DBCG 2: Nuking Brussels

One afternoon about two weeks after my son came home from the hospital, I was sitting on the couch with him after a meal. He was sleeping against my chest, just a tiny bird’s weight of a preemie, and I popped open my laptop to entertain myself while he napped.  When a kid is that small, you can’t just fall asleep with him on your chest. If you shift the wrong way and cover his face, he could easily suffocate or  fall and break a limb. Therefore, I played video games to stay awake and avoid such certain disaster.

I was in the middle of a game of Sid Meier’s Civilization V. I was playing a single-player scenario as Attila the Hun against a medium-sized board with five or six random opponents. I had already conquered all but one of the opponents and there were a handful of unaffiliated city-states still on the board. I had just finished conquering England and set my sights on the last remaining nation when one of these city-states that I thought was an ally suddenly acted up. The change cut off one of my main trade routes and caused delays in moving my armies for the campaign against the last nation on the board. I was peeved. I looked around the board for a minute then clicked my mouse a few times. And then I nuked Brussels.

In Civilization V it takes a very specific act to drop an atomic bomb on a city. You have to develop a lot of technologies and build specialized buildings. Once you acquire all of the required technological bits, you have to go out and mine sources of uranium. Then you have to build a single-use bomb in one of your cities. Building a bomb puts other projects on hold. You can’t build hospitals or train armies when you’re building the bomb—it takes a lot of time. When the nuke is finally ready, you have to pick it out of a list of units and then direct the big, red, target arrow toward your enemy. The only thing that’s missing is a pop-up window asking, “Are you sure?”

The effects of a nuclear strike in the game are quite devastating. A city is decimated when it is hit. The land around ground zero is a wasted, irradiated mess for miles and miles that takes years (in the game) to clean up. The last thing I noticed is that the civilian population of the city is cut down—usually by half. When you conquer a city in the game, the population is always reduced by half or so, and you have the option to raze the city to the ground. In each of those scenarios, you can imagine that some civilians are killed, but at least there’s the hope that some flee for the hills or other cities or something. With a nuke, they don’t get to escape. The population just vanishes. Poof!

I didn’t just nuke Brussels. I nuked it six or seven times. As a child of the 80’s, I felt the need to build up a massive nuclear arsenal. I didn’t really consider the consequences, I didn’t think I’d use it, and then I did. As each bomb hit, I watched the population diminish and I felt something grim flip over in my stomach like a dying goldfish. Something was wrong.

I put the game aside for a few minutes and thought about what I had done. I spent hours of my week building up a tiny, virtual society, trading with allies, conquering enemies, and exploring the virtual world. I developed cities, researched technologies, built farms, roads, castles, and great wonders. And in a few clicks, I vaporized one of those rival tiny, virtual societies just because they pissed me off.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by Brussels’s sudden turnabout. After all, I had led a pretty aggressive, expansionist regime for the last 1800-odd virtual years in the game. My Attila avatar had smashed walls, overrun former allies, and slaughtered innumerable enemy troops. It’s no wonder that an isolated city-state would be nervous when I overthrew one of the last sovereign powers in the world and set my sights on the final one. So why did I nuke them?

When I pushed the button, I wasn’t particularly angry. I didn’t think that Brussels deserved the response. I didn’t actually feel much about it at all. I looked at my list of options for dealing with Brussels, considered that bombing them was likely to be quick, and suddenly it was DEFCON 5. When I was done with it, it was that—my lack of moral reasoning—that bothered me.

Games are, to a great extent, our test for our interactions with reality. When we are young, we play games to learn math, how to calculate risk, how to strategize, and how to socialize. We play sports for fitness, discipline, coordination, and camaraderie. When we’re older, we play “trust games” for team building at work. The lessons we take from games are almost always applicable to real life. I’ve spent many, many years of my life playing Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games to enrich and enliven my own creativity, interact with friends in a meaningful way, and solve complicated problems with a complicated and ever-changing rules system. I am better for it.

One of the important features of gaming is the idea of fair play. Take turns, don’t cheat, be honest when challenged, take winning and losing with grace. Role-playing games even go further, usually adding a morality element. In D&D, it’s called your alignment. It is a measure of how good or bad you are, and it can affect how successful your character’s actions are in the game. Good guys defeat the dragon and rescue the princess. Bad guys get chased down by the city guard.

As Attila the Hun in Civilization V, after nuking Brussels, I felt like I was the bad guy. I felt like I had cheated, gone against some point of the game, and therefore lost it somehow. I think it’s because of the lesson that I was playing out. The lesson was that it is acceptable to brush aside a nuisance in the most convenient way possible, despite the consequences. My actions did not take into account the cleanup, the reconstruction, the deaths of my eventual virtual constituents. My actions were not indicative of the lessons I had learned and resolved to follow over the years. My actions were not those that I want to teach my son when he’s old enough to understand.

I finished the game by quickly overtaking the last sovereign nation primarily with naval and air forces, then moved the ground troops in to occupy and convert the last cities. When I achieved the military victory, I closed the game and spent some time hanging out with the baby and thinking about what I did. The next morning, I started a new game and dedicated myself to a nice, cleansing cultural victory with very little military activity at all.

The thing is, no matter how much you nuke a city, there is always some small amount of the population left. Once you nuke the place, you have to choose to move in, occupy the city, and either build it back up or raze it to the ground, or let it go and rebuild itself. That means that you will always have survivors to contend with. Some measure of the population of Brussels will never forget.

BRUSSELS 2013 – NEVER FORGET

With Teeth

I'm a bit behind on this, so just some updates.

Wolfie has started teething. This is not unnatural for a human of the four-and-a-half month variety, but if you dig up that odd calculation because he was a preemie, he's just barely three months, and that is early. His first few days of teething pain were pretty awful, just "I'M BEING MURDERED!" howling for hours at a time. But, in typical Wolfie fashion, the kid has evolved and his first tooth appears ready to poke out. Carly has been feeling around his gums and discovered a flap of gum-meat that can be pushed aside to find the tooth underneath. So here goes the teething process. We have already started creating and storing hipster baby food. Kid's first solid bite of food of his own? Butternut squash.

We are almost totally unpacked. For most adult moves, this is good--less than two months in and we're done with boxes. I think we have a handful of "decor" boxes to rearrange, and I don't know where they'll end up.

I am fat. I went to the doctor's yesterday because I have this bulging blob coming out of the inside of my lip. I'm not normally the one to run to the doctor for any old lump or sucking chest wound, but this one bothered me because it changed from being a hard little yellow-white lump, just the size of a grain of couscous, to a full-on egg sac about the size of a jelly bean. It is apparently a mucoucele, which happens sometimes. It's kind of like a bible bump for your mouth.


At the doctor's office I discovered that I weigh 10 pounds more than I did last spring, when I weighed more than I've ever weighed before. It's a natural outgrowth of the change in life circumstances--with the kid around, I can't just go out and walk around the city for 6 hours or hit the gym for extended periods unless I offload more of the parenting duties on my lovely wife. I have resigned to buying a couple of pairs of fat pants (waist 34" or 35"), and will start working out again once I figure out where that time is. In the meantime, I'm going to support Carly in going to hot yoga classes, as she's finally feeling physically able to do that kind of stuff after the C-section and everything.

Carly still doesn't want me to say that she's got a job, but she's got a job. I think on Tuesday she's going to sit down with one of the top people in the Department of Justice. I'm assuming he's just going to show her where her office is.

One more thing, and I'm sure in the realm of jinxes, this is the one that more experienced parents will probably smirk over, but my kid is a riot. He's just so damned happy all the time. Here's what happened while we were watching Man of Steel last weekend:

SALLIE WAS A 15-YEAR OLD GIRL FROM NEBRASKA [UPDATE TOO]

So, today, I received an email directly from the CEO of SLM Corporation, the parent company of Sallie Mae.

Dear Mr. Diroll-Black,

I apologize for the recent issues you had with your service at Sallie Mae.  Our goal is to provide excellent service to all of our customers all of the time.  Unfortunately, we did not live up to our standards this time.

I am told that we have corrected the issues on your account.  Please let me know if that is not the case.

I appreciate your patience as we dealt with your issues, and more importantly, I appreciate the ability to service your student loans.

Sincerely,

Jack Remondi

It's a nice gesture, considering the nonsense I've endured. That is, if things are actually resolved. At this point, although he has been told that the issues on my account have been corrected, I have no proof of that actually having happened. My online account info still says that my federal loans are about $1,634 in the hole and that everything is past due.

I'll give it a week or so before I call Kelly at the consumer advocate's office again. For now, patience.

SALLIE WAS A 15-YEAR-OLD GIRL FROM NEBRASKA [UPDATE]

An update to my student loan payment woes:

After I sent my long email to the Sallie Mae Office of the Consumer Advocate, nothing happened. I waited the requisite 72 hours and then, well, just got busy and forgot about it.

Then, this morning, I got another email from Sallie Mae warning me that there was some message or another, and when I logged in, of course I was greeted with a bunch of reminders to pay my overdue bill. You know, horseshit.

I smiled and remembered what the next step was supposed to be, and then I devoted a bit of my break time to Phase 3: CARPET BOMBING BY EMAIL.

