This is week 123 of The Life of Riley, a weekly post detailing my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 854): The Golden Turrets

In the morning, #1GF! was outside with the baby talking to the neighbors because that’s what it’s like around here in the summer. It’s a genuine neighborhood. #1GF!’s family was supposed to visit, but bagged on us. I have to say that I was a little disappointed.

#1GF! looked up cars because she made a deadline that we were going to get a new car before her maternity leave was over. As we sat on the couch talking over the blander points of family sedans, the second feeding of the day came up. The baby fed and fell asleep on her mother after arching her tiny back and stretching her arms so that her fists were alongside her ears.

“We have a baby,” said #1GF! with a bit of amazement.

“Yes, we do.”

#1GF! and I took that baby out for a walk in the early afternoon and the same issue came up. #1GF! turned to me. “You know, sometimes I can’t believe that we had a baby.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Sometimes I feel like we’re just watching her, and I worry that someone is going to come by to pick her up.”

“It’s all very unreal, isn’t it?”

“It is. I sometimes feel like this can’t possibly be happening.”

I hugged her. “It’s happening all right. And no one is going to pick her up. I shredded the receipt.”

We walked by some overgrown lots with great views of the ocean.

“These lots aggravate the hell out of me.”

“I know they do,” said #1GF! absentmindedly.

“More than the boarded up houses right on the beach.”

“I know,” she said, less to agree than to pacify.

“We should buy up these lots. I’ll get a job, we’ll put the baby in childcare, and we’ll build an enormous monstrosity of a home. We’ll never have the time to enjoy it, and we’ll miss the baby growing up, but we’ll have several turrets of our own.”

“Don’t listen to Daddy, honey,” #1GF! said to the baby.

“And more importantly, these empty lots won’t drive me crazy anymore.”

“You’ll find something else like your golden blind cords weren’t spun to the exact same length.”

“Ooh, that would not be good.”

A couple of hours had passed when we finally returned to our humble, non-turreted house, but it seemed a lot later than midafternoon. To make it seem even later, the baby cried for a solid hour once we got her in the door. #1GF! turned on the hair dryer, and the baby magically quieted down.

I cut up some vegetables and threw them in the oven to roast (Note to self: butternut squash isn’t really a roastable vegetable).

The baby had her nightly freakout from 4PM until 6PM, and gave an encore performance from 7PM to 9PM for anyone who might’ve missed the first show. I eventually used #1GF!’s hair dryer trick, and that quieted the baby down without solving the underlying issue.

The baby eventually burped a few hundred times and fell asleep, leaving #1GF! and I with five more hours of screaming notched on our belts.

I tossed the roasted vegetables into some pasta and #1GF! and I watched Rescue Me to unwind. We had seen a few seasons of the show, and I had finally lost interest. Afterward, we caught a couple of episodes of I Love Lucy that were at the tail end of a marathon. I found it interesting that a fifty year old show was funny enough that it could make me laugh out loud, when most modern shows failed to get me to crack a smile.

Monday (Day 855): Beating Heavy Metal At Its Own Game

I got up and #1GF! was already awake. She was watching a movie called Even Money with Ray Liotta and Kim Basinger in it. The acting was as overdone as a soap opera and I was almost positive that it had to have been made in 1992. It was from 2007. I was in awe that something so new could be so 90’s womens’ television retro. I tried to sit next to #1GF! and read a book, but the awful dialog made it impossible.

I rolled my eyes and took the baby out of the room for a diaper change. The baby was still sleeping in the pack-and-play in our room, so we had been using her crib as a changing table. It was all set up with sheets, blankets and bumpers for the sole reason that it looked better when women came to visit. Don’t ask me. Sometimes I just go along with the goddamned program.

I put the baby in the crib and got a good solid wipeful of the brown stuff, and instead of dropping it into the diaper, I dropped it right onto the crib sheets. I stood staring at the three big globs of poo where there was nothing but clean sheet goodness before. Triple shit cakes on toast. I was not happy. I returned the baby to #1GF!, stripped the crib, and threw the sheets in the wash.

I went to the kitchen to scrub out the roasting pan that I forgot to clean from the night before. The pan was not coming clean because I was using one of those plastic netting scrubbers. Fuck scrubbers. Fuck them. They don’t work a tenth as well as old fashioned steel wool. They don’t even sound as good as steel wool.

