This is week 152 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 1057): July 45th

I made #1GF! breakfast because that’s the sort of exciting thing that happens around here on Sundays. The morning went normally, and when the baby went in for a nap, #1GF! sat with me on the couch and edited LOR 148 and 149. We had a few grammar discussions, the only one I can remember revolved around the phrase “even if there were a way…” and whether it indicated a subjunctive mood or not. This is the type of raw excitement that I bring to the table, ladies. Don’t push. I’m already spoken for.

The baby had finally grown out of her infant tub, so #1GF! gave her a bath in the sink. I left the room so that I didn’t appear to be hovering. Once the baby was clean and dressed, we decided to kick up the grammar correcting, baby bathing party frenzy to the next level, so we spent part of the afternoon driving around looking for foreclosed houses. Were we in the market for a house? No. Was there a reason for us to be wasting gas driving around town looking at houses that we never intended to buy? No. Fortunately, the ride ended up being nostalgic. It reminded us of when we used to spend our weekends combing the real estate sections and following signs to open houses. We were both glad to have those days behind us.

We hoped that the ride might ease the baby into her next nap, but it didn’t. She was riding the Sunday party train with us, and didn’t want to close her eyes and miss a second of the heart-pounding excitement.

We went home, fed the baby, and got her down for a nap. #1GF! and I sat at the kitchen table, #1GF! reading a celebrity magazine and me with my writer’s magazine. The air was as charged as if we were the last people standing in a bar fight. I’m just fucking with you. If either of us put our heads down on the table and fell asleep, there was only about a fifty percent chance that the other person would’ve shrugged before doing the same.

For lack of anything better to do, we tried to figure out dinner. A quick tour of the refrigerator indicated that we needed to do some food shopping. Once the baby was awake, we hopped into the car and went to check out a new store called “Fresh Market” that had opened nearby. I was hoping that it was going to be a Haymarket style open air vegetable market, with disheveled men with mustaches yelling fruit prices, but it turned out to be an upscale bastard child of Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.

We walked between the dark wooden bins, holding piles of brightly colored fruit that were as perfect and shiny as if they were raised and trained by a woman who gardened in khaki slacks and pearls. I went over some of produce prices in my head as we explored the store. From the prices that I could remember, Fresh Market commanded an ivy league premium for its produce. We left the store without buying anything, and were pretty sure that we wouldn’t need to go back unless we happened to need to put together an expensive gift basket.

We went to the normal supermarket across the street, and I picked up just enough things for #1GF! to make lasagna with. #1GF! carried the baby and I grabbed what we needed. Even though the produce was much more reasonable, most of it looked as if it had made it through three semesters of state school before being tossed in the middle of a drunken brawl.

When we got home, #1GF! made lasagna and put the baby to bed. I sat in the office writing. When I emerged, I realized what a great idea that lasagna was. Not only would it provide two days of homemade pasta goodness, but I wouldn’t have to cook.

After dinner, #1GF! and I made it through twenty minutes of Area 51 before shutting it off. It’s probably a fine movie, but I can’t sit through cartoons anymore no matter how great the animation. We filled the remaining time before bed with a couple of TV shows. I could’ve got the same comedy fix from watching the neighbor’s cat roll around in their front yard. Other than sitting next to #1GF!, it was a complete waste of time.

“Seriously,” asked #1GF! while we stood facing the bathroom mirror, “can we talk about it?”

I knew exactly what she was getting at. “No.”

“Seriously. I just want to know when.”

“Look. You’re making me feel bad here.”

“But, you don’t even like it.”

“I don’t like that I haven’t done a bench press in years either, but I don’t want you poking at my middle and making the Pillsbury Doughboy laugh every other day. Do it a couple of times and I get the point, but the more you do it, the more I want to resist. I’m built for resistance.”

“You are. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Good. So, when is it coming off then?”

I touched my chin to my chest and puffed my cheeks. “July. July 45th. I’m going corporate and padding the date so that if it’s any earlier, you’ll feel like you won something.”