Here's how it works: you find out who the top executives of a company are, and then guess at their email address structure. So, if your CEO is named John (Jack) Remondi, you just use every reasonable combination of his names that might reach him. john.remondi@salliemae.com, jremondi@salliemae.com, etc. And you do that for each of the execs and then hit that SEND button with a wry smile. I think when I hit SEND this morning, I had about 80 email addresses in the TO: line. I found out that at least three of them got through.

I sent the email around 10:00AM. At 1:45PM, I got a phone call from Kelly, the Consumer Advocate. She was much abashed at my talent for getting their attention. You could hear her fear and exasperation. And she was somewhat amused, as well.

Kelly told me that someone in her office DID try to reach me, but the number she called was only a busy signal. "I see at the bottom of your email you said that the number in your account information was no good... I guess she didn't read that." I then told her what the number was, and she laughed her head off.

A: "It's 555-2368. That's the number from Ghostbusters. I mean, who ya gonna call?"
K: "Ghostbust--really? Oh, that's... HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"

She assured me that she'd get things sorted out, and most of the trouble is due to their implementing a new system. I was happy for the contact and told her that I trust her to figure it out. Oh, but I need your contact information.  Your direct line. Yes.

I'll post more when I have it.

And I Guess I Just Don't Know

Growing up, I just didn't get Lou Reed.

Beatles songs were easy when I was eight. Octopuses and green paper flowers on the shore, songs about girls and onions. Yeah, I didn't go deep back then, but I could get my head around a Beatles album. The Rolling Stones were a little more sophisticated, I thought. Their songs were about something more adult than I understood, but at least they were catchy. "I can't get no satisfaction..." Did you hear that? He used a double negative! Mom! Why can't I use double negatives? Pink Floyd did something else to me. I knew that there were awful things going on under the surface, but I liked that they said "hell" in a lot of their songs and told me I didn't need to go to school.

But Lou Reed? To me, he sounded like those records they would play after you went to bed, things that were inaccessible to the child mind. I could tell that they were about things that I just wouldn't know. They were boring and grating at the same time. Lou Reed songs were like finding sand in your chocolate pudding. And then some glass would break and the whole melody went sideways and ... fuck. I don't know. I gave up.

I ran off to the fanciful worlds of understandable chaos. I rode the early wave of hip hop, I wallowed in grunge, I didn't hide my soulful chick singers quite carefully enough in the 90's. And then I met Helen.

Where I grew up with Pink Floyd and Neil Young, I'm pretty sure she had Cole Porter and Catholic hymnals. I don't know where she found the music she did. I knew about some of it, and I didn't much care for it. Moxy Fruvous? My ass. But I liked her and she liked music. She mentioned something about Lou Reed one day, and though I never really understood the charm, I wanted to charm her, so I bought her a CD and the brand-new book of Lou Reed's songs arranged as poetry and art. It was quite a gesture. I still don't know if she really liked Lou Reed or if I just believed that she did, but last I'd checked, she still had that book in a prominent place on the shelf. I think she gave back the CD before we broke up. I don't dig into that binder too often.

But there he was, firmly lodged in my subconscious and paired with something I found pleasurable and confusing and frustrating and exciting and thoughtful all at the same time. It took a few years, but that shard started to grow into something more. Eventually, there was a Lou Reed-shaped geode in my skull. Somewhere in the mid-2000's, I laid on the floor of my apartment and listened to the entirety of Metal Music on headphones. I didn't do drugs, but I felt like I should.

Songs like Walk on the Wild Side, Sweet Jane, Pefect Day, and Waiting for the Man always made it into my life through radio or soundtracks to movies. My sister wrote about a memorable car ride one summer where my mother typed up the lyrics to Wild Side and made us kids sing the back up while we listened to the tape and drove through Southern Ohio (we were the colored girls). I put one or two of them on mix tapes. I don't think I quite understood at first. Then I found Heroin.

I think I've mentioned that I've never done drugs. People who have spent a lot of time with me wonder if that is true, but I will say it clearly here: I have never consumed illegal drugs, abused prescription drugs, or even quasi-legal concoctions like that Peruvian Mate crap. I drink a lot of beer and wine and I love a good cocktail, but I rarely consumed any alcohol before I was 21. I have smoked maybe eight cigars in my life and I have never had a cigarette. I have had some absinthe that would have been banned in the U.S. but I wasn't in the U.S. at the time. I was for a long time a straightedge kid, and I'm only a few genetic tendencies away from that now. But I do like the Heroin that the Velvet Underground produced in 1966.

The song is quite obviously about the mental and spiritual transitions that overtake the writer when he injects that awful opiate into his body. His complicated, conflicted feelings are elevated and driven to a maniacal precipice before slipping into a gentle free fall back to a drifting, idly-philosophical haze. The heights of the song are somewhere between a car crash and a tornado. The lows of the song are dreamy post-coital sighs. It's a song that spans the range of emotion and experience that the healthy human soul is capable of and it both elevates and demeans all of it. And it's goddamned noisy.

I'm not sure where I got it. I do love some dark, grindy metal. I have turned up Ministry so loud that it would break my headphones. I went through a Pantera phase before they got all overtly racist, or before the racists overtly found them. I'm still not sure how that evolved (or devolved). I still listen to Anthrax's The Sound of White Noise a couple of times a year. I once fell in love with a band from Philadelphia called Stendhal, whose rhythm section was mostly feedback, trash cans, and a stolen STOP sign. I like noisy music. I especially am fond of music that uses noise as an instrument. And I think it came from Heroin.

Heroin is the first song I can think of that used feedback as a sustained instrument in the song. It carries the last half of the opus, an undercurrent of distress and pain that offsets the tribal heart-thumping and descent into silence. It is the noise that got me. Who would do that? Fucking noise, the things you try to cut out in the recording studio, is now the thing you're putting in? Awesome.

After I came to appreciate Heroin, I really dug into the Lou Reed experience. I can go on about it at length, but not better than many other people have written before me. I will sum it up by saying that Lou Reed is that prodigal son uncle that you only meet when you're a lot older and you thought you had the family dynamic down. Then this guy in a leather jacket shows up and starts calling your mom by that old nickname that was scribbled on photos....

Go read my sister's post about Lou. It's quite good.

One more thing: When Kurt Cobain died, I really couldn't give a shit. I really like Nirvana. I think Kurt and the boys were great, and I remember (anecdotally, because I can't find the damned thing anywhere) around 1995 when Liz Phair (I think) hosted an end-of-year, best-of radio program that was put on while the regular DJ on 107.9 WENZ (THE END) was eating Xmas dinner, and she said that most people just don't understand how influential Kurt Cobain really was. But when Johnny Cash died, I wore black for a week. I feel the same way now that Lou is gone. Something good in the world, a great light has gone out. A lifetime of work has room, finally, for an afterword. Fuck Kurt Cobain and his angst at age 27. Try suffering and creating music at 70, when your liver is killing you, or after the love of your life has died from cancer. That's where influence really means something.

Goddamnit, why haven't you all done this?

All right, it has come up enough, I need to explain it so people will stop asking.

Carly and I cut the cable about five or so years ago. I noticed, before we moved to New Jersey, we weren't really watching anything on TV of any importance. We used to play this game with Headline News: "IS THIS NEWS?" Between the stories about giant pumpkins and twins riding tandem bicycles cross country, the scores were low. So, when we moved to NYC area, I determined that we just didn't need cable. We got FiOS internet, but no cable television. It was the best thing that ever happened to my eyeballs.

Before we cut the cable access, I set up a computer to stream various things from the internet. At first, there were some less-reputable streams, but eventually we had Netflix and Hulu to supply our entertainment needs. Now, five years later, it's an institution. We do not pay for cable. We do not have a DVR. We do not watch regular television programming, and we do not miss any shows that we want to watch. We just have to be patient. By doing so, we save about $1200 a year. Here's how:

Basic principles: all big, flat-screen TVs, be they plasma or LCD, are basically massive computer monitors. Computers hook right up to them. The cables come in the box.

"Computers" is a broad category. It includes XBox 360 and Playstation 3 and better, nearly all modern laptops and desktops. I'm betting some smartphones are powerful enough to stream decent TV.

We have a computer hooked up to our TV. The end.

Not really. Or, rather, it needs a little explanation.

A few years ago, I just bought a top-end entertainment-optimized HP desktop. The key was getting a sick, top-end graphics card. That's really it. I spent about $750 two or three years ago. Our remote is a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. The cable connecting the computer to the TV is included in the box, usually.

We watch nearly all of our TV on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and HBO Go.

Netflix: we pay for a streaming-only service, which is about $8/month. You almost never get new shows, but you have so much available from years past, and stuff usually comes available on the schedule of DVD releases. Also, they have original shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, which are amazing. Hemlock Grove can suck a dong.
Hulu: we use the free service. This means that we sometimes have to wait for shows to come out (a day, sometimes three months), and not everything is available. But so much is available it doesn't matter. Eventually, it comes out on Netflix.
Amazon: we pay $80/year for Amazon Prime. This gives us free 2-day shipping on most things from Amazon.com and access to a whole host of TV and movies. We use it mostly for rentals. New movies are usually $4 or $5 for a 48-hour rental and they're great. We also buy season passes for things like Walking Dead and American Horror Story for reasonable amounts. It's worth it to see them as they come due.
HBO Go: technically, we're stealing this. My sister has HBO and we are using the account. If you can get someone to give you their password for HBO Go, do it. When HBO starts offering online-only accounts, I'll pay for one.