“What’s that you got there, J-Bone?”

[explosion] “Steeeeel wool.” [double explosion]

“What’s that you got there, Fran?”

[shrug] “A scrubber.” [wah wahhhh]

I thought about throwing the pans in the dishwasher, but I imagined that I’d have to clean them afterward anyway. I was tied to my scrubbing. I stopped midway through and had breakfast. I ate my cereal and could hear #1GF! cleaning another diaper.

“Whoa! What did you do? Oh, boy…[several other random exclamations omitted]. That’s a four wipe diaper.”

Diapers are now rated by the number of wipes needed to clean them. A four wipe diaper for #1GF! is somewhere near a thirty-six wipe diaper for me. I chose not to enter the room to see that carnage. Instead, I finished my cereal and then finished the pans.

I threw the laundry in the dryer and it was all tiny baby clothes. There were socks that wouldn’t fit on your thumb sticking out of a tangle of pink and white. I threw the tiny outfits into the dryer one at a time. If someone kidnapped me and transported me to a space station as a cook, I would be more surprised at what my life has become.

I went into the living room to do something macho like have a cup of tea (I’ve been too lazy to make coffee, and associate fresh brewed coffee with writing, which I was heavily avoiding). The kettle whistled, and the baby cooed an answer to it in her sleep. I’m genetically predisposed to mention that the kid is a genius, communicating this early. I know all parents say that. This time it’s true. It has nothing to do with being her parent. She has the gift of kettle whispering.

The sun was shining in the windows, so I read on the couch for a bit and drank my stupid tea. No ladies showed up with crumpets, which I took as a good sign. Once you get on the crumpet ladies’ radar, it’s all manners and gossip, and I’m just not built for that sort of horseshit.

My hair, still unwashed, made me look like I was auditioning for The Cure, circa 1990. #1GF! walked in. “When are you getting a haircut?”

“The barber isn’t answering my calls, and I’ve been holding out just in case he took a vacation.”

“Just go up the street.”

“After twenty years? Somehow, going to a new barber just seems wrong.”

“That hair is wrong, George.”

“For the last time, I am not George Michael.”

“Faith a faith a faith.”

“C c c c c c come on.”

“See?”

I picked up my notebook and scribbled some notes while listening to the oldies channel. The room was filled with upbeat and comfortable pop from before my time, and it perfectly complimented the soft comfort of the sectional and the sleeping baby rocking back and forth in her swing. The muffled sound of a hairdryer in the background turned my attention to the woman getting ready at a leisurely pace down the hall. Having the time together to bond as a family, where time was slow and sometimes blurred, was a unique gift.

I called our current mortgage company to see if there was a faster way to get a lower rate without going through the refinance process, but they told me that the only way to get a lower rate directly from them would be to claim a hardship. Beyond that, all I could do was reapply for a refinance loan. I called our mortgage broker and made an appointment to refinance.

#1GF! left to take her mother to an appointment, leaving the baby and I in the house alone. I changed the baby and she smiled and giggled at me. That doesn’t seem like a major deal, but babies aren’t born with a sense of humor. It takes a while for them to be able to smile and laugh at the world around them.

I put her down for a nap and finished Tepper Isn’t Going Out by Calvin Trillan. I got the book on Saturday at 5PM, and it wasn’t a page turner. My reading speed had definitely gone up.

I fed the baby in the midafternoon, but she refused to go to sleep afterward. A couple of hours later, she started crying. I figured that it was time to eat again. It wasn’t. The baby freaked for forty minutes. I tried everything to calm her down, including #1GF!’s hair dryer. I plugged in the vacuum as a last resort, and the baby fell asleep in my arms before I could turn it on. There was no discernible reason for the outbreak. One second she was screaming, the next, she was out cold.

I sat on the couch enjoying the quiet and reading a book about book publishing. #1GF! walked in around 5PM. She looked horrified. “Oh no. The vacuum.”

I explained what happened. I was a little tired. I made dinner, and #1GF! took the baby while she freaked out from 7 to 9PM. I took her back for the 9 to 10PM freakout, and #1GF! took her back for the 10 to 11PM. Let me save you the addition: it was a five hour freakout.

When it was over, both of the ladies fell asleep. I sat on the couch listening to nothing but the scratching of pen on paper as I reconstructed the day in my notebook. When you have a colicky baby, you don’t need heavy metal. You get all the screaming and auditory chaos that you could possibly need.

