Saved!



I found Jesus today. He was apparently homeless, riding a beat up old K-Mart special through a parking lot with a sign slung under one arm. The sign read “Laborer Seeking Work”, and I assumed he was into carpentry. There was a cross hanging from his neck on a leather strand. The cross seemed to be made of particle board, or maybe extra thick cardboard. He was wearing a long denim dress. There’s a song in all this, I just know it. Something tells me it’s a country song. I have an idea for a chorus:

“Jesus is a transvestite, and that’s OK with me.

“I just need to know if I should call ‘im ‘he’ or ‘she’.

“Jesus is a transvestite, he’s into women’s clothes.

“But you can take it from me, old son, that she’s still one of the bros!”

Yeehaw!

Now that I’ve thoroughly pissed off all my Christian and/or C&W friends and relatives, a change of subject is in order. I just read an article by one Ray Comfort (is that a made up name?), who is handing out revised copies of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” on college campuses. He ripped out three chapters, and rewrote the introduction, all in an attempt to make the book fit in better with his creationist beliefs. I recognize that the copyright is long since lapsed, but to so radically change the content of a book and present it under the original title seems like a sort of intellectual crime to me. Naturally, I commented on his post at length, but that was really just so I could sleep better at night. I don’t actually believe I’ll “reach” him in any meaningful way; he’s either an idiot or a liar, and both are difficult to reason with. For the record, I don’t deny that he has the right to his faith. But to dress it up as science demonstrates a failure to understand the scientific method. Dude, one may not teach faith in a science classroom. How’d you like it if I showed up at your church and gave a lecture on Newtonian Mechanics (with lots of asides about the failure of the Bible to adhere to physical theory)? Sort it out.

Home

I’ve been in the house for a long time.

First, there was the unemployment. I worked in solar, for a contractor. Our business was closely tied to housing, and you know what that means. Thereafter, I looked for work, doing odd jobs on the side. I had a brief stint as a cable installer, but that’s not for me. The only way to make money doing that is to go way too fast. All the money makers I trained with said things like “this isn’t technically how we do it” and “don’t let anyone see you doing it this way”. They sped, tail gated, lane cut, ran stop signs, cut corners in their work, and flat out lied about work getting done. I’m not that guy, so I couldn’t compete as a cable installer. Cabbing was a joke. I’ve commented on that, so I’ll leave it alone. Suffice it to say that if I ever ride in a taxi, I’ll tip BIG. I had an “interview” for a position in insurance sales. The ad said “Get paid to present Union members with their negotiated benefits packages”. The ad lied. It was actually a sales opportunity, with a $650.00 buy in. It was to insurance as Amway is to plastic junk. That is also not me. I’m not going diamond, and I’m not a rough tough can’t get enough psycho rhino. I interviewed for a medical devices technician position, and the interviewer told me she’d call me on a given day, one way or the other. That day passed weeks ago. She won’t return my calls. I’ve heard “we’ll call you” so often that it’s what I expect every time. So now I’m going to meet with a man who matches people and jobs. I’m really not sure, anymore, who needs me to work for them, but I’ll discuss it with him.

I love my family. It’s all I have. They keep me alive, and cause me to smile. Nothing else is real. So, I stay home, cook, clean, and smile at the baby. If the world needs me, it can leave a message for me. You know where I am.

WAH!!!

Sleep is for sissies. If my eyes are closed, call the coroner.

I don’t know who designs baby clothes, but it’s pretty obvious they’ve never actually clothed a baby. Wriggling, squirming, and flailing her tiny limbs, my baby resists every effort to remove or replace her clothes. I say all we really need is to wrap her in a blanket and keep her diapers changed, but no, we must keep her in age appropriate cute clothes for the rest of her life. From now on, I’m going naked in protest. Stupid fashion people…

Diapers leak. We received many packages of diapers as gifts, and we are truly grateful. Sadly, the wonderful eco-friendly diapers everyone gave us at the baby showers are about as absorbent as those brown paper towels found in park rest rooms. Sure, we could use cloth, but I’m already doing three or four loads of laundry each day, and I have to cook and clean sometime.