The computer is also a great way to stream music (iTunes is right there), set up photo slideshows, everything. Hell, I even have games on there (Starcraft II is STUPID AWESOME on the big 46" TV).

If you require HDMI connections, that makes the process a little tricky, especially if you switch between HD and standard definitions frequently. I understand the human eye isn't as savvy as we think it is, and HDMI inputs have never impressed me. In fact, I wrote an Intellectual Property thesis on how HDMI is the death of innovation. Goddamn Sony... I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you....




If you have questions about this, just ask. I'm around.

The thing is, it's not about the money, or at least, not totally. It's more about control. I'm totally in control of what I see at any given interval. The only thing is... it reminds me of my trip to Europe years ago. I hit this wall where I was so free, had so many options, had no one to guide me... I just couldn't clearly choose which museum to visit, which awesome thing to see that day. I just sat in my hostel in Naples for a few days. It was weird. They looked at me like I was weird.

This is probably what motivates my wife to plug in the antenna. In our new place, we get really good antenna reception, and something like 40 channels, half of them in HD. So she though, WHEE! PBS MARATHON! The reality is, she watched morning shows and THE VIEW. Goddamned TV.

SALLIE WAS A 15-YEAR OLD GIRL FROM NEBRASKA

In addition to moving, starting a new job, government shutdown and everything, this has been my month:

Dear Sallie Mae,

I have been having supreme difficulty obtaining a resolution to problems I have been experiencing with Sallie Mae's payment system. I have exhausted your Customer Service systems' talents and still have not received anything more than platitudes and continued collections calls. Please help me fix these problems so that I can get on with my life.

About five years ago, I ended a nearly 18-month period of unemployment when I took a job with the Department of Homeland Security. Since about October 2008, I have been making steady, monthly payments on my various student loans that are serviced by Sallie Mae. In fact, all of my loans are now serviced by Sallie Mae. My payments go out every month from my Bank of America account, and I always pay a few dollars more than the minimum payment so that I can cover any minor adjustments to my payments that come up periodically without much notice.

In July of this year, my wife gave birth to our first child approximately seven weeks before his due date. Our baby was tiny when he was born and had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks so that he could gain weight and get healthy. My wife and I spent 18 hours a day in the hospital with our child, and everything else was put on auto-pilot. It was around this time that Sallie Mae changed its payment policies and split the receipt addresses for federal and private loans. I did not look at the email notices at that time, as I had more pressing concerns.

About two months later, in early September, I finally got caught up with all of my correspondence and realized that there had been changes. My Sallie Mae account was starting to show one of my accounts as overdue. I called Sallie Mae's customer service line several times, and it was on September 12th that I finally spoke to someone who guided me toward a solution. The problem was that all of my payments were being applied only to my private loans, and nothing was being put toward my federal loans. The representative (Jonathan) stated that he would put in a request to re-allocate the payments from July, August, and September, as that payment was in the mail when I spoke to him. He indicated that the process may take several weeks and that I should be patient. And I was.

A few weeks later, I started receiving automated calls from Sallie Mae once more. I eventually spoke to another representative who suspended my number in the system, so that I wouldn't receive calls while Sallie Mae worked on my re-allocation request. That lasted only a few days. Additionally, I would receive sometimes twice-daily emails telling me my account was overdue. I called Customer Service again and through that, my phone number was reactivated, so I began receiving daily phone calls again.

On or about October 17th, I spoke to a Customer Service Supervisor named Maria. She stated that she would put in a request to expedite my re-allocation request, and also stated that there was no record of my September 13th payment having been received by Sallie Mae. I uploaded a copy of my bank statement showing that the payment had cleared, at her request. She stated that she annotated my records to indicate the purpose of that uploaded document.

By Saturday, October 19th, I was receiving early morning phone calls (08:12AM) from your Customer Service bank. I explained my situation again, as it was becoming rote, and the confused representative offered me a forebearance. When I explained that a forebearance was not appropriate and unacceptable, she placed me on hold and connected me with the collections department. The collections representative stated that my account was current and had been updated as of October 17th. She stated that the Sallie Mae systems would probably update in a few days.

I have been receiving daily phone calls from Sallie Mae. Every time, I have to explain the situation or direct the representative to simply look at my account history. Today, out of frustration, I finally asked to escalate the issue and speak to the person at the Customer Service center with the greatest power, but of course, that wasn't possible, as your call center is a contracting agency in the Philippines. I eventually spoke to another supervisor who went through the same motions of requesting expeditious correction of my account, as his colleague Maria did previously.

Today, I received a call from the Great Lakes Higher Education Lending Corporation (GLHELC), the underwriter for most of my loans. It was their collections department. They were unaware of any of my issues with Sallie Mae and I spent about half an hour explaining it. The representative suggested I attempt to escalate my case to someone through the Customer Service department. I laughed and described the various attempts I had made to do so, and how each attempt was doomed.

I am spending approximately 90 minutes a day talking to your representatives and attempting to get a resolution to my problems. As of tomorrow, it will be six weeks since I first spoke to the agent who stated he would request a reallocation of my payments. If I am unable to achieve a resolution soon, I am not sure how I will proceed except by reaching out to SLM Corporation Headquarters directly.

Here are my pertinent details:

Account #9.....

Last payment correctly applied to private AND federal loans 7/18.

August 5th payment incorrectly applied to private loans ONLY. I need to re-allocate this payment to both federal and private, in the ratios in my payment history (same ratios as July 18th payment).

September 13th payment is lost. It was sent to the Wilkes Barre address. It also needs to be manually allocated to federal and private along the same lines as the 7/18 payments. I have uploaded a copy of my bank statement as proof that payment was sent. I do not have a cancelled check, as the payment was sent through Bank of America's Billpay program.

October 15th payments were recorded properly, as I have since updated payment information with my bank.

November payments are coming due.

Account shows 37 days past due as of today.

You can contact me at this email address: andrew.diroll@...

This phone number: 330-.... (DO NOT record that in the general customer service profile until this matter is resolved--the current number I have listed in there is phony, to avoid any more calls)

This address:

11101 .....

I prefer that you call between 9 AM and 4 PM, but I am at work most days so I may not be able to answer right away. If you do get my voicemail, please leave a message where you can be reached directly. I will not deal with the customer service center on this matter any further. I will verify my information over the phone.

Thank you,

Andrew Diroll-Black

Or, in other terms,

LISTEN, MOTHERFUCKER, DON'T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE.

Almost Furloughed [UPDATE]

I started my new job this week, or, at least I showed up for orientation and I have the rest of this week to complete my move. A few notes to supplement my previous post:

1. It turns out that I will actually get paid through the government shutdown. From my agency's experience in previous government shutdown threats, the powers that be have made sure that the payroll functions will continue to function. This is another benefit of our agency being funded by its own endeavors.
2. Looks like Carly was selected for the job she really, really wanted, and once the background checks are all clear, she'll be a bona fide government employee, also!
3. I'm going out to buy a box spring for my bed, so I can stop sleeping on the floor like I did when I was in middle school. True story: my bed was a train of couch cushions for about four years.

Red Right Hand

Three intense days later, we're in Maryland.

It has almost been a week, and it feels like it has been months. I don't know how I've survived the last week or two, but I did it.

My last day of work at the NYC office was Friday the 13th of September. I completed my five years there and got the pin to prove it. After that, Carly was back at work and our mothers had gone home, so it was my turn to stay at home and be a single dad for a while. I took some vacation time off that I had saved up just for that purpose. Additionally, when you move between offices in the same agency of the federal government, you're entitled to five days to wrap up things, move, unpack, get your driver's license, etc. Effectively, I had three weeks off to wind down our life in NJ, pack, and get ready for the move.

Of course, it's never that easy. Between taking care of the kid and taking care of myself, there was very little time in the day to pack anything. I got a huge amount done, though, and the stack of boxes in our apartment was formidable.

The first week I had off, I helped move my friend, Sokin, down to Maryland, so he could start his new job (he can't drive, so I had to drive the van). Since we were headed to the same place, we packed every spare inch of space in that van with our books and other stuff and planned to drive down Wednesday morning. Before that, I had to take the Wolf to my sister's house so she could watch him all day. My sister's place is in central Jersey. Getting out there, around 7:30AM, opposite the commuting traffic, was easy and took about 40 minutes. The way back, after what I thought would be rush hour, was awful. I think it took me two hours and fifteen minutes to get back to my place. Sokin and I rushed out and managed to get to the new apartment around 3:00PM. We unloaded the truck, went and picked up a new set of couches and then I went to drop off the van. I was running late for my train so I had to call a local friend to pick me up and drop me off at Union Station. I didn't get back to Jersey until 2:00AM.

A week later, Carly got a call for an interview for a job in DC and arranged to come down here for that purpose. Around that time, she also managed to get some kind of stress fracture in her foot, so she basically told me to GO FUCK MYSELF because I AM NOT GOING TO HELP MOVING CUZZA MY FOOT! Also, her birthday was coming up, and no one has to do anything on their birthday.