“Well, not if you tell me!”

Monday (Day 1058): Switched Into Adventure Mode

I turned the radio dial back to the oldies channel because I could feel parts of my brain rotting under the influence of teenage pop. I wasn’t sure that repeated oldies would be any better, but at least the rage that I felt every time “American Pie” came on would elevate my blood pressure enough to count as exercise.

#1GF! had to pick up her mother and take her to some appointments, so we were up before 6 AM. There was no reason for me to get out of bed, but the guilt dragged me out. I sat at the kitchen counter and had a bowl of cereal and read another book on writing. I was barely paying attention to the words and realized that I was simply waiting for the baby to wake up. I would look at the monitor at every rustle and wait before going back to reread the same line again. I didn’t have to wait too long. The baby was up an hour early.

#1GF! left, and I entertained the baby, fed her, and eventually put her in for her morning nap. By the time I was showered and dressed, the baby was already awake again.

I entertained her for a couple of hours and fed her a couple of times. The baby is pretty mechanical about when she goes to bed, so I was holding her in my arms and waiting for her to get drowsy. She was looking up at me, so I kissed her face. Her little blue eyes danced as she laughed. I knew that she was supposed to be slowing down, but I couldn’t help myself. I kissed her again. She twisted in my arms and the kiss caught part of her neck. She tucked her head and laughed hysterically. Once her laughter ebbed, she’d stick her neck out and wait for me to kiss her again. It was funny as hell.

All the laughter wore her out, and her small body eventually got heavy as she snuggled into my shoulder. I held her for a few moments longer before gently putting her to bed.

As the gears wound up and the smile wore off my face, I grabbed a quick sandwich and sat down at my desk to reconstruct the weekend. I couldn’t understand how it was already noon.

The rest of the day was fairly normal, although the baby launched herself onto her head from the couch once. I was actually paying attention to her at the time. She just happened to make a decision to push herself away from me faster than I could grab her. I picked her up and stopped her from crying before feeling around on her back to see if someone had accidentally flipped her switch into “adventure mode.”

I put the baby on the floor, and she spent her time trying to pull herself up on everything. She has an unstoppable desire to stand up. Even when I walk her down the hallway, she tries to pull her hands out of mine. When she realizes that she can’t walk without holding my hands, she cries. I don’t know where she might’ve gotten such stubborn independence, but come hell or high water, the baby was going mobile.

#1GF! went out to a wake in the early evening, but was back in time to feed the baby. I had been steadily slowing down as a result of chasing Adventure Baby around, so I chugged a cup of tea to try to bring myself up to speed. It didn’t do me any good. I was tired. Sometimes, even particularly easy days of baby care wear me out. I sat down to write at 6:30 PM and got LOR 150 completed in a couple of hours.

#1GF! and I ended up eating dinner at 9PM, and watched The Marriage Ref. Kathy Griffin and Tracy Morgan were guests on the show. Griffin somehow annoys the shit out of me every time she opens her mouth, and Morgan was as erratic as a seven-year old on drugs. The show was not only terrible, but it even managed to ruin 30 Rock for me because it made me wonder whether Tracy Morgan’s idiotic portrayal of Tracy Jordan on the show was really an act. I had to ask myself why I bother watching television at all.

We went to bed soon after.

Tuesday (Day 1059): The Human Seesaw

I woke up with a headache and groggily emptied the dishwasher. #1GF! was scheduled to go to a funeral. She won in the “my day sucks worse” competition.

#1GF! headed out to a funeral, and I gave the baby a bath in the kitchen sink. Because I had to use one hand to keep her from bouncing her squash off of the edge of the sink, my baby washing capacity was cut by half. Add some soap to make things slippery, and I soon had to wrap an arm around her to keep her under control.

I remembered all the trouble #1GF! had giving the baby a bath a couple of days before, and realized it wasn’t lack of practice that made it awkward. The sink was more difficult than a baby tub that kept the baby in a conveniently reclined, but upright position.