Tuesday (Day 856): The Frustrated Old Man Freaks Out

I got showered and got no answer from the barber shop again. I bit the bullet and went down to a local shop to get my haircut. I felt weird about being there (because I had been going to the same place for twenty-five years and this shop had no sign), but I needed a haircut, and my barber was missing in action.

I opened the belled door, and took a seat. No one flitted around, and there were no black and white photos of overly serious models on the wall. All the magazines were from 2007, there was Clubman talc on the counter, and a couple of old guys sat waiting. I took this all as a good sign.

My haircut didn’t take long, and it came out pretty close to my regular cut. I smelled of Clubman aftershave, the sides of my hair were short and tapered while the top of my hair was long enough to comb to the side. It was a style built for Brylcreem.

When I got home, I suddenly realized that I had an old man haircut. Not an old man in the 2000’s haircut, but an old man haircut as defined by what I thought an old man was when I was a kid. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a haircut that one of those guys would wear, and it made me want to say things like “Oh, for crying out loud,” “hold your horses,” and “don’t have a conniption.”

Do we all define our stereotypical vision of an old person by the old people from when we were kids? I realized that I did. My particular vision involved men draped in overcoats and topped with hats with feathers in them who talk about Doubleya Doubleya Two and look like they might just sock you in the mouth with their gnarled up old fists.

Those men are pretty much gone now, yet that is the vision of old that I am stuck with. And it’s an illusion because old people aren’t like that these days. They don’t wear the overcoats, and if they’re wearing a hat it’s of the baseball variety. They rarely talk about walking uphill to school and hardly ever look like they would knock your whippersnapping ass out. It’s a bit disappointing, considering I’m now a few wrinkles and a hat away from being one of them.

I rinsed the spare hair off my head in the tub, and gave the baby a bath in the sink. Looking clean and fresh, we all went to the baby’s one month doctor’s appointment.

The baby was average on every measurement except height, where she was in the 90th percentile for her age. Once she was measured and weighed, we got her dressed and she had four shots. She didn’t notice the first two, but the second two set her on fire. It took #1GF! feeding her to calm her down.

The doctor recommended some digestion medicine called Mylicon to stop the crying fits, so we picked some up on the way home. The baby was sleeping off her shot trauma, so we drove around for a while enjoying the quiet.

When we got home, I cooked dinner and we prepped ourselves for an evening devoid of screaming thanks to the magical potion we picked up at the magical drugstore. After the baby ate, she got the first dose of her medicine and…cried anyway. She stopped for twenty minutes so that we could eat dinner, and I started praising the medicine’s fast-acting miracle properties. She then started up again. She ate and cried on and off until she passed out at 7:15PM.

I quickly checked my e-mail, and shut down the PC so that the baby could go to bed. There was no easy way for me to work. I write with a keyboard because I’d waste a barrel of ink crossing things out and a barrel of hours following squiggly arrows around the page between sentences. It’s fucking frustrating not to have a way to write, but what could I do? The baby takes priority. The new generation is here. It’s over for me anyway.

I went to sit on the couch, and within minutes, the phone rang and woke the baby up. She screamed for a half hour. I used every trick I had to make her stop, and eventually #1GF! had to take over.

I think that if you’re resolved to the fact that the baby is going to freak out, you can deal with it a little better. It still sucks, but you’re prepared. This was the same level of freakout, but it seemed worse because we had believed that the medicine would stop it.

This week was already hard. There were a lot of minor things going on, but the pile was growing. And when you think that you have a major item like colic out of the way, and you don’t, all those little things can get very frustrating.

You rush and do what you can when the baby is quiet because you never know how much quiet you have left. You’re constantly under the gun, and most projects hover in some form of completion that is always less than 100%. And sometimes when you know that you should be getting things done, you’re too busy staring at her or sitting comatose enjoying the unbelievable quiet.

During the day, I realized that what I was already doing everything that my book publishing manual was saying, and doing it unsuccessfully. It said to try submitting to publishers directly, which I hadn’t done because other sources said that submitting directly to publishers could end up burning your yet unhired agent’s contacts ahead of time.

I was fucking frustrated. I know the baby is #1, but if my PC was off limits at the times when I wanted to write, how could I move forward? The only way I could see would be to make inspiration not something to chase, but a box to be opened when time permits. Or something like that.