One of those days, I took the Wolf in to my former office to show him off and hang out. It was fun to see all of my co-workers in a good mood and let someone else hold the baby for a change, but it also reminded me why I was so happy that I was leaving... some of the more neurotic elements made my memory concrete when they were telling me that I was not feeding the kid right (he could get an ear infection from feeding!), that I don't use enough hand sanitizer (these doorknobs are carrying the plague!), he's not eating enough (breastmilk is too watery, you should give him formula!) and that I wasn't covering him up enough (he'll freeze to death in the 89F weather!). So yeah, um, fuck off. Me and my neanderthal baby will move to Maryland and hunt deer with our bare hands.

Then let's blur forward to Friday the 4th. Carly and I went to pick up the moving truck at the Penske dealer in Kearny. The whole process was great, and I take the truck back to JC. When I get there, Carly has to go get her foot looked at by a professional, so I hang out with the baby. When she returns, I start loading the truck by myself (see above), and all of the people we asked for help ended up being busy. To their credit, we didn't really ask anyone to commit, it was more of a "if you're available, do you want to help?" sort of deal. I can't complain about my friends--I'd never really force anyone to help me move boxes. Anyhow, I loaded about 80% of the truck by myself, and a few friends came over to help with the heavy things.

Once the truck was packed to the gills it was pretty obvious that I would not have enough room for all of our crap. Many of the things left in the apartment were considered essential, but were not the sorts of things that fit in boxes easily. Things like guitars, rugs, lamps, etc. And there was a lot of it. How were we going to sort this one out?

I quickly determined that I would not go back and get a larger truck. The last thing I wanted to do was unpack and re-pack my perfectly packed truck. I did have unlimited miles on the thing, though, so I decided I'd just drive back up to JC after we unloaded everything, and then do it all over again. To facilitate this, I hired some dudes to help unload the truck in Maryland, and as soon as it was done, Sokin and I headed back to JC.

While all of this was going on, Carly was driving down in the car with Wolf, Bear, and Sophie. Their experience was quite pleasant.

Our mover guys were quite a pair. There was a guy who could not have been much over 18 (probably a recent high school graduate) who had a great work ethic, but also had a busted rib. He didn't seem to mind. When I was 18, I probably would not have been slowed down by a busted rib. The other guy, arguably the one in charge because he was perhaps 22, was the one I fondly call "Mezztooth." The meth teeth on that slacker were astounding. I didn't think you could do that much damage to your teeth in 22 years. Anyway, they were a great help and I know now that I will never move my own shit again. I will hire Mezztooth and Broken Rib.

The drive to JC and back was a bit of a blur. It took us as long to load the truck the second time with two people as it did for me to do the first load alone. We didn't leave JC until after midnight, and I didn't get to bed until 5AM on Sunday. I think I'm still recovering.

We got some local day laborers to help with the final move, as Sokin and I were just exhausted and could barely walk. When we were all done, we treated ourselves to some Five Guys Burgers and Fries and then everyone went back to the apartment to hibernate.

Other things I've forgotten about:
1. When Sokin and I did the first move several weeks ago, I forgot to eat for most of the day. I only consumed some coffee, a cup of yogurt, a cookie, and a bottle of Coke. We fixed that the second run, and had sandwiches and lots of chips.
2. Carly was not totally useless. She took care of the kid pretty much the whole time I was doing the moving. Taking care of the baby is very important and I don't think I'd be doing the move if we didn't have him. Also, he's been great.
3. I feel a little bit bad about not having a proper going-away party. I think that's because I plan to go back to visit soon. The drive or train ride to NYC from here is not so bad.

Almost Furloughed

Today was several things:

1. My last actual real live day as part of the NYC office. While I've been on leave for a bit, today was the last day of that annual leave. Tomorrow begins the administrative leave I'm entitled to as I'm moving from one office in the agency to another. Thursday is technically my day off, and then Friday is another admin day. Monday will be the first official day in my new office in DC.
2. The opening day for the healthcare insurance marketplace enrollments under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). http://www.healthcare.gov
3. The first day of the government shutdown due to an impasse over whether to fund Obamacare (technically moot--see above).
4. The first day of the fiscal year 2014.

Unlike nearly 800,000 federal employees and contractors, I am not furloughed through this shutdown. Unlike most of the government, my agency makes its own money and will continue operations unless something truly stupid happens. When it comes down to it, America really is a nation of immigrants and we keep the light burning for you, even if the Statue of Liberty is closed.

But that doesn't mean a whole lot, because the main reason for going to work--getting paid--might not happen until the shutdown is over. You see, my agency was rolled into the Department of Homeland Security when it was created in 2003. When that agency was born, the president and administration at the time pitched it with some very narrow costs. Tax cuts and tax rebates and Iraq and Afghanistan and Enron and Worldcom and Tyco all just happened and the government wasn't terribly flush with cash, so the new DHS was put together out of spare parts. One of the parts that was used was the otherwise efficient payroll service instituted by the Department of Agriculture. While the money that pays me comes from the immigration service, it is ultimately handed to me by Dept. of Ag. And DOA is shut down, so I have to wait until they turn the lights back on to get my paychecks. Fucking bastards.

A few other things are going on this week:

1. We're moving! That entails paying double rent for about three weeks, renting a truck, buying boxes and all sorts of related costs. I pretty much spent our funny money on this, so if we don't get paychecks soon, it's going to hurt.
2. Our hospital started sending us medical bills we didn't know we had. When we checked in at the hospital where Wolf was born, I handed the clerk all of my insurance cards and claimed that I wasn't sure which one was the right one because I was a little freaked out at the time. The clerk put our vision care card in as the primary one. Once they finally figured out it was wrong (10 weeks later), they sent us the stuff they'd meant to send us all the time, along with warnings that it is overdue!
3. Carly managed to break her foot! It's just a hairline fracture on one of those long bones in her foot, earned through poor shoe choices and too much walking, exacerbated by a small loss of bone mass post-childbirth (which is normal for breastfeeding mums, and reverses itself after she's done with all that). She'll use this as an excuse to not help loading and unloading the moving truck, I bet.
4. Wolf has grown out of nearly all of the clothes we have for him, sparking an occasional trip to Babies R Us to buy the next size of shirts and onesies that he'll need. Entertainingly, his diapers are still size 1. He also can no longer sleep in the cool napper thing we've had him in, so it's off to crib land as soon as we move!
5. Oh shit, I need to order his crib.
6. It is Carly's last week of gainful employment until she gets another job. This is the second time she will have quit a perfectly good job to follow me on my career path. The good news is that this time, she really does have things lined up for work. They are, however, conditioned on the shutdown ending. So we'll see how that turns out.

Where was I? Yes, lots of things draining on our household this month. Back to packing.

Everything at Once

We're almost there... had the baby, accepted a new job, scouted out apartments, signed a lease, moved my friend in, paying double rent, got a moving truck, got bills, got boxes, got stuff packed, waiting for the government to shut down.

It's just a matter of time... watched all of Sopranos, Billy & Mandy, Always Sunny, working on The League, Louie, a thousand other shows. Found some odd movies on Netflix. Diagnosed ADD and/or dementia. Drank... drinking buckets. Taking weeks off, making cookies, and my hands smell like butter.

Too much to do... still more packing, lots of driving, unpacking, where are the dogs? I hate vacuuming. Carly can't remember when the kid last had a bath (it was yesterday). I have ten cubic feet of Legos, is that too many? When do I expect to open this, build these? It will be at least five or six years before the Wolf can appreciate Legos.

Less stream-of-consciousness-y: I don't think I'll have time to see everyone before we leave. I'm concerned about this to the point where I haven't planned a proper going-away party. It's like when you're kind of dating someone and then you have to leave for a long trip. It's easier to say nothing than to say goodbye. I'm reasonably certain, for some of these folks, it might be goodbye. I found a house-warming gift that we never gave some friends partly due to Hurricane Sandy crushing the party. Should I mail it to them? It's pretty cool, I'll probably just keep it. Maybe, if I see them and the boxes are unpacked, I'll give it to them properly. I have a birthday card that I failed to send in February. It will be hilarious for my friend to receive that in October. I sometimes prioritize things and justify the lapses later.

So, justify lapses or prioritize differently? How about next weekend? It's the only weekend we've got left. Picnic at our house.

(OVER) Due Date

This post is a belated sigh of relief. The kid's expected due date has come and passed and he is miraculously still alive. That's right, my kid is about 10 weeks old and he has not expired or decided to fuck off for a hippie commune after quitting college on me (again).

Wolf's expected due date was August 18, 2013. He was actually born on July 2nd, about seven weeks early. This week will be his tenth week in existence.

A few observations:

Wolf was born at about 4.5 lbs, and he is now pushing 11 lbs.

He appears to be blue-eyed and left handed, though both of those are still subject to change.

Wolf is generally quiet, but he has lungs. His uncomfortable gas-induced cries distort your eardrums.

The boy spits up a lot, but he's still gaining weight at a good pace so no worries.