People have been having babies for, what, a hundred years or something? You’d think we’d have baby stuff that actually made it easier by now. I expect to hear a chorus of “design it yourself”, but dammit Jim, I’m a physicist, not a seamstress!

On the “success” side, one relative gave us a portable play pen with a bassinet conversion. I’m proud to announce that I successfully deduced the appropriate placement of all of the pieces, without a manual, and the system is now functioning at 100%. The cat has decided to leave it alone, as it was never her territory to begin with.

Finally, our baby girl actually slept for two uninterrupted three hour stretches last night, which means I am capable of forming sentences again. Hey, that means I’m a sissy!

Like a Baby

I’m pretty fried. Maia will be two weeks old tomorrow. She sleeps way more than I do. I must watch her constantly to make sure she’s healthy and safe. I assume that, at some point, it will no longer be necessary for me or my wife to wonder how well the baby’s breathing, and that she’ll be able to fend off the cat on her own one day, but I can’t imagine when these things will occur. For now, I sit up, sleepless by choice, guarding my child against all evil. It feels like a sort of long ritual; welcome to life, little one. Grow strong.

Hail Eris!

Eris finally understands. Eris is the cat, and shortly after we brought Maia home, Eris began stalking her. We discouraged that, and Eris was a little confused for a while. Now, she seems to understand that the baby is a little person. This actually bodes ill for the baby, as Eris has never shown respect for any people. Now, in her exuberance at the arrival of a new family member, Eris has decided to start playing with the baby as she does me. It’s not malice. It’s not even hunting. Eris just wants to play. The thing is, babies have thin skin, and Eris uses her claws. So far, we’ve kept the baby well, and we’re doing a good job with our constant vigilance. We will teach the cat to leave the baby alone. No playing or sleeping with baby!

Don’t worry, we lock the cat out of the bedroom at night.

I apply for multiple jobs weekly, and had two serious interviews in the last two weeks, but am still unemployed. I decided that I must be a consultant who has confused himself with a regular employee. In that spirit, I’ve created a company name for myself, and wrote a short blurb intended to market my talents. I’ll do a little more independent research, but would like people to read what I’ve written so far and comment on it. I am not permitted to post the “flyer” in this space, as I’m not paying, so if anyone would be willing to read what I’ve written, just contact me (or leave your contact information, if that’s a simpler process for you). Any help will be appreciated. It seems I am unhirable.

DREAMS

Starting in the spring of 2005, and going on for about three months, I had a series of dreams that were intensely real and sometimes lucid. Some readers are aware that this is a period of time just preceding some major life changes on my part. I thought it’d be nice to share these dreams with all y’all, as any insight and comments can only be helpful (I can usually help others interpret their dreams, but mine are always baffling to me). Read on if you will, say what you will.

THE DREAMS

1- I’m at a party in a strange house, surrounded by people I’ve never met. A woman, plain but somehow interesting, approaches me and starts talking about tattoos. She shows me her back piece, a woman’s outline in blue with what seem to be wings or a cloud above and behind her. She holds a red flame in cupped hands. The woman tells me she looks forward to dancing around the fire while I drum. I wake to an echo, what’s left of the name “Rowena.” I later discover that Rowena is the Cornish Goddess of knowledge, whose symbol is the rowan tree. This explains the “wings.”

2- I’m at another party, this time in my childhood home. I meet an extremely attractive woman who asks me upstairs, and I immediately realize I’m dreaming, as the house I lived in was single story. Hoping I won’t wake too soon, I follow her upstairs, where she commands me to perform for her sexually. When she is done with me, she tells me that I “may go on.” I wake to the name “Anwen”, who is a servant of the Keeper of the Gates to the Underworld.

3-The next party takes place in a small cavern next to a great underground lake churning with giant, blind fish. Again drifting in a sea of strangers, I encounter an old woman who challenges me to a sparring match, light contact. We agree to fight for three touches, and then begin. She uses a dynamic, sweeping style which seems best suited to a blade. The fight is close, but my Karate prevails. She tells me that my ability is “sufficient”, then wishes me well. I wake to the name “Cerridwen”, about whom I know little.