After the bath, I lay on my side on the floor while the baby climbed up on me to practice standing. She was doing fine until she decided to pitch herself over my legs like she was the board on a human seesaw. She did it so fast that I couldn’t even react. Her little legs were sticking up in the air after her head hit the floor with a thunk. She didn’t have to think whether she wanted to cry or not, she just let loose.

I calmed her down, and took her to the freezer to find something cold for the red spot that was blossoming on her forehead. I tried an ice cream container, and the baby pulled away and looked at it with awe. I think she thought it was a giant chew toy. I took out an ice pack instead, and she did the same thing. Her wonder had replaced her tears.

Nothing cold was going to stay on her head for more than three seconds before being removed, examined, and tasted, so I gave up. I wasn’t sure whether she’d have an egg on her head, so I called her mother immediately to give her a few hours to get used to the fact that I was a bad parent. While I was on the subject, I admitted to the baby pitching herself off the couch onto her head the day before. I suggested that #1GF! get a discount on her child care bill this month.

When #1GF! got home, I overheard a phone conversation that sounded like it was about work. It was from a couple of rooms away, so my satellite dish ears couldn’t pick up the nuances of the conversation, but for some reason, I had the feeling that she was getting laid off. I was changing the baby and calmly thinking, “Well, it’ll be fine. I can get a job. At least I got the Life of Riley series caught up.” I got the baby dressed and went to see what was up.

#1GF! had already hung up the phone and was intensely scrolling through e-mails on her phone.

“Hey,” I said to ease her out of the phone and back into the kitchen.

“Hey.”

“Everything okay?” I asked. I was sure that I’d be spending the afternoon looking through job postings.

“Oh, yea.” She shook her head. “Just work. You know.”

“I thought that you got laid off. I was changing the baby and getting ready to put an end to the Life of Riley series.

“You can’t!”

“No, I meant if I got a job, I would stop it.”

“Ah, okay.”

I know that #1GF! enjoys the Life of Riley series, but her reaction felt like I watched the formation of a sinkhole.

I fed the baby solid food, and she was finally okay with turkey and sweet potatoes. She ate like a champ, and then stuffed a bunch of yogurt snacks in her mouth all at once. I cleaned up the dishes, the bottles, and her, and put her in for a nap. I sat down at my desk and made notes on the day until the baby woke up.

During the baby’s last feeding of the day, I managed to finish Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. It was really basic, but there were a couple of good tips in there for anyone who feels the need to spend their free time brushing up on grammar.

I put the baby on the floor, gave her a few pans and containers, and let her chase them around. She actually crawled a couple of times.

#1GF! ran out to get the truck’s timing belt adjusted, and once she got home, I made another attempt at making the ultimate mac and cheese. This round included a twenty-eight ounce can of diced tomatoes and a quarter teaspoon of red pepper flakes. The tomatoes killed off any bacon flavor, which immediately put them on the “stay the fuck out of my mac and cheese” list. The pepper flakes provided a little kick that had been missing since #1GF! requested that onion be dropped from the recipe. Back to the drawing board.

After dinner, I loaded all the pots and pans into the dishwasher instead of washing them. That’s what a dishwasher is for, they say. We spent the time saved from not washing dishes watching a couple of bad sitcoms. I need to stop wasting an hour on the television at night. It’s never funny enough to justify the coma.

Before I went to bed, I added up all the words in all the Life Of Riley posts over the last three years. There were 553,150 words, which translates to over 2,200 standard pages. Even if only 14% of the posts were interesting, it would still translate to a 300 page book. That was an interesting feeling.

Wednesday (Day 1060): The Sneaky Dicks At Cheerios

I got up, emptied the dishwasher, and had a bowl of Cheerios. As I stood at the counter in my typical, early morning half coma, I realized that there is the same amount of sugar in Honey Nut Cheerios as in a bowl of Apple Jacks or Fruit Loops. And there is more salt. I’ve been eating Honey Nut Cheerios every morning for, oh, I don’t know, the last thirty years under the premise that they were a healthy alternative to sugared cereals. Awesome. If you glance at the nutrition information on the side of the box, the Cheerios people make it look like Honey Nut Cheerios contain less sugar by pure trickery. While other cereals list one cup as their serving size, Cheerios games fools like me by listing its serving size as 3/4 cup. Those sneaky dicks.

