This is week 151 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 1050): No Surgery, No Taxidermy, No Pick Up Lines

I got up and made breakfast for #1GF! because that’s what I’m required to do according to section III, Paragraph 8 of our “you stay home with the baby and I’ll go to work contract.” I’ve never seen said contract, but I’m sure #1GF! wouldn’t make something like that up just for some eggs.

#!GF! was going to dust and sweep the house, but I took over the dusting so that we could get the cleaning done in half the time. Once the house was relatively clean, I sat down at the PC to type out some notes on the last couple of days’ events. I hadn’t even brushed my teeth, but sometimes you have to forgo hygiene and get the words out before they evaporate.

I went out to check on the baby, and she was moving from laying on her stomach to sitting fairly easily, which amazed me because she only discovered the skill the day before. Watching her discover new things, even when they’re as small as sitting up, is pretty cool.

We packed the baby into the car and went to the mall, because that’s what we seem to do around here when we need to get out of the house. We were walking along with the baby, and a twelve-year-old girl rushed past us, being followed by an exasperated man. The kid kept whining, “Stop following me. I’ll find them,” before advancing to “Stop following me! I hope you die in a hole.” The kid was really loud, and it was obvious that the man following was her father. It was not cool. I felt like someone needed to stop being nice and get some fucking control over his kid.

As they power-walked ahead of us, I wondered where the kid would’ve picked up the phrase “I hope you die in a hole.” The imagery is not one of even dumping a body somewhere desolate, but of intentionally leaving someone to die. The image that came to mind was a bloodied up, worn out guy in a suit dying in freshly dug dirt.

As the ranting continued, my mind snapped back to the mall, and I wondered how a twelve-year-old gets the sack to use a line like that on a parent. It must’ve been one messy divorce to give a kid that sort of power.

I have no notes on it, but I’m sure we picked up some baby related or marginally necessary items before getting back in the car and heading home. On the way, we drove by a shop called “Just Hair Cuts.” I wondered why the word “haircut” wasn’t used, because I’m constantly writing and editing even when it looks like I’m blankly staring out the window.

I turned to #1GF!. “I just saw a store called ‘Just Hair Cuts.’”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, what would posses someone to name their shop that?”

#1GF! waited because she knew an answer was probably already on its way.

“I mean, did the owners get tired of people walking in off the street looking to get a quick surgery or have some leeches attached to their necks? Did you accidentally drive into the 1800s or something?”

#1GF! smiled.

“Maybe people kept walking in looking for tax advice. I could see how that could be pretty distracting when you’re trying to give someone a flat top. Or maybe they had nerds walking in there all the time asking for advice on how to pick up girls.”

“I don’t know.”

I paused.

“Stop. I know you’re trying to think of something else.”

“Taxidermy. Maybe they wanted their favorite pet stuffed on a wall so that it played ‘Give me that Filet-o-fish, give me that fish.’”

“Are you done?”

I sat for a second.

“Can you please be done?”

“Yes,” I said like a thwarted twelve-year-old.

We went home and puttered around the house until dinner. I baked some chicken thighs, but threw in some cauliflower against #1GF!’s wishes. It didn’t turn out too badly considering I was working with cauliflower.

While dinner was cooking, I made a few phone calls, including one to a bearded ex-coworker. “So how’s the beard?” I asked.

“Still going,” he replied.

“Nice.”

“Yea, you taught me well. You can’t let a couple of warm days trick you into shaving.”

“Yep. If you do, it ends up thirty degrees and snowing for the next two weeks. Then, you not only get a cold face, but the feeling you’ve been duped.”

From there, the conversation devolved into a discussion about metal, video games, and zombies…as good conversations usually do.

#1GF! put the baby to bed and we sat down to watch The Informant, starring a mustachioed Matt Damon. When the best part of the movie is a bad mustache, the movie isn’t very good. I paid more attention to the room that we watched it in than the movie itself.

I went to bed thinking about beards, and how I’ve somehow worked myself into the position of being a bit of an expert on them over the course of a few years. Besides talking to a lot of beardos all over the world, I couldn’t figure out what real good it did me. Sure, a good beard and a wall of books would be great on the back of a book jacket, but I’m still a long way from a publisher’s photo shoot.

My mind wandered to the fact that people in offices everywhere have been busily advancing their careers over the last three years, as mine has grown steadily stagnant. Although I drifted off to sleep wondering if I’ll ever succeed out here on my own, I was still pretty happy to not be sucking major bosscock to level up in the corporate world.