4-This gathering takes place under an ever-changing night sky. Nothing remarkable takes place until the sky begins to lighten with morning’s approach. As the light intensifies, I notice that it has no one source; I am still under ground. The assembled beings begin to sing together, and seem sad when the final chorus is reached. I look to my right and find seated beside me a small, beautiful woman. Her skin is pale, her hair is white, and her eyes shine with every color.

“They sure loved that song,” I say.

“Yes,” she says, “but they love you better. Sing and they will sing with you.”

So I sing something, and the crowd sings with me. I wake speaking the name “Anwen.”

5-I am moving through a system of caverns, toward an exit. The door I am approaching leads out of a crypt worked into the outermost caverns. Filled with a sense of urgency, I rush toward the exit, only to find my way blocked a horizontal forest of desiccated arms flailing from recesses in the walls. I draw a sword and hack my way to the door, intending to exit. I wake as the door opens. There is no name echoing in my mind upon waking, this time, but I know they’re not finished with me.

6-Following Anwen through a series of rooms cut into the great cavern’s walls, I see many windows permitting a view of the lake. She leads me up three flights of stairs to a balcony which overlooks a crowded plaza on the lake’s nearest shore. The entities gathered below move energetically, fighting or dancing, or both at once. A hand on my left shoulder draws my attention to a figure I immediately know as Meg, who has just joined me at the balcony’s rail. She apologizes for the delay in her arrival, then says, “It was I who called you here.” Again, I hear a name on waking, this time “Meg.” I have read that Meg keeps the knowledge of herbs and healing.

Dad Date 131009

Saturday night, at about ten, my wife first complained of persistent lower back pain. She also began making frequent trips to the bathroom. By one o’clock Sunday morning she was sure she was in labor. I was awakened at one thirty by the sound of her voice as she spoke to an advice nurse on the phone. I spent the next three hours doing little final prep things for our coming trip and helping my wife to feel more comfortable.

We arrived at the hospital at around five on the morning of Sunday, October 11, 2009. We had a long walk in due to construction, during which my wife had to stop multiple times to weather contractions. Soon enough, we were inside and the hospital staff was generating a whirlwind of aid.

After hours of increasingly powerfull contractions, and decreasing intervals, the contraction graph first leveled out, and then the magnitude began to decline. It was also noted that during each contraction the depression of the baby’s vital signs could be related directly to the magnitude of the contraction then occurring. Clearly, some aspect of the process of contraction was troubling the child.

At a little bit before four in the afternoon we spoke with our doctor. She pointed out the facts, listed risks, and said we might consider a C-Section delivery. The concerns were that every contraction weakened my wife and threatened our baby, the drugs being used by that time were apparently harming the baby by reducing its ability to cope with contractions, and the situation was not getting better over time. My wife and I spoke privately, and decided a C-Section was the best idea.

My wife soon found herself flat on her back, staring at a blue curtain. I held her hand through the operation, during which she experienced pressure but very little pain. The staff soon presented us with our daughter, Maia, and then she and I went off to the nursery for tests and procedures while my wife was sewn shut. We later learned that the cause of all our difficulties was a very short umbilical cord. Our baby was performing uterine bungee jumping, in which a contraction would stretch her cord thin, thus occluding fluid flow and causing her distress. There was no way to have performed a vaginal birth. The situation was one that would have led, one hundred and fifty years ago, to a sweaty doctor with a saw telling me, “well, I can save one or the other, but they’re not both coming out of that room alive.” Let’s hear it for modern medicine!!!

Cab Date 071009

My wife and I had separate appointments at Kaiser today.

She went in for a routine pregnancy type thing, where she heard a strong heart beat and discussed birth plans. She’s going back Monday for a “non stress test”. This mystifying name is actually a baby stress test. They will monitor the baby, through my wife’s skin, for an hour. If there are significant stress indicators, they will induce labor shortly after the tests. If not, she will be scheduled for induction on Thursday, as carrying a pregnancy too long is bad for baby and mother alike. Of course, the baby could be born normally in the mean time.