Once #1GF! was off to work and the baby was in for her nap, I sat down and roughed out the events of the day before.

Once the baby was awake, I put her toys in front of her and asked her where each of them were. She knows bunny, cow, moose, baby, elephant, and doggie. She got them all correct. As the afternoon lingered, I ran out of things to do, so I tried the game again. The baby picked up elephant when I asked for a monkey, and began picking up the bunny no matter what I asked for. She was in no mood for the game. The only thing she wanted to do was grab onto my shirt and stand up, which she did repeatedly.

Once #1GF! got home, she fed the baby and put her to bed. I sat at my desk and made notes on the day. I had run out of backlogged Life Of Riley posts to go through. I was finally caught up, and it was only 9:30 PM. It was a weird feeling.

Thursday (Day 1061): TVTropes Will Ruin Your Life

The baby was up at 4:30 AM, which is always a good time. #1GF! took care of it, but there was no way for me to sleep with all the crying.

Once our normal schedule caught up to us, #1GF! headed out to work, and I put the baby to bed as usual. Typically, I would spend the time she slept chewing through LOR posts, but those were gone. I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, and thought it would be a good idea to keep writing as if I had a deadline. Save money like you need it, and work like you have a deadline.

I excitedly flipped to the back pages of my notebook to pick one of the ten or so incredible book ideas I had come up with over the last few months. I read each of them, and not one had enough juice to get me writing. I thought that I might be able to come up with a better idea, so I patrolled TVTropes.com and ended up mired in plot devices. By the time the baby woke up, I had gone through countless pages, and still had twenty-one tabs open.

When I went in to get the baby, I found her standing in her crib. She had never done that before, so I took a couple of pictures. I thought #1GF! would think it was cute, but mostly, I wanted to document what our house looked like before we had a mobile toddler.

While I fed her a bottle, I tried to use my research to come up with more book ideas. I didn’t come up with anything new, so I tried to expand on some of the ideas that I already had. I didn’t get very far.

I entertained the baby for a while after she ate, and managed to poke her in the eye with the corner of a board book as I flipped one of the pages. Every time she blinked hard and rubbed her eye, I felt really awful. I’m supposed to keep her from getting hurt, not help her from injury to injury.

I went to get the baby’s lunch ready, and she crawled a few steps and somehow smacked her head on the hardwood floor. I reassured her while she cried. When combined with Tuesday’s injuries, I thought that the only books I should write would be How To Be A Bad Parent In Three Easy Steps or possibly Goofus And Gallant On Parenting.

I fed the baby her lunch, and to pay me back for her injuries, she kept karate chopping the spoon. I don’t think she was aiming for the spoon as much as practicing her karate chops. Eventually, her bib was so coated with oatmeal that it was making more of a mess than it was preventing. I took it off of her. To celebrate, she kept dipping her hands into her spoon and rubbing them all over her head.

After she finished eating, I changed her outfit and sat her on the floor next to the couch so that I could clean up the remarkable number of surfaces that had been coated in oatmeal. I looked away for a few seconds to wipe her high chair, and when I turned back, she was standing next to the couch smiling at me. She put her thumb in her mouth, and leaned her head on the cushion as if she intended to fall asleep standing up.

I put her to bed at noon, had a quick sandwich, and sat at my desk to write. I didn’t want to get mired in TVTropes again, but I was feeling a little lost because I was once again without a concrete writing project to drive me on. I thought about updating Better Blogroll, but I thought that I would spend the time keeping the writing streak going. Instead of starting a new story like I should’ve, I went to my blog and wrote down the day’s events because it was comfortable territory.