He is now, only three weeks past his due date, starting to outgrow the 3-month old clothes that hang on the small side. He has grown out of a few outfits even before he had the chance to wear them.

Newborn-sized Huggies diapers are not good. Lots of blow-outs with that brand. Pampers are our go-to brand, but we'll start looking at Target Brand when we get to the Number 2 sized diapers.

He likes a lot of the art we have on the walls, as our tastes tend toward bold colors and broad strokes. James Thomas's piece, "Athena," is a fan fave.

Wolf likes the Sopranos. The A3 theme song, "Woke Up This Morning," played often while he was in the womb.

Carly's acne disappeared within days of Wolf's exit from her guts.

The cost of having a baby in NICU for two weeks, an emergency C-section, and other things was about $38,000. We paid $150.00. In nickels.

We have a number of nicknames for him:

Wolfie

Squawk

Fatso

Chubbo

Mayor McCheese

Chicken

Bub

Bubba

Buddy

Little Man

Farty McFarterson

JC Fats

et cetera

Carly makes up lots of songs with his name in them, mainly parodies of popular songs, such as:

Wolfie Boy (Lonely Boy, Black Keys)

Poopy-Face (Pokerface, Lady GaGa)

Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran, lyrics subbed for spit and poop and boobs, not far from the original)

The kid is the light of my week. At 2:00AM, when he just won't go to sleep and is gassy and fussy, I want to throw him through the window. But that's because I reasonably believe that he'd just fly away and zap me with some eye beams. He's a really super kid. He's strong and bright and his development and the fact that he's alive just amazes me.

He likes being naked and changing clothes. He sometimes throws up on clothes just so he can change them more often.

His belly button is grossly distended and is herniated. This is normal, and shouldn't cause any problems, and is due to his underdeveloped abdominal muscles when he was born. It's pretty grody, when you push it back in you can feel the food and shit moving through him. It should fix itself in a month or two.

The dogs are getting along with him just fine. Bear has had some stress and is losing all of his hair from worrying about the kid. When Wolf screams his fool head off in the bedroom, Bear runs in there to check on him. We can often hear him sniffing around on the baby monitor.

And there's so much more. I just need to keep this thing going to remind me to do it. I'm going to do another article about gaming and how it relates to raising a kid soon. Should be a riot.

Bound

Tomorrow is the next official step in the next chapter of our lives. We're going to DC to look for places to live. My new job starts in less than two months, so it's a good time to go and find somewhere we can hang our hats. Already, I can tell my methods for picking places to live have changed. I'm scanning the maps for daycare, proximity to hospitals, school system ratings. I look at monthly rents and immediately calculate whether I can keep up the savings routine for the kid's college fund.

I'm excited for the changes. They're good ones. The new job is a promotion, more complicated work, better pay, better opportunities. Everyone I talk to about the thing is impressed, and more than anything, I feel like I earned this job. Every other job I got before I just kind of fell into. It was the swimming hole next door. I was the boss's kid. I showed up and no one else was interested. I had a degree and a pulse. Now, however, I got into something kind of prestigious because I've got a formidable resume and I interview well. And I'm lucky. Right place, right time.

I've been repeating that a lot lately. I'm lucky. We're lucky. We've been very lucky. With the job, the wife, the kid. Other people say they're "blessed," but I don't think that's where it comes from. My successes are from hard work, persistence, creativity, and just plain coincidence and luck. If the old man didn't have a stroke I wouldn't have gone to law school in Akron, met Carly, all of it. If my sister wasn't already living in Jersey, I wouldn't have applied for the NYC job. And more subtle coincidences.

I have this budding rant about miracles. Everyone says the kid is a blessing or a miracle. I chafe at that, mainly due to my ingrained atheism, but also due to my desire to stay in the land of the real. The fact that my child survived his birth and his first six weeks in the oxygen-rich nitrogen environment is not divine... it's a lucky congruence of statistics and science and the effort of Carly, me, some of our family members, and a long list of nurses and doctors and engineers and inventors, all the way back to Lucy, the australopithecus afarensis. We've been doing this for four million years without books or the internet, and it seems awfully magical, but it's not. Science rules out when it comes to chromosomes mashing around, and our tiny brains are only capable of understanding the smallest smidge.

But I digress. I don't want to mock or belittle those people who believe in some kind of magic or miracle. If it gets you through the night, have at it! Like I said, before, I want my kid to believe in the magic, I just hope it doesn't fog over the lenses of reality. Think in those separate strains, kiddo.

Dad, Baby, and Computer Games 1: A Manifesto

Sparked by a photo and some comments from my wife and a friend, I'm going to start doing a monthly article for a media-consumer website. The article is tentatively titled "Dad, Baby, and Computer Games." Here's the first article draft:

My wife and I recently had a kid. Despite all of our planning, the little bugger decided to come out about 7 weeks early. The first few weeks were rough, visiting the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit; code blue shit for newborns), spending the night in the hospital, not sure if our impatient offspring would really make it… but he did. Our baby boy is now bouncing around and eating us out of house and home like he should. I’m only planning on paying for two years of college, because I figure he’ll quit that on us, just like we did to our parents.

Our kid actually made it into the world before we even had our baby shower. When the sudden posts went up on Google+ and Facebook, all of our friends were as surprised as we were. “What do you need?” they asked. “Everything!” we replied, because, well, we planned on doing our nesting and baby shopping the week AFTER the little bastard actually clawed his way out. So gifts started arriving via Amazon.com and other places. We told people we didn’t want a lot of baby shit in our apartment. We wanted to keep the physical acquisitions low, because we live in a moderately-sized place in New Jersey, and it turns out that we’re going to move soon, so having a bunch of kid toys to pack up was untenable. So we told people: buy books. Children’s books, classics, whatever they want. We want our kid to have his own library he’ll have to complain about schlepping heavy boxes of books from apartment to apartment, just like his folks used to do.

So, sometime around the baby shower, one of the other men in the room asked me, “what is the first book you’re going to read to your son?” My answer was, “whatever I’m reading, I guess.” I don’t particularly like most children’s books or TV shows. Maybe I don’t really understand child development very well, but I generally just want Dora the Explorer to get lost in the desert somewhere. I wasn’t really subjected to that crap as a kid, and I don’t know that I have to subject my kid to it. Sure, I had Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street and a host of Saturday morning cartoons that were targeted at me as a kid, but I was never really restricted from the grown-ups’ entertainment. I read Daffy Duck comics the same year I started reading Stephen King. I don’t think I want to keep my kid in some kind of baby jail for the first 12 years of his life. I just want my child to develop on his own, to become the person he is ultimately going to be. I don’t want to be a helicopter parent or a tiger mother or anything that vests my own success or sense of self on the success or achievements of my offspring. The kid will rise and fall on his own, and I will do my best to guide him, but not control him. At least, that’s the plan.

So, how do I go about this? How do I guide a kid without force-feeding him stuff? How to I ensure that he has the tools to survive and prosper without dictating some kind of program or protocol? I don’t want to be a taskmaster, but I don’t want to be an absentee hippie parental unit. I want to be a guide and example.

So the plan is to just involve the kid in all the stuff that I do. If I’m reading a book, he’ll read it with me. If I’m playing a game, he’ll play it, too. And through our interactions I hope to instill him with creativity, persistence, and understanding. I want him to see the world clearly and learn how to interact with it. And I hope that he can take some of these lessons from literature and film and games just like I did, and I’ll do my best to guide him toward the right and the good, just as my mentors did for me.

This goal has made me examine the choices I make in choosing entertainment a lot more closely in the last few months. I look for the lessons to be taught by the protagonist in House of Cards, the pathos felt in Zone One (by Colson Whitehead), and consider the consequences of my actions in games like Civilization V. I expect that this column will be a meditation on how the entertainment I consume and participate in might affect the development of my kid and the lessons I take away from it. I’ll make a prediction in that I hope my consumption doesn’t change too much. I hope I don’t trade in Game of Thrones for Blue’s Clues or whatever kids watch these days. I hope I can read the Silmarillion to my kid as easily as Flat Stanley. We’ll see how it unfolds.

Next Article: Is it worth it to nuke Brussels?

Honestly, a stream of consciousness rant

I keep beating a dying, wheezing horse, but I have to point out that I'm a big fan of honesty. I love it. Cold, hard, brutal honesty. As much of it as I can get. I try to be supremely honest with myself and I don't tone it down much with other people. It has caused me a lot of relationship stress in the last decade, and I admit that the kind of honesty I dish out on people is not always kind or even accurate. Like everyone else, my evaluation of the world is colored by my perceptions and sometimes I get them wrong. The hardest lesson for me to learn was not when it is good to lie to someone, but rather, when you should simply shut up. I'm still working on that.

That's not to say that I'm perfect--nowhere near. I still delude myself and others in minor ways. I have trouble getting out of old habits, and I think, at some base level, it is in our nature, as human beings, to lie about things. When I catch myself telling some untruth, I usually reflect on it later to figure out why I said that I missed my train when, in fact, I just stayed for another pint because the conversation was good.

Now that I'm a parent, it seems like these issues have more weight. My own delusions will, invariably, be passed on to my kid in some form or another. And I'm surprised at how many people plan to lie to their kids for all kinds of reasons. Without calling too many people out on their issues, I'll just boil it down to this--this one important question that seems to come around, even in the middle of July:

Will you tell your kid about Santa Claus?