At 10:30PM, I had a mini freakout of my own. I vented about the baby crying all the time, not being able to get anything written, and about how doing one simple thing, such as going to the store, ends up being an involved process that eats hours.

“I feel guilty about leaving you to deal with a screaming baby, and yet getting inspired on command in the five minutes between screams is impossible. And honestly, I don’t want to give up a single smile on her round, little face just to put words on a page. The only time I feel like I can relax into writing is when both of you are asleep…and then I can’t write because tacking on the keys would would keep you both awake.”

I got louder.

“I’m right here,” #1GF! said.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “And all the rejections for the book. Is writing another one really a good idea? It’s like painting something you can’t sell. What do you do with it once it’s done? Hang it in your den?”

#1GF! looked over the baby at me sympathetically. I went on. “Seriously. What do you do with a manuscript that no one wants?”

“You wrote a book,” she said as if it were an achievement.

“Yea, but what good is it?” I stared at the TV. “I think I need a win.”

#1GF! looked down at the baby.

I could see that I was upsetting #1GF!. “Or maybe I need to just shut the fuck up. I’m venting. It’s nothing. We barely have anything to do this week, but everything seems like it’s piling up. It’s nothing. I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.”

#1GF! looked at me like she knew I was going to go on, which I was.

“But, don’t you ever just want the crying to stop? Don’t you want to be able to spend time together? Get a good night’s sleep? Don’t you feel like the days are a blur of feed, change, and soothe?”

#1GF! looked down at the baby and then up and me. “No. I guess I waited so long for her.”

I paused. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t give her up for anything. That’s not what I’m saying. Her little smiles are a reward for all that work. I’ll have to learn to find inspiration in the five minutes that I can find. I’ll get through this. I’m just venting. It’s nothing.” We stared at the TV. “I’m sorry. It will all work out.”

“I can take the baby and you can write. I can go to the store. You don’t have to do it all.”

“That’s not it. I’m not worried about me doing things. I like doing things for you and the baby. This is about getting everything done within our new chokehold time limits.” I looked over at the baby sleeping on #1GF!’s chest and slowed down. “She’s so damned cute. I just need to get through this week. It all boils down to self-confidence. If I believe that I can do it, I can.”

It all seemed like bitching about three weeks of constant rain and wanting a sunny day. Cursing the darkness instead of turning on a light.

#1GF! went to bed, and I sat writing in my notebook until midnight.

Wednesday (Day 857): The Fifteen Second Rule

I got up and took the baby out of the room so that #1GF! could sleep. I stared at the ceiling while the baby slept on my chest. It wasn’t quite light out. I had a cup of tea, ate breakfast, cleaned up the dishes from the night before that I somehow forgot about, cleaned the bathroom, and wiped down the baseboards.

I traded phone messages with the H.R. rep about the job.

I talked to #1GF! about the job while I cleaned. The job would shelve my writing dream, but we agreed that it was a good problem to have. I took a shower, put together some documents for refinancing, and took them out to be photocopied. I dropped them off at home and then did the food shopping.

Midway through the store, I found that there was a pen in my pocket, but no notebook. I carry a notebook with me everywhere, and I didn’t know if I left it at home, or whether I should start searching the store to recover ten weeks of notes and scrawling. I looked around the aisle, and then called home. I tried the house phone and then immediately tried #1GF!’s cell.

#1GF! picked up. “What’s the fifteen second rule?” she asked.

I made up the rule so that #1GF! couldn’t inadvertently send me running around the house chasing her calls to various phones. I had never had the rule used on me. I smirked. “The fifteen second rule states that a caller must give the person at home fifteen seconds to attempt to call back on a missed call before said caller tries another phone in said house.”

“Did you do that?”

“I did not. It is an emergency.”

“Are you okay?”

I realized that our definitions of “emergency” were a little different. “Is my notebook on the counter?”

“Hold on,” #1GF! said. “Yep, it’s right here.”

“Then, I’m okay. I thought I lost it. I thought that my best case scenario would be taking the notebook from a bored teenager behind a customer service desk, and my worst would be the loss of ten weeks of the most important notes we’ve had.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in a bit, nutjob. Be careful. It looks bad out.”

On the way home, the wind really picked up. The trees were blowing around like those silly children’s sprinklers. By the time I got home, it was close to 5PM. I threw a frozen chicken pot pie in the oven, and managed to finish reading another book by the time it was ready.