Instead of moving forward with actual writing, I got off track and researched another book idea to see if it was feasible. The baby was taking an unusually long nap, leaving me to delve into the necessary thinking that goes before the writing. Even though it’s necessary, research and thinking don’t feel like I’m working. I feel like I’m taking a long lunch or playing solitaire at my desk, and I always feel guilty about it.

Because of her long afternoon nap, the baby skipped her late afternoon nap. I entertained her for as long as I could by reading books and playing games. Finally, I stuck a plastic ball inside a plastic ricotta container and let her chase it around the floor. I gave her a plastic spoon and a bowl to bang on to add to her collection of noise making objects.

She pulled herself up on a chair and stood there smiling at me. All she wants to do is stand. I pulled out a notepad and sat at the table trying to start another novel. I knew that anything I wrote was guaranteed to suck, but sometimes you have to write and be confident that everything will be worked out in future edits. The important thing is trying to force that amorphous blob of an idea into something concrete.

When I siphon bits of an idea out of the ether and onto the screen, it gives me a better idea of what the entire story might look like. Ideas evolve into scenes, and those scenes when strung together end up being a book. Sometimes it’s like picking at individual sections of a puzzle without knowing how they’ll eventually link up, but at the early stages, getting the ideas out is all that you can do. With a puzzle, it doesn’t matter which sections you work on, but as long as you’re working to fit something together. Eventually it will fit together, but you have to start somewhere.

I only got about half a page written before it was time for the baby to eat again. #1GF! came home after the feeding and took over the baby care. I made broccoli alfredo for dinner, and was about to make some cookies or cupcakes for dessert, but gave up on cooking.

We ate dinner at the table and then wrestled with the baby to suck two giganto boogers out of her nose. The baby does not like to have boogers sucked out of her nose, but them’s the breaks when you’re a baby.

I cleaned up the dishes, and then went in to clean the bathroom. I was sitting at my desk and smelling of bleach-spiked mints by 8:30 PM.

#1GF! put the baby to bed, and then decided to run out to the store for some gifts and baby wipes before they closed. I quickly wrote down the day’s events and then went back to plotting out the book I had been working on. I wasn’t all that excited about it. I eyed the manila envelope that had been occupying the corner my desk for the last six months. My first book lay dormant in that envelope, and the longer it stayed in there untouched, the better chance I had to convince myself I was a writer.

I sighed and unfolded the orangy-tan paper and pulled out my manuscript. I looked at the title page, not sure if I wanted to continue. “The truth shall set you free,” I said to myself, and flipped the cover page onto the desk upside down.

I read forty or so pages, and even though I had written and rewritten that book several times, I still found a number of typos, and wanted to completely rewrite the first two chapters. I thought of Stephen King’s advice about putting down a book for six weeks after its written. It took me three months to write my first manuscript, so putting it away for six weeks seemed like an unnecessary eternity back then. And here I was six months later, thinking that Stephen King knew what he was talking about.

Friday (Day 1062): Grubby Velociraptors

It was a normal morning of baby care. My parents came over at around noon, so the baby missed her midday nap. I tried to get her to pick out her toys by name to show my parents how smart she was, but she only got it right half the time.

My parents stayed for a couple of hours, and once they were gone, I fed the baby and put her to bed. I went in to continue my research for a book idea. Somehow, the clock read 4 PM. The day was gone. I almost went down to chastise the robot for tinkering with the time-space continuum, but remembered that I didn’t spend the money on that feature when I ordered him.

While looking up some bit of grammar that I could never keep straight, I learned that the common convention now is to put one space after the end of a sentence. Double spacing after a period was abandoned with manual typewriters. I confirmed the rule in a couple of common style guides, but couldn’t believe it was true. I’m trying to do things correctly, but the lack of a double space just feels strange.

It was sunny and warm, so after #1GF! got home, we took the baby out for a walk along the beach. Everyone else had the same idea. A couple of grubby kids ran by, and their father couldn’t seem to keep them from running onto the beach. To distract them, the guy said, “Look kids, a baby!” The kids stopped dead like a couple of velociraptors who suddenly smelled small prey on the wind.

They charged toward the carriage screeching “Baby! Baby!”