Christmas, as you may know, is a thorn in my side. I grew up with Christmas trees, presents, egg nog, sweaters, over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go, and, of course, Santa Claus. Santa was one of many mystical characters in my world, including the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny (who I always knew was a crock of shit), rock trolls, and the invisible rats that lived in my ears. Santa fulfilled a role--he brought presents that I knew my parents couldn't otherwise afford. He was the magical grandparent who deposited extra stuff on my bedroom floor before I got the pittance of obligatory gifts from my actual relatives. Santa kept me from bugging my parents for gifts throughout the year, because I had something to look forward to at the end. I even allowed the Santa myth to persist after I found my parents wrapping presents one night, when I was about 6, because I just wanted the magic to be there.

But now, as an adult, I've chosen to shed as many of those old superstitions and beliefs as possible, so I can see the world in the clearest light. I don't attribute kindness to miracles or suffering to demons. There are no angels or monsters left in my world, only the great span of humanity and nature, which provides enough drama for hundreds of Netflix originals. I still enjoy movies and games that touch on the fantastic, but that's why... they're games and fantasies. They're an escape. I like to escape reality into worlds where my own concerns can melt away and other concerns can take over. A world where everyone is basically like they are here, but there are vampires living in Louisiana? Sure. It works on some level. I like it. But when it comes to reality, I don't want my decision making process to be clouded by the possibility that an angel or a leprechaun might cross my path just when I need to cross it. I can't sit and wait for something to save me from the world. I have to do that myself.

There are arguments that such fantasies are good for children--their little brains can't comprehend all the weirdness and harshness of the world, so it's best to give some expedient answers like, "God made it that way," or "unicorns." But I'm not sure I have that power. I don't want my kid to distrust the things I say when they discover that, in fact, the rocks by the side of the road with the green shit dripping out of them are not rock troll eggs. I want my kid to have a colorful and interesting life. I want him to see magic and strangeness in the world, but I don't want him to count on it, or rely on it, or believe that it is reality. I want him to have a good separation between fantasy and reality. Two truths.

When I hear about bizarre problems or tragedies in the world, I actually turn on that fantastic part of my brain when I need it. I call it "the third rail." One one track, I have my perceptions of reality. On the second track is objective reality, or at least consensual reality that usually includes facts or perspectives that I'm not privy to. And the third track, the third rail, is the electric one that is full of strangeness and magic. There Be Dragons! A gas explosion that wipes out a neighborhood (and a graveyard!), probably vampires warring against each other. Thousands of blackbirds dropping out of the sky for no reason? Demonic sacrifices. Commercials for a new kind of energy drink? Definitely a conspiracy that proves Madison Avenue is a front for aliens who are raising us for food. And then I go back to reality, figure out if I have to call someone to see if they're okay, maybe check stock prices.

Loads of people are unable to turn off the third rail, and those people are conspiracy theorists and nutjobs. Those of us who can distinguish between fantasy and reality, but are fully aware of the possibilities that the third rail presents... that's where we get the most interesting people. One of the people who I think fits that category is the artist and activist Molly Crabapple. She's a painter and illustrator, burlesque madame, writer, and cultural critic. She was a kind of visual poet laureate for Occupy Wall Street and has been the loudest voice in my social stream (other than my friend Justin) regarding the latest government abuses of privacy, power, and Bradley Manning. When I look at her, I wonder why does she have such passion for defending someone like Bradley Manning? Manning is just some naive, conflicted kid who fell into the exact wrong profession, made some bad choices, and now is being crucified for it. Even if his punishment is minimal--15 or 20 years in prison, it's a nasty thing to suffer when you're his age. He's a baby. Why does Molly care so much? She's just an artist, a queen of weirdos and fringe elements that haunts lower Manhattan in vintage leather and lace. What the fuck is her problem?

And then I twitch, blink and look up, and realize that I've been ignoring the third rail. I've been eating the reality that I see and assuming it's the thing and not much else. I rationalize and justify a lot of things in the world and don't get angry about it, because the possible broader consequences (aliens, dragons, the end of the world) aren't in my vision. Molly's world cuts very close to the ideas of secret government conspiracies and hell and death, but she doesn't seem consumed by it. Instead, she kind of simmers with anger and disgust and disbelief, not quite sure why the world is acting so strangely. Why, she seems to ask, do we put our faith in our leaders, when they are so obviously full of shit? She wrote a great piece on the Bradley Manning verdict for the Guardian yesterday.

So my problem with honesty comes from dishonesty. I hate that so many forces in the world act dishonestly, actively misleading people to follow some agenda. A friend posted an article about the hypocrisy of some FOX news faceporter, who stated in the article that journalists' first obligation is to seek the truth, and the only way you can find truth is if you're Christian. Nevermind the religious statement, the first clause kills me. Journalism is supposed to be about truth, right? I'm not so sure. Going back thousands of years, almost all news reporting has been about someone's perspective or agenda of some kind or another. I mean, the BBC basically caused the Falkland Islands war, right? And didn't Horace Greely cajole and push the US into the Spanish American war? Who even remembers that? Anyway, journalism's great ideal seems to be something that is hung up next to news desks all over the world, and then the editors turn around and drink infants' blood with their fat, rich friends and make sure that black people all look like criminals on the front page.

And now, I'm looking at the world and seeing all this shit and wondering why I've been so quiet about it. Certainly, working for the government gives me a specific perspective, and being financially comfortable helps. Now that I have a kid, clearly I have different priorities than angry blog rants (or do I? can I finish this rant between the kid's feeding times?), and I just don't have the time or energy to go marching in the streets, but I found myself back where I was about ten years ago, when I decided to take a run at law school. I was sitting around at a bar with my old man and some of the local drunks, and George W. Bush flew into an aircraft carrier, claiming "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED." W was so full of shit then and you could see by his expression that even he knew it. One of the barflies said, "Man, that is bullshit. I can't believe they get away with this kind of bullshit! Someone should do something about that." I smirked and said, "Why don't you do something about it, rather than sit around and complain in some bar?" And then I thought, "Why don't I do something about it?" I thought long and hard and figured that if I wanted to change the world, I needed to know how it worked. Law is the rulebook for society, so I need to know law. And if I want to change the government, I need to get inside, so I can affect it directly. So here I am.

In the last five years, I can't say I've done a lot to change the government. I've managed to make some minor changes in my office in New York to streamline our processes and make sure that we're following the law, and I found that it is impressively hard to change things. I think that's what happened to our president. When Obama was elected the first time, we all believed that he would change the goddamned world. And then Guantanamo Bay stayed open. Congress stymied him at every turn. Political realities and selfishness won out over the ideals. Then we argued about health care and never really went back. Then Bradley Manning leaked a video of soldiers laughing as they shot up a few reporters and innocent civilians, and you wonder why no one knew about it. I could see it back then. I think, one day, after the inauguration, Obama sat down with those guys who really run the government in a room with no windows and he learned all of the shit that only the President knows. And it sucked. It sucked hard. He had to immediately come to terms with the fact that the world, the objective reality, is so fucked up that even the swell of idealism and support he rode in on wouldn't even scratch it. There's a big, evil world out there that our government is trying to protect the American people against, and they have to do some truly horrible shit to achieve that. So, faced with the reality of it, Obama caved a little. Then a lot. It became easier to just maintain the system and keep the evil at bay than to try to break open the system and shine some light on it. If the American people really knew that our soldiers were laughing about driving over corpses with a tank, would they support our troops quite as much? Holy shit, I doubt it.

So the government apparently has the same fear that I do, about Santa Claus. If the American people find out the truth, will they trust the government a little less? Isn't it better to keep things secret, maybe spin the truth a certain way so that people don't worry so much? Maybe I should let my kid think there's a Santa Claus out there so he doesn't worry about my relative earning power? Maybe the objective love of God that people are taught to feel is there so they can carry on in life even after their parents, their spouses, and children all let them down. Maybe I'm a rotten bastard for telling people they just have to toughen up and see the world more clearly, and that praying won't cause a bag of money to fall in your lap. Maybe those delusions are good for us. So far, I haven't really bought it.

A week or so ago, I was sitting on the couch, playing Civilization V on my laptop while Wolf rested on my chest after he had a big meal. While he was sitting there, I reached the level in my game where my civilization developed the atomic bomb. It was nearing the end of the game and I just needed to conquer one or two of my neighbors, one of which was the city-state of Brussels. In a round or two, I built a shitload of atom bombs, and I bombed the shit out of Brussels. In the game, the only thing you really see is a massive orange mushroom cloud appear over your target city, and then the land around it is orange and black and ruined. Also, the civilian population of the target city is reduced. When I was done, I felt a little uneasy. I was at the point in the game where I could have marched my guys in, smash Brussels's army, and take over the city without much difficulty. The bomb wasn't necessary. Why did I do that? Was I bored? Impatient? Was it right for me, after conquering most of the world with my conventional army, to just bomb the shit out of innocent civilians? I turned off the game, put my kid to bed, and thought about it.