#1GF! and I ate in shifts, but the baby only freaked out for a few minutes. The medicine might’ve been working, but it was unclear.

We had somehow gotten in the habit of watching Jeopardy! every night, so after dinner, I set up the baby monitor so that we could listen to the show while we washed the dishes. It wasn’t screaming amounts of fun, but it was an alternative use for the baby monitor. Once the dishes were clean, I put the monitor back in our room, and #1GF! took the baby to the den.

We’ve taken to talking to each other randomly through the baby monitor as a joke when one of us is putting the baby to bed. After I set up the baby monitor, I clapped thinking #1GF! would hear it.

When I walked into the den, #1GF! and the baby were both wide-eyed and staring at me. “I can’t believe you did that,” said #1GF!.

I burst out laughing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would be so loud.”

#1GF! still didn’t believe me, but I didn’t.

Thursday (Day 858): The Value Of Dreams

I read a book, had a cup of tea, and looked up mortgage rates. They were at 4.25%, which was lower than what I was refinancing at later in the day. I called the broker to let him know that rates had dropped.

I got a call from the H.R. rep about the job with my old company. They hit the bottom of my requested salary range, but wouldn’t hit my title requirements. They demanded an answer within twenty-four hours. I applied for the job five months prior, so I was a little confused about the sudden rush to get an answer from me. I asked for more time given the impact that the decision would have on my life. The rep said that she would have to see if that were possible and call me back. I found that a little irritating. If it wasn’t okay for me to take a weekend to decide, then the company wanted control more than they wanted me. Their inflexibility was going to earn them a quick decline.

I hung up and talked over the job with #1GF!. On the one hand, it would be the death knell of my dream of writing books for a living. It would also be the end of the Life of Riley series, the end of the beard growing, and a step towards something that is not my ideal career path. On the hand, it was decent money and a familiar environment, not to mention that #1GF! was better at taking care of the baby than I was.

The H.R. rep called back and gave me until the following Monday to decide. I was appreciative, but had a large decision looming over the weekend.

The mortgage guy was coming by to go over our refinancing documents, so I cleaned the counter and made a pot of coffee. I had to take the coffee grinder outside and grind the coffee on the porch so as not to wake the baby, which was a first. I’m surprised I didn’t think of it sooner.

At 3PM, we refinanced, cutting both our rate and our term. It felt like a win.

I called my sister and talked to her about how when recycling becomes cheaper than throwing things away, more people will do it. Right now, recycling costs me money, and frankly, the good feelings aren’t covering the hundreds of extra dollars.

#1GF! and I ate dinner and the baby was amazingly quiet. Afterward, I researched writing resources and then looked for publishers who might be interested in my manuscript. Courting publishers wasn’t the way that I wanted to go, so it didn’t last long. I answered some e-mail that had piled up, and got offline.

The baby slept, and #1GF! and I watched The Office. She was still surprisingly quiet.

Even though I had been keeping it a secret, my parents called and I talked to them about the job. The job was in a deep, deep part of corporate security that policed employees without their knowledge. My father mentioned that it sounded like something that I would be really good at. I agreed. “Yea, it’s an interesting job, but do I really need to be more paranoid than I already am?”

My father laughed. “I never thought of it like that.”

After I hung up, I expressed my concerns about taking the job and ending up with a cop mentality to #1GF!.

“You already have that!” she said. I grumbled a response and changed the subject to some of the ideas for books that had been rattling around in my head.

“You haven’t written in two months,” said #1GF!. “You just read all the time.”

“When people blog, I advise them to read a lot of popular blogs to get a feel for the style. When you want to write books, you need to read a lot of popular books. How can you write something that you’re completely unfamiliar with? I know that reading isn’t writing, but it’s necessary for a writer. You pick up new plots, new ways to write dialogue and characters…each book is a publishing success that I might be able to learn something from. Even the bad ones made it through a barrier that I can’t. So, I know it’s not writing, but it’s part of it.”

“You can justify it like that, I guess,” she said.

I sighed. “I know it’s justification on some level, but it’s necessary. It’s part of it. You know, Stephen King recommends that authors read for six hours a day.”

“So, that’s what you’re doing?”