I went to Kaiser to get trained in the use of my CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine, which should help me get some actual sleep. I don’t know which of my readers are aware of this, but I have been diagnosed with moderate obstructive sleep apnea. This means that my throat and palate relax to the point of collapse when I fall asleep. The result has been, for years, low blood Oxygen through the night, which over time results in severe fatigue, depression, irritability, reduced immunological activity, heart problems, etc. With luck, the CPAP will keep my airway open, allowing me to sleep normally. I can’t wait.

Nature’s a wild and wanton thing, and there’s just no telling what will happen when. I will keep you all posted.

Cab Date 051009

So I went in Saturday, paid my slips, and announced that I’d not be driving anymore. Over a two week period I spent twenty dollars more on gate and gas than I received in fares, and I can’t afford that. Burger King pays better, so I’ll apply there. Actually, I applied at the local In’N’Out and Costco shops, but to no avail. I’ll keep writing under the same banner, as one must not change horses mid race.

Now, let’s get political. Roman Polanski. That’s one icky dude. I believe that rapists, of any kind, are foul creatures. If I ever stumbled upon a rape in progress, I’d probably do things that got me in a bit of trouble myself, but the rape would cease. Thing is, this Polanski noise isn’t about rape. It’s about money.

I don’t mean the money someone could make writing a book and selling a made for TV movie. I mean we poor folk get pissed off when we’re reminded that the rich can get away with things like rape and murder, and I also mean that the news organizations are making tons of money by stirring this soup. Really, when was the last time you thought to yourself “gee, that Polanski fellow really needs his comeuppance regarding the statutory rape he perpetrated thirty years ago”? Two weeks ago? Last year? Ever?! Experiencing a sudden burst of moral outrage because the TV news says somebody famous did something bad (quel surprise!) just makes us tools of the tube. The reason that the apologists can’t say this is because they write for TV and movies, and it would be suicidal for them to say that the media they represent manipulates public opinion. How long would this be in the headlines if it was a first year film student from a community college in Iowa?

People say they want to see justice. Fine. What’s that look like, justice? How do we make right a thirty year old statutory rape? There will be all kinds of suggestions from all over the map, mostly of the outraged “where’s my chainsaw” type. My suggestion, sure to be pooh-poohed by left and right alike, is that Polanski and the victim get a long series of facilitated encounter sessions. They’d both come out stronger, better adjusted people, and it’d cost a Hell of a lot less than court and prison. My further suggestion is that we ignore anymore “news” of this nature, thus taking the wind out of that ship’s sails.

Cab Date 021009

Another day, another pending economic disaster. I arrive at the shop to find a dispatcher I’ve never met sleeping in front of the radio. He’s a bit surly with me at first, but perks up when I start talking to him about his car. We Americans and our cars…

The first two hours are entirely dead. Parked at the transit mall, I get some reading done. “Cryptonomicon”, by Neal Stephenson, is not what I’d call a lazy read, but it’s very good. The man who dresses in the dark happens by, this time in a new, but still bizarre, outfit including blue sweat pants and a tie. Either he’s a slow learner, or it’s a lifestyle thing.

I get an airport call, and head out of town. The couple I pick up are young and sharp, full of life. We have a great conversation regarding data analysis and job hunting, among other things, and find that we have many interests in common. They have my number.

The bike cops are back. This time I find them arresting a homeless man a few blocks from the transit mall. It seems that this town’s solution to the “problem” of homelessness is to round ‘em up and incarcerate ‘em. I know, it’s possible all three arrests I’ve seen recently were of terribly wicked criminal master minds, but I just have a hard time buying that. Why would we get all the criminal masterminds? The other towns might get jealous. Besides, don’t criminal masterminds build secret lairs?

It’s another busy day, including a trip to the doctor for me (nothing serious, have no fear; just a check up). My last call takes me out of town, as have two of my earlier ones, and I return to base with over one hundred miles on my trip odometer. The gas spent driving those miles makes a huge dent in my wallet, but I still pull off a positive number for the day. Still, when I do the math on the way home, I realize that this isn’t going to work.