Yes, it's just a computer game. The little digital people aren't real. No more real than a video poker card or an alien that I liquefy in Mass Effect. But the game is set in a universe that is not far removed from our own Earth and the rules that we follow here are mostly tracked there. The game teaches you to use diplomacy and science to win, not just force of arms. And yes, you can win the game by just killing and conquering all of your enemies, but that's an equal challenge to founding the United Nations and getting all the other societies to like you enough, or to institute a bunch of progressive social policies. I think that my playing style reflects in some way my real-life decision making, or it should. So was it OK for me to nuke civilians? No, I don't think it was. I reloaded the game from a point before the nuclear holocaust and finished it a different way. I kept my bombs, but I didn't use them. That seemed smarter.

I think, when my kid is old enough, I will teach him that it is wrong to nuke fake civilizations. Everyone should be trying to find better ways to solve their problems than using a hammer, or a bomb. There are always ways to get around a problem or to reach a goal that don't require that you sacrifice your ethics and ideals. Obama could have stayed the course and actually aimed for more transparency. People like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden wouldn't have to exist if our leaders were more forthcoming, and insisted that our military and our police and our other officials acted in a better way for a greater purpose. I don't think we necessarily have to get our hands dirty to have a safe and successful American dream. I think that we could do better.

PS: I started another Civilization V game and won it with SCIENCE. I did have to take out one of my neighbors, a belligerent, expansionist, double-dealing king of Siam, but after that, it was all peaceful. I'm not sure if I should have let Napoleon conquer the rest of the known world, because he was kind of a shit, but at least I managed to avoid killing folks after that initial round of fighting off bullies.

MERDE

Hear ye, hear ye! The Wolf has made it for over a week in the real world. We are continuously marveling at how he has changed in the last few weeks. The kid will be a full month old by the end of next week and he's gone from looking like a strange, gangly, hairless cat, to a fat little baby. Even the doctors and nurses think he's just a small, full-term baby.

He's starting to interact a lot more, and he is specifically responding to our voices and everything. He smiles when he's comfortable, usually after a burp or a poop, or when we mess with his feet. I love messing with his feet. He's starting to voice his discomfort, also. He was so quiet when he was born, and in the hospital he only had one or two freakouts when we were around, but now he's starting to let us know when he's hungry or gassy or tired. As I type this, he's in the other room, grunting and squawking. When he does that, I just listen for a minute, see if he calms down, and go back to whatever I was doing. He's done, so he was probably just pooping.

Poop is the main thing right now. Many years ago, when helping my then-girlfriend move across the country, she had a long conversation with her mother, over the phone, about why her cat wasn't pooping. My girlfriend's cat, Harry, was once kind of my cat. He was, rather, a cat that lived in the same apartment as me and my friend, Tony, and had been inherited from one of Tony's ex girlfriends. Harry was old, and somewhat neurotic. Harry was raised around stoners in a house full of stoners in Kent, Ohio. I got the sense that Harry's feeding schedule was non-existent, as he had the habit of bolting his food as fast as he could until he would throw it all back up. The poor bastard just never trusted that there would be more food in the future, so he had to pack it in for the winter. And the winter would be long, cold, and full of pot haze. We worked on Harry's eating disorders in the best, healthiest way we could think of: by scaring the shit out of him. We would fill up the cat food dish, allow him to eat for about 30 seconds, and then scare the shit out of him, so he'd have to run away. Then we'd spend the rest of the day going through some version of that scenario throughout the week. He eventually got it about 80% of the time. And rightfully so, as we rescued him from the stoners, my girlfriend rescued him from us.

Anyway, while we were driving across the country, the cat wouldn't poop. My girlfriend would sit and stare at him and pet him and soothe him and put him in the box, but for four days, he wouldn't poop. He didn't seem to be in distress, so I didn't care. She cared, and she called her mom. And they talked about the cat's lack of pooping for about half an hour. After a long day of driving and other stress, I couldn't take it and kind of blew up on her about it. She broke up with me about a month later, as the long-distance thing wasn't going to work and she ended up marrying the guy she dumped me for and the cat, he survived a few more happy years in the desert. So the poop wasn't a problem.

But now, now all I seem to talk about with my wife is poop, farting, and sharting. I ask Carly at least three or four times a day whether the Wolf has pooped. I announce to her when he poops, and I often describe the color and consistency. We recently started giving him vitamins in his milk, and his poop has changed. Now, it resembles almost completely mustard and vegemite. We laugh when he farts or poops, especially when we're cradling his butt with our hands. He's kind of a fan of the clean canvas... whenever we put a fresh diaper on him he invariably farts or shits it up within moments. Sometimes, I squeeze him a little to make him go. It's hilarious. A few days ago, he had a blow-out and shat down his leg onto my red "Communist Party" shirt from Threadless.com. After I washed it, I was wearing it again and he threw up on it. I guess he doesn't get that kind of ironic play on words. Or he thinks it's not as funny as I think it is. Everyone's a critic.

The one thing I feel bad about is the dogs. I've really been screwing up their schedule. They used to go out more or less like clockwork, morning, evening, night. Three times a day. Sometimes, if the dogs were chill, we'd skip the late night walk and they'd lay around like lazy lobsters. But now, I take them out when I remember. Usually around 8 or 10 AM, and again sometime at night. Last night it was about 3AM. They're due now.

I'm going back to work this week, so the routine's going to change. I just figure that we'll get through it. For now, I'm just going to enjoy Pablo Shreiber with a porn stash humming the Ride of the Valkyries while he tears up a prison bunk on Orange is the New Black. Hilarious.

A few anecdotes

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! About a week ago, while changing the Wolf's diaper in the NICU, the bandage on his foot--placed there after taking blood for testing--came off, and he started bleeding all over the place. When I put my cold, cold hands on his tiny body, Wolfie starts to kick around and do some kung fu moves with his arms and legs, so he got blood on his blankets, on his butt, on the inside of his isolette incubator thing, and all over my hands. I HAVE WASHED MY HANDS IN THE BLOOD OF AN INFANT!

Baby Houdini. The kid has an extraordinary ability to get out of things. He hates restrictions. When he was in the hospital, and they put him under these special lights to help his body process bilirubin (a kind of bile that builds up in your skin and causes jaundice), and the nurses would put these foam goggles on him, to protect his eyes. He would, within minutes, tear off the goggles, requiring constant replacement and adjustment. One of his only freak outs in the hospital was when Nurse Ratchet put the goggles on too tight, and he screamed bloody murder until I came in there and loosened them. Of course, he tore them off in a few seconds. In his bassinet, he is always getting out of his swaddle. No matter how tight I wrap him up, within an hour he's freed his arms and is laying, splayed out like a martyr, about 90 degrees turned from how I left him. I'm waiting for the day we find him two states away, having stolen our car. I expect that by November.

Day One

We just completed the first 24-hour period of having a kid on our own. Wolf was released from the hospital at 10:28AM yesterday, exactly two weeks (to the minute) after he entered it. The first two weeks of having a baby were like starting a new, boring job for us. He was in the NICU the whole time, secured in his little plastic box in the corner, taken care of by many highly-trained nurses for 2/3 of the day. We would get up, get coffee, and head to the hospital around 8AM every morning, feed him throughout the day and hang around the family area, and then, around 4PM, we'd head home. For the most part, it was like when I started my government job 5 years ago, and no one knew what to do with me, where I was going to sit, or anything. I just sat around a lot, staring at the internet, and every few hours there was a burst of activity. We ate a lot of muffins and crap from the coffee shop, we waited for a lot of slow, dangerous elevators, and grazed leftovers from our baby shower throughout the day, but for the most part it wasn't too exciting. Very little laundry to do.

But now, we have him on our own. The nurses loaded us up with all the swag we could carry, from thermometers to bottles to wipes. I'm happy that at least some of it is in biohazard bags. We organized as much of our baby shit as we could, stuffing diapers and onesies into the dresser/changing table we acquired over a year ago, when we still thought the first pregnancy was viable, and sat down with him on the couch, marveling that he was finally here.

The dogs played their roles: Sophie was aloof, giving Wolf a quick sniff and then looking at us with that "Oh bother, another puppy," glare. Bear wanted to stick his nose up Wolf's butt. Of course.

We fed the kid, changed him, and swaddled him up in a new outfit and some blankets, and put him to bed. That was easy. Carly hooked up to the breast pump, I did some dishes, and it was all we could do to not go into his room and stare at him every few minutes. But we did anyway. Three hours later: repeat. Three hours later: repeat.

It was a little confusing in the wee hours of the day. I stayed up for the kid's midnight feeding. Carly tumbled out of bed around 2:30 or so for the late night one. And at 6am, we were both up to do the work, but Carly really wasn't into it, so I took the kid so she could pass out on the couch. After the kid was tucked in, I crashed back on the bed.

I imagine the next two weeks are going to be a little bit of a haze as we sort out when day and night are, who is going to take which shift, and how to divide duties like laundry and dishes and so on. So far, so good. Back to shoveling food in my face as fast as I can before I have to heat up another bottle.

Gitmo

Carly is home from the hospital, now, and that has been its own kind of stress. Until further notice, the Wolf will remain in the hospital. He isn't allowed to leave until he gains some weight and can prove that he is able to survive out of the box. Carly has been a trooper, dealing with the separation and her guts and everything quite well, but sometimes it gets the better of her and she has to excuse herself to cry it out.