“No. I’ll admit that I’ve been avoiding writing, but I want to enjoy this time with the three of us. I don’t want to miss the smiles or coos or anything. I love that kid.” The baby slept as her swing rocked steadily back and forth. We both looked at her. “So, I know I’m justifying, but chewing through books is me learning more about writing while I can’t write. I don’t have the uninterrupted time to write right now anyway.”

“If you’re watching her all day, you won’t have the time either.”

“So, either way, the dream is dead.”

“It doesn’t have to be…I hate it when you’re negative. You can still write with a job.”

“Maybe. But after working all day and then playing with the baby, I’ll be sitting down at 9PM to write. Even if I was inspired after a long day, I’d be too tired to do it. I just see the dream dying here. I’m not successful at it anyway.”

“Negative. You wrote a book.”

“An unsold book. And even if I sold it, what’s that worth? A couple of grand? You have the house and the baby, when does my dream come in?” The second I said it, I wished I hadn’t. The crowd in my head were chanting “Aaaaassss hole. Aaaaassss hole.”

#1GF! welled up. “Now I feel like shit.”

I knelt down next to her. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. Way, way out of line. It’s not reasonable, but I just want to write. This job sounds like it’s a good job, I guess. It’s probably really interesting. You’re better with the baby anyway. You read to her. I make her laugh and throw up.” I looked at her and went on. “It’s could be good money for the family depending on bonus levels.” We sat for a minute. “It’s a good problem to have. We seem to have a lot of good problems.”

#1GF! finally smiled. “We sure do.”

#1GF! fed the baby and went to bed. I sat in the den jotting notes, and thinking about closing down another chapter in my life. I had the feeling that some of the magic would drain out of things. The robot would return to being an ordinary shop vac. ROCKET CAR! would be sold for something sensible and family oriented. The mug of destiny would have to be returned with a taint of failure. Sometimes dreams provide more value when they’re in the clouds than when they’re flopping around in front of you gasping for air.

Friday (Day 859): The Anvil Of Writing

I watched the Wicker Man on demand because I was the only one awake. It was an oil slick of 70’s, LSD sort of weird floating on the surface of a beaker full of boredom. And the end was idiotic: if you’re trapped in a cage made of twigs on a cliff, don’t give up. Kick the door open and throw a couple of motherfuckers over the edge. Just stupid. It was listed as a classic horror movie, but it was neither classic or horror…unless you define “classic” as simply “old”. Then, it was a classic. By that definition, I am a classic.

#1GF! went out for a walk, so I watched Anvil! The Story of Anvil, about a band who was on the bleeding edge of heavy metal in 1982, and never made it big. Over twenty-five years later, the band is still hustling to get a record deal and playing to clubs with ten people in them. It was more than a little sad. It was The Wrestler, but real. It was pursuing a dream even though you’re failing.

We like to believe that there are happy endings and the underdogs will eventually win, but sometimes, actually, most of the time, the underdogs stay underdogs. Belief coupled with talent and persistence doesn’t necessarily equal a win. Sometimes the planets fail to align. I didn’t want to end up being the Anvil of writing.

When #1GF! returned home, she pointed out that I had puke down my back. I found that sort of funny. It was the baby’s version of “kick me” sign.

My parents came over for a few hours to see the baby. She was cooing quite a bit. They asked about the job offer, and I accidentally got into it. I didn’t want to talk about it, yet I kept dragging the conversation back to it. The more I talked about it, the more aggravated I became. It was an opportunity that wasn’t supposed to materialize.

My mother encouraged me to be rational and take the job, and my father seemed to understand not wanting to walk back into your old company at the level you were two years prior, no matter what the pay was like. Even though I value their opinions, the more I talked about it, the less I wanted to talk about it. It all boiled down to a simple question: Is there a price that will steer you away from chasing what you really want? Is a bird in the hand worth two in the bush? The answer is usually yes, but there is a price range where the question is nothing but maybe. I was in that price range.

All the book work has been fruitless so far, but that doesn’t mean it will always be, right? The angel on one shoulder revised my question to “How selfish are you?” #1GF! would have to continue working while I chased windmills. The devil on my other shoulder had a nice suit on. He simply asked, “Do you want to be in your own success story?”

My parents left and I started on dinner. The baby cried for fifteen minutes before we put her to bed. Fifteen minutes of screaming wasn’t bad at all. It was like heaven.