I got in between them and the baby like a giant T-Rex and kept them from getting their grubby paws on the baby until their parents could catch up and pull them off the stroller.

As we walked home, there was a biker standing in the middle of the sidewalk smoking pot. I claim to be very libertarian with people doing what they want with their brains in the privacy of their own homes, but the whole scenario made me really mad. I like where I live, and I have developed a very “us” and “them” attitude toward people who visit the beach. I’m very “not in my town” for some strange reason. As we were walking, I was actually debating on whether to call the cops. “There are kids here,” came into my head. Then I thought, “If it’s really about your kid, then teach your kid not to smoke pot. If that guy wants to fuck up his brain, that’s his deal. Let it go.” And somehow, I did.

Saturday (Day 1063): Leftover Words Soaked In Baby Formula

I got up, got dressed, and had a bowl of fruit loops because they were more nutritious than the “healthy” Honey Nut Cheerios that I typically eat every day.

#1GF! walked into the kitchen. “Any idea where the burp cloth is?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” I said through a mouthful of sugary nonsense. “Just grab another one.”

#1GF! shook her head. “Remember when we used to use so many of these in a day that we’d have to do laundry?”

I smiled. “Yea. That seems like so long ago.”

“Doesn’t it?”

It did. The days of the barf ninja seemed to be behind us.

After we got dressed, I worked on one of my ideas for a new book. I sat at my desk and tapped away at the keys, dumping anything that I could think of that would help give me a better picture of the story.

Once the baby woke up from her nap, I downloaded the most recent episode of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me to my phone so that we could listen to it on the ride to #1GF!’s family’s house. It turned out to be a great idea because it killed an hour of the ride.

When we got to #1GF!’s family’s house, I played Fruit Ninja on an iPod touch. It was a basic game, but it kept me entertained for a while. I’m finally getting to the point in my life where kids dominate me in video games. My reaction times still test at around two tenths of a second (test yours), but the video game centers of my brain are flabby, out of shape, and stuffed with leftover words soaked in baby formula.

I went outside to play b-ball with the kids because I didn’t think video games were a good idea on a sunny day when temperatures hovered in the mid-80s. Video games got much more appealing as the bugs feasted on my salted, seaside flesh. I was walking around waving my arms and kicking my legs like I was insane. Strangely, the bugs didn’t bother with the kids.

We listened to NPR again on the way home. It was so much better than music until it veered into some obscure territory that only appeals to academic NPR listeners who tune in on Saturday nights. By the time we dropped #1GF!’s mother off, we were back to music.

We got home at around 10 PM, and took the baby out of the car without waking her up. I had been host to a headache that had been steadily gaining traction since noon, so I sat on the couch and ate ice cream. I know it makes no sense, but when it’s too late to be chugging down caffeine-laced Excedrin, sometimes getting my stomach settled helps my headaches resolve themselves. It didn’t work that time, so I went to bed with a headache and a belly full of dream nitroglycerin.

What I Learned

• Fresh Market is just a bastardization of Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.
• Someone switched the baby into adventure mode.
• Tracy Morgan’s rendition of Tracy Jordan may not be acting.
• Washing a baby in the kitchen sink is a lot more difficult than in an infant tub.
• #1GF! really likes these posts.
• Tomatoes were added to the “stay the fuck out of my mac and cheese” list, but Italian pepper wasn’t.
• There were 553,150 words in the Life of Riley Series so far, which translates to over 2,200 standard pages. Even if only 14% of the posts were interesting, it would still translate to a 300 page book.
• A Bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios is actually less healthy than either Apple Jacks or Fruit Loops.
• The baby has learned to pull herself up in her crib.
• The baby would sleep standing up if she were capable.
• A ball inside an old ricotta container is as entertaining as most baby toys.
• My book needs to have at least its first two chapters rewritten.
• The common convention now is to put one space after the end of a sentence. Double spacing after a period was abandoned with manual typewriters.
• I’m finally getting to the point in my life where kids dominate me in video games.

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