Monday (Day 1051): Pop And Parental Isolation

I woke up with bad pop music in my head. It was not a pleasant way to wake up, and it made me rethink having pop radio on all day. I had been listening to teenage pop radio for a week because if I heard “American Pie” one more fucking time, I was going to throw the radio through a wall. Why didn’t I get a CD, or play music off of the PC? When you’re the only one in the house old enough to speak English, listening to the radio makes you feel like the rest of the world is still out there. Unlike a CD, you know that there are other people listening to the same thing at the same time you are. Maybe they’re groaning and rolling their eyes, or listening along on headphones while they type out another bullshit status report, but you know they’re out there.

The larger question is: If you’re going to listen to radio, why listen to pop radio? I think pop radio makes me think that there are people out there who party all the time in places that are always sunny. Sure, they might be delusional, immature, or a figment of my imagination, but the biggest problems they face revolve around the time-worn tangle of trusting of a big butt and a smile. The idea that those people exist makes me laugh, and pop radio makes them seem probable.

I made pasta salad in the afternoon without much of a problem. The baby sat on her mat and smiled at me every so often when one of her toys amused her. She’s so much fun. Even without language, she’s getting to be a little person.

Dinner was already made by the time #1GF! got home, so I wrote for a couple of hours while #1GF! played with the baby and put her to bed. We ate dinner and watched a couple of shows on the DVR at around 9 PM. They were all sitcoms, but the only one I actually laughed at was Modern Family.

Tuesday (Day 1052): Sitting (Now With Gravitational Efficiency)

I put the baby down on her mat and went to make her bottles. She was up an hour early, and even though I got a good night’s sleep, I was exhausted. I had woken up from one of those dreams where I was moving the next day, and there was an apartment full of crap that I had to pack. It was 9:37 PM in the dream, and I didn’t even have any boxes.

I put the baby down for a nap, and by the time I wrote two paragraphs, the baby was awake. “You have to be kidding me,” I said to the monitor, but the monitor is one of those machines that doesn’t have the necessary circuitry to play jokes. The baby was awake. I took two aspirin to combat a headache that I had been carrying around for the last day, and went in to get her.

It was normal baby care until the afternoon when I took the baby to the library so that I could pick up a few books on writing. She smiled as we galloped down a long row of books to the writing section, with me quietly making galloping noises to make her smile. I quickly picked out four books and galloped back to the desk. It’s not easy handing over books and cards while holding a baby, so I made the right choice when I had stashed my library card in an easily accessible front pocket. While I was in line two women told me how beautiful the baby was. They somehow forgot to mention how awesome they thought my beard was, but that’s a very common mistake.

The whole trip into the library took about ten minutes. I tried to show the baby some paintings and a large grandfather clock, but she was more interested in a table of flyers. I took her outside and called #1GF! from the parking lot.

While I was sitting in the back seat of the truck with my leg hanging out the door, an old lady tried to park next to me. I pulled my leg into the car rather than risk having my leg taken off as she jockeyed her grey sedan back and forth in the comfortably wide space

We were home safely a little while later, and the baby was a little needy in the afternoon. She didn’t want to be too far away from me, perhaps because she couldn’t stop thinking about me sitting in the parking lot with a bloody stump of a leg while an old woman explained to the gathering crowd that her Oldsmobile must have a stuck accelerator and faulty steering.

The baby had gotten even better at moving from laying down to sitting. She would make a bridge by standing on her feet and hands like a baby elephant, and then walk her legs forward until gravity offered her no other choice than to sit. She was also just about pulling herself up on the couch. I had the feeling that she’d be mobile sooner than we thought.

Once #1GF! got home, she took over the baby, and I went in to write. I got hours of writing in and finished LOR 148 at 11 PM. I was within a couple of posts of having the Life of Riley series caught up. Then, I could finally write something else. Or read. Or do something that doesn’t involve jamming my generic daily moments into flashier packaging.

Wednesday (Day 1053): She Like A The Bunny, But Not A You Sauce

I took care of the baby all morning, and once she was down for a nap, I cleaned up the kitchen, called a landscaping place, and made dentist appointments for #1GF! and myself.

The baby took regular naps throughout the day, which let me get some writing in, and when she was awake she was a lot of fun. I read her books and tried to get her to see the similarities between them. I’d point to a cat in one book and then a cat in another book and so on. I didn’t know if she was getting it, but she didn’t seem to mind.

I stuck some of her toys between the couch cushions, and she sat on the floor in front of the couch pulling them out. At one point I asked her “Where’s the bunny?” and she reached over and pulled the bunny out of the cushion. I sat staring at her for a second before saying “Yay!” and watching her face light up. She was getting it. I made a mental note that the swears were going to have to be actively curbed around the house.

After the baby pulled the toys out of the cushion, I would pick them up and stuff them back when she went for the next one. She soon started dropping the toys behind her back, and then looking at me sideways and grinning like she was making a joke. I kept putting things back, and she kept laughing. It was a really fun day.