Saturday (Day 860): Could Have And Should Have

I had a dream that I was moving out of my dorm room and was late. I couldn’t find my car, and everyone had already left. You have to love when your subconscious tackles a big decision and doesn’t help unravel it a bit.

While I was watching the baby, I gave up on Tom Dorsey’s Nuclear Jellyfish because I couldn’t get into the story. It seemed like it would be right up my alley, but it didn’t work out. I pulled out my bookmark and set it by the door.

My mother called and said that she finished reading my manuscript. She didn’t want me to take it the wrong way, but the only word she could use to describe it was “sophomoric”. She reads a lot of books, and wasn’t exactly my target audience, but I tried to get more criticism out of her anyway. She didn’t really give me a lot to go on, but she’s a mother, and “sophomoric” was about as brutal as she was going to get.

I made pasta salad for #1GF!’s mother, and when we went to visit her, I left the bowl right in the fridge. At least I remembered to bring the baby.

On the way, we dropped into the library so that I could exchange a few books. #1GF! stopped the car and I got ready to run in.

I loomed down at my book list. “I’m an idiot,” I said.

“I hate when you say things like that.”

“If I take this job, some people are going to say I’m an idiot for going back. If I don’t take this job, other people are going to think that I’m an idiot for passing up on the salary. Either way, someone, somewhere is going to think I’m an idiot.”

#1GF! made an angry face at me. I jumped out of the car, shrugged, and then smiled. She stared back at me. I made an angry face and then smiled. She smiled back at me. I turned around to do this several times on the short walk to the library door.

I picked up four books, dropped off a few more, and got back out quickly. The baby was asleep. “That was fast,” said #1GF!. “What’d you get?” I read the liner notes of the first three books, and brought out The Idiots Guide to Publishing.

“I’m an idiot.” I held up the book to complete the joke. “I have this book. And it’s for idiots. Ergo…”

#1GF! was not amused.

We dropped into a store and picked up pasta salad ingredients. I made a batch of pasta salad in #1GF!’s mother’s kitchen while the ladies entertained the baby. It was sort of fun to cook in someone else’s kitchen. Soon after the pasta salad was done, the baby freaked out. We didn’t have the magic gas medicine, so we made a speedy exit.

I dropped by the grocery store on the way home to pick up some diapers. We got home at 5PM, ate the pasta salad I forgot to bring, and put the baby in the swing because we are bad parents. She fell asleep. I turned on Watchmen and #1GF! fell asleep. Despite being nearly three hours long and based on a comic book, I didn’t think it was a bad movie.

I watched a couple of episodes of Cops, which have somehow gone from amusing to depressing over the years. It’s all drunk driving, drug addicts, and pedophiles. I put on an episode of House, which wasn’t that much better.

The baby slept for hours, and most of the time I was trying to process the job issue. Interestingly, I found myself wording rejections most of the time. I tried not to, but it kept happening. What I wanted was to find a reason to want the job. Or maybe I just wanted something to make me forget about writing. “How much do I believe in myself?” I thought. “Can I really be an author? Even a midlist author? Or is it a better idea to take the check and spend my days investigating people who lie, cheat, and steal?”

We surround ourselves with certain people so that we can believe that the world as a whole is made up of people like those we surround ourselves with. But, it isn’t. It’s full of idiots, pedophiles, morons, drunk drivers, and assholes. Full of them. Would spending day after day seeking out those people at work alter my vision of the world?

I was making excuses. I was justifying. But, life is all about perception and justification. And life is short-inhumanely short. There isn’t ever enough time to dedicate to what is important to you, even if you’ve been lucky enough to discover what that is. In the end, the hourglass runs out faster than we anticipate, and the last things you want to be buried with are “could have” and “should have”.

What I Learned

• Butternut squash isn’t really a roastable vegetable.
• I Love Lucy is still funny after 50 years without once using the phrase, “ass juice”.
• A hairdryer can calm a colicky baby.
• There is enough screaming and chaos in a colicky baby to put heavy metal out of business.
• I have an old man haircut.
• My vision of old people is actually my childhood vision of old people.
• Mylicon stops colic.
• Job offers are good problems for unknown writers to have.
• Don’t clap in a baby monitor. It’s too loud on the other end.
• Want to save the world? Make recycling cheaper than throwing things away.
• I don’t want to be the Anvil of writing.
• Cops somehow turned from amusing to depressing in the last few years.

Share, Bookmark, or E-Mail This Article

Posted in Leisure