One of the bizarre things about our kid is that he is way more developed than most 33-week premies. First of all, he's LONG. Almost 19 inches. He's one of the biggest 33-week kids they've ever had in the NICU. Next, he has been bottle-feeding and breastfeeding since day one. He managed the whole latch-and-suck mechanism by day 3, and the nurses are flabbergasted. He's not supposed to even have the capability to learn that until week 35 or so. There are other things that are probably just coincidences, but he just seems like he's got his shit together. So it can be a little confusing when he fails to hit some mark.

As I mentioned, his number 1 goal right now is to gain weight. And he's not really doing that, even though we've been increasing his food intake daily. It's only been a few days, but he should have had a steadier gain than the stop-start he's been showing. Today, one of the nurses told us that if he doesn't gain weight, they'll have to put him on a feeding tube. Especially if he manages to down the whole huge meals they're giving him, now.

What? Wait... if he downs a bottle every 3 hours that is nearly twice what he was eating the day before, you say he'll have to go on a feeding tube? That sounds backwards. But yeah, that's how it goes.

You see, the kid spends a lot of energy just sucking down milk. Working his jaws and neck and throat and everything requires a lot of energy he just doesn't have. So by eating more, he uses more energy. A feeding tube would fix some of that by reducing the amount of energy he expends just gathering food. So it's weird.

The measure is whether or not he gains weight. And less-measurable is the amount of energy he uses to eat. So, for that, we time how long it takes for him to drain a bottle, and whether he's able to keep it all down. This morning, it didn't look good. The room was too warm and it was a struggle for him to drink his breakfast in even 40 minutes. But by his afternoon feedings, he was a pro, slurping away at the bottle and smacking his lips, waiting for more, in about 15 minutes. Hopefully, his overnight meals will stack up, and tomorrow he'll be a fat toad of a baby.

Or, rather, he'll gain an ounce or two and keep it up every day. That's all I hope for at this point. Fat babies.

LiLo and the Wolf Part 2

And so the Wolf was born at 10:28 AM, on the 2nd of July, 2013. That makes him a Cancer by Western astrology standards, and I think the Moon is involved somewhere. For the Chinese horoscope, he's a Black Water Snake, which a supervisor of mine suggested that instead of "snake," this be the year of the cobra, "because cobra is cool." So he's a Black Water Cobra. He shares his birthday with Hermann Hesse, Thurgood Marshall, Larry David, and Lindsay Lohan.

All I was aware of, after he started shouting his arrival into the world, was that the doctors wanted me to look at him and say something. I said, "well, he has lungs. That's good." And then, I just wanted to get back to Carly, because her guts were quite literally out of her, and she probably needed me to comfort her. The kid was the doctors' problem. Carly is still mine. So I moved around the machinery and sat down, and rubbed Carly's forehead. I told her, "he's alive, he's blue, he's moving around, and he has balls like a bison." She laughed, and then complained that she had weird pain in her armpit. Then the doctors needed me to come with them. When I got up, I could see straight down the hole in Carly's stomach into the bottom of her pelvis. It reminded me of the song, "Turning Japanese." Give it a listen. You'll get it.

I followed them down the hall with the Wolf resting on something that looked like a french fry warmer. They were explaining things to me that I just kind of know, now, but I don't remember them specifically telling me anything. Except the bracelet. I had to keep that on, even in the shower. They led me to the NICU where the kid would be holed up and showed me the basic procedures. Scrub up every day, use the antiseptic gel every time I touch something grody, like my mobile phone. To quote Justin, "Well, obviously phones are gross. I play chess while I'm pooping." Then there wasn't anything for me to do, and staring at the little blue baby didn't seem too important while Carly's guts were out, so I asked if I could go back to her. No, they told me, she'll be in the OR for at least 15 minutes, and then they will move her to recovery. Go out to the waiting room and make some phone calls. OK, I did that.

I called all the primaries: parents (now grandparents!), my sister, and work. After a while, the guards came over and asked me to take off my scrubs, because, well, they didn't want people thinking I was a doctor, just sitting around looking freaked out and picking my nose. So I ditched the scrubs in a trash can, nearly forgetting to remove my wedding ring from one of the pockets. When did I take that off? Oh, who the fuck knows. Then I went to find Carly.

When I found her, she was just out of her mind on painkillers and shivering on the gurney in the recovery area. Every few minutes a nurse would come by and poke at the monitors and machines and we'd hear about them prepping a room for her. I talked to her a bit, ate what I could that was left of my breakfast (a cup of fruit--the chocolate chip muffin didn't seem as appetizing now), and then I told her I would go and check on the baby.

It had only been an hour, but he had already changed dramatically. He was pink now, not blue, and he stretched out. He was laboring to breathe, but it was obvious that it was a brand new thing for him, and he was doing quite well. The measurements came to reality, finally--he was 4 lbs and 7 oz, and he was 19 inches long. That seems long. Yes, the nurses indicated that he's a long one for 33 weeks. My cousin Kate later confirmed that her twins were born around full term, each of them 2 pounds heavier than Wolf, and the same length. We are still wondering how big he might have gotten if he grew to full term.

Around this time we started to get details of Wolf's last minutes in the womb. When Carly got her epidural, her contractions just went through the roof. She went from having steady, moderately strong and painful contractions to serious, major PUSH NOW, MOTHERFUCKER! CHARLIE'S IN THE BUSHES! contractions, instantly. Essentially, she'd been controlling the pressure and holding it back. Without pain meds, she could probably have dragged labor out for a bit. But with the release of control of her lower half, suddenly her uterus turned into a discontinued ride at Geauga Lake, the kind that would make everyone sick and break collarbones. Wolf, at that point, was too little to survive that, and was basically being compressed to death. And then, it turns out, the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. So he was basically fucked if they didn't get him out of there right away. I can remember the look on the faces of a few of the nurses and the one anesthesiologist that was in the OR, because she was standing right next to me when I was comforting Carly. It was one of those, "Oh, shit..." looks. The kind of looks that even the seasoned veterans rarely see, like, this-entire-thing-is-fucked-and-I-don't-know-if-I-can-deal-with-a-homicidal-maniac-if-that's-what-this-poor-bastard-who-is-about-to-lose-his-child-turns-out-to-be. Luckily, it didn't come to that.

And that's what we're repeating, over and over. We were extremely lucky. Like, so lucky it's hard to brag about it. Wolf was in the NICU next to some really rough cases, babies that were born at 24 or 25 weeks, barely the size of a kitten or a baked potato, kids whose parents didn't talk, and when they did talk, they used short sentences. We were very very close to being like that. If I hadn't been running late on Tuesday morning, if I left for work on time, I don't think I'd be writing this right now. I'd probably be sedated in a jail cell after having destroyed several city blocks with my bare hands. I will say it again, we have been very lucky.

Carly was put into a comfy room right next to the nurses' station down the hall from NICU. Around midnight that night, they gave her permission to get up and walk around, so we shuffled down to Wolf's crib to hang out, and it was the first time she really got to see him and touch his feet. It was awesome to see them together, but Carly was exhausted and needed to sleep. The next morning, she got to hold him and feed him with a bottle. Since then, it's just been steady improvements. The kid is forming up, eating like a Black Water Snake confronted by a swarm of drugged up mice after a bachelor party, and stretching out his arms, legs, and lungs.

Carly has been working on getting her milk flowing, and it's a slow process at best. This morning, we went to a breastfeeding class, and she just couldn't take it--all the talk of holding your baby, how important it is to breastfeed, and then the video showing all these beautiful babies latching onto their mothers' beautiful nipples, she nearly ran from the room in tears. All the other new mothers in the room had their kids in their rooms with them. Ours was in one of those containers you get at the grocery store for a rotisserie chicken, down the hall. So she got pretty emotional.

Later that morning, we basically just insisted that she get the opportunity to hold Wolf and get some skin-to-skin time, and even try to breast feed. And, goddamn, it worked. That kid took to the boob just like his old man. It took a few fumbling tries at first, and then he was a natural. If anything, Carly needs more practice to keep up with him. The breastfeeding consultant lady was amazed... 33 week old kids aren't supposed to do that. They're usually still behind on development to get the whole clamp-and-suck thing, and she told us that Wolfie was doing better than his full-term, chubby counterparts. We're swelling with pride. After that first attempt at breastfeeding, Carly's boobs have become mythical objects. She's producing milk like some fabled goddess with antlers and the lower half of a fish or something. Well, you make it make sense in your head. I don't want to explain it to you.

I wanted to get all of this down while it was fresh, but I can already tell that the clarity of the memories is being fogged over a little, as the stress and turmoil of that first day are fading from view. I hope that we can tell Wolfie the story of his coming in a few years and he'll get it. He'll understand that it's a crazy world and how you get here is pretty important. The e-book of his life starts with a flickering Kindle load screen, and it's hard not to blink even though it's not really emitting any light.

I'm making Carly laugh and it's pulling at her stitches, so I should probably wrap this up. Pester me with questions, and check FB and G+ for pictures. There are plenty. Tomorrow, I'm going