In the late afternoon, I put the baby on the kitchen floor and pulled out a couple of metal bowls and a wooden spoon. I read somewhere that letting kids explore and hear the result of their actions was a good thing. Whether it’s true or not, the baby seemed to have a good time.

#1GF! called while the baby was yelling and banging on a metal bowl, causing me to laugh and repeat myself every so often.

I made pasta for dinner, which wasn’t really cooking as much as it was a cheat and reheat dinner. #1GF!, the baby, and I all ate at the table together, and I gave the baby a taste of her mother’s pasta sauce. The baby made a face like she was not psyched about it.

#1GF!’s jaw dropped. “What? Oh, you’re going to be eating a lot of this, so you better get used to it.”

#1GF! put the baby to bed and cleaned up the dishes, and I went into the office and finished my second post of the week at 10:30 PM. I was within two posts of being caught up on the Life of Riley series.

Thursday (Day 1054): Bad News? Try Tuna!

The baby woke up at 12:30 AM because there were some sort of explosions or shots fired outside. #1GF! was worried and kept going to the windows. I was thinking that there weren’t enough shots to be an invasion, and by the sounds of it, it was at least a couple of streets away. I stayed in bed because there was no immediate threat, and laying on a mattress was a lot safer and more comfortable than standing in front of a window if it did end up being random gunfire.

At 4:40 AM, the baby woke up again, and wouldn’t go back to sleep. No matter what bundle of awesome you intend to pack into your day, getting up at 4:30 in the morning to start it is never fun. The baby was wide awake, but we waited until after 5 AM to go get her and start our day because we’re civilized human beings.

I put the baby to bed at 8:30 AM, and swept the contents of my notebook into the blog until the baby woke up.

I gave the baby a bath, got her dressed, gave her a teething ring, and put her on her mat. I cleaned up the bath, and put her bottle in to warm because there were only fifteen minutes before she was supposed to eat. The baby was a lot more mobile, so she spent her time making her way across the living room and into the hall by rolling and spinning herself. She thought it was really funny.

While I was feeding the baby her solid food, my mother showed up unannounced. She tried to call, and I didn’t pick up because I was feeding the baby. She hung out for a while and we had coffee. Everything was going relatively smoothly until #1GF! came home with some bad news about her mother. She welled up once she got in the door. It wasn’t good.

Not knowing what to do, I made tuna fish sandwiches for everyone. I’m really good with emotions. If another human has a problem, the only options I’m programmed with are hug it, feed it, or stand there like a dope. I did all three.

My mother went home, and I showed #1GF! how the baby was starting to get little jokes. I put a ring on my head and make it fall off. She’d laugh and try to put it on her head. It wasn’t an Abbot & Costello routine, but we were starting small.

I worked on the last week of LOR that I needed to catch up on. I only made it to Thursday, but being so close to caught up was more of a relief than it really should have been. It had taken me six full months of filling every spare minute with writing to document the last nine months since the baby was born. Over 174,500 words (698 standard pages) were added to the Life of Riley series in that time. Had I spent the time wisely, I’d have another two books written.

I sat at my desk reading about a new Facebook initiative seeking to link real identities on the web. No one but advertisers and thieves want something like this, yet all Facebook users were automatically opted in. I put together a Facebook group called I’m Tired Of Facebook Grabbing At My Privates to keep track of news related to the new program (dubbed “Instant Personalization”). I don’t know why, but there were only nineteen people interested in it. Maybe people really don’t mind having their privates grabbed these days.

I ate leftovers at 9 PM while watching The Office and 30 Rock. Both shows have obviously given up on having their comedic way with me.

While standing in front of the mirror and brushing my teeth before bed, I took a good look at my mustache. It looked as if a hairy whale had lodged itself in my nasal cavity, leaving only its tail hanging out of my nostrils. It was both awesome and frightening at the same time. #1GF! agreed with only half that statement.

Friday (Day 1055): The Scorpion

I got up, prepped the bottles, emptied the dishwasher, had a bowl of cereal, showered, sent #1GF! off to work, took out a suit for a wake, polished my shoes, trimmed the around my ears, shaved, and sat down at my desk to check my e-mail before the baby woke up.

I was trying to plan out the weekend. I had to go to a wake, rake and mow my lawn, meet with a landscaper, probably visit with #1GF!’s mother, and then rake #1GF!’s family cottage before the rain hit on Sunday. It was barely Friday morning, but I could already see Monday creeping up.

I sat at my desk and tapped out a single paragraph before the baby woke up. I gave her a bath, fed her, entertained her, fed her again, and put her in for a nap. Welcome to noontime.

