I now cannot operate without footnotes. Blogger does not really support them, so I made my own. Yay footnotes!

[1] I think personal blogs exist solely for the creation of clichéd writing. After all, things only become cliché because they are universal. S o, the moral is: just because something is cliché doesn’t mean it cannot have meaning or be resonant. Anyway, back to the clichéd stuff.

[2] This is just too cliché to even discuss. In its place, I give you this great Paul F. Tompkins joke about people who say that they know the first time they hold their child that they will do anything for her:

“Let’s say you know 100% beyond the shadow of a doubt that you’d take a bullet for your child. Let me ask you this: why are so many people trying to assassinate your baby?

[3] My mother will probably use this as further proof of my -- and this is a direct quote -- “bad attitude towards this baby.” I think I have a more realistic attitude than some others, but per usual, we agree to disagree.

[4] “That’s why you always leave a note!”

[5] This sentence actually was stolen from Noam Chomsky’s blog about his grandkids: “NoamPa.”

[6] Similar to Dr. Peter Venkman.