At night, I went out to a wake. I packed the baby into the car and met #1GF! in a hospital parking lot that was near the funeral home. We traded the baby, and she started crying once she was in the back of #1GF!’s car. I have no idea why. Maybe it was because I was in a suit, and she just wanted to be around a bearded guy in a suit. I kissed #1GF! goodbye, got in the car, and looked in the mirror. The suit matched with the beard made me look like an eccentric submarine-dwelling millionaire code-named “The Scorpion.”

Well The Scorpion almost didn’t find the wake, because the deceased had shortened his last name from the original vowel-infused Italian, and no one in my family mentioned it to me. I had to call my parents from the parking lot to confirm that I was in the right place.

The wake went as wakes typically do, but I’m almost positive that someone asked me how it felt to get away from the baby for a couple of hours. I didn’t quite know how to answer, being that I was at a wake.

After the wake, I met #1GF! and the baby at #1GF!’s mother’s house. #1GF!’s friend was visiting too, and we stayed for a little while before heading home.

At around 9 PM, we ate Ramen noodles for dinner because I was too lazy to cook. We watched Choke, which was packed with a surprising amount of sex and wit, but sort of trailed off at the end like a conversation with a drunken professor.

Saturday (Day 1056): Cleaning For The Cleaning Lady

I had a really hard time getting out of bed, but once you have a child, there is no more catching up on sleep or sleeping in. There is only coffee and plowing down the rutted road of sleepiness.

I got up, had a bowl of cereal, and went out to rake the lawn because I had a landscaper coming to look at the yard. I know it’s like cleaning up for the cleaning lady, and I know it’s stupid. Once the lawn was raked, I put together the new lawnmower. I set the blade height on it with one hand. I pressed one button, and the whole mower rose up like it was on hydraulics. Ah, finally a technological landscaping advance I can get behind.

I mowed the lawn, and it ended up taking half the time of the push mower because I only had to make one pass at the tall patches. I managed to finish up at 10:53 AM, and the landscaper was due to arrive at 11. I was a lot sweatier than I should’ve been for having done so little. I dove into the shower, and was dressed and ready seven minutes later. Luckily, the landscaper was five minutes late.

We met with the landscaper for a half hour, and he got on his way. We went inside, put the baby on her play mat, and #1GF! and I went into the kitchen to make some lunch. We heard the baby laughing, and when we looked over at her, her face was staring at us over a chair. It took me a few seconds to figure out that she stood up without help. She had pulled herself up on me before, but never on the couch by herself.

After lunch, I faxed a plot plan to the landscaping guy. I should’ve used the new scanner/copier/fax machine I bought weeks ago, but it’s still sitting in its box on the floor. I took an old fax machine out of the closet and used that because unboxing a printer wasn’t something I wanted to take on.

#1GF!’s sister in law brought over her kids, and we all went out for a walk. We stopped at a local playground that #1GF! and I walk by all the time, but never notice. I thought it was pretty cool that it had rubber ground to break the kids’ falls, but I wondered if it had the same staph breeding properties of AstroTurf.

Once the kids were done playing, we left the playground, and I walked my niece along the seawall. I would pick her up and carry her around any people sitting her path.

#1GF!’s sister in law left a bunch of plants for us, and then they got on their way.

Not too long after, a friend of mine called because he had just dropped off his wife at a party in the area. He’s North Shore, so he doesn’t get down our way all that much. He dropped in for a few hours to hang out and shoot the shit. Sometimes, it’s really cool when people just drop in.

The guy didn’t want to stay for dinner, so after he left, I went out to pick up pizza and the local paper for #1GF!.

When I got home, the baby was in bed, the lights were pretty much out, and everything was set up for pizza and a movie. Unfortunately we watched Falling Up, which was as trite and predictable as an old after school special.

What I Learned

• Someone had a big enough problem with extras that they named their shop Just Hair Cuts.
• Sautéed cauliflower isn’t all that bad.
• Not only do I have beard wisdom, but some people heed it.
• The baby likes the library.
• The baby knows where the bunny is.
• The baby is starting to make little jokes.
• The baby does not like her mother’s pasta sauce (yet).
• #1GF!’s impulse is to look out the window when she hears shots. Mine is to stay low, and go back to sleep, if possible.
• I’ve written over 170,000 words (681 pages) in the last six months.
• It takes six months to catch up from taking three months off of writing.
• I’m not sure that people actually care what Facebook does with their user data.
• Wearing a suit and beard, and referring to yourself in the third person as The Scorpion” might be eccentric, but it just might be the image change that you have been looking for.
• I mowed for a landscaper.
• Hey, that playground down by the beach isn’t bad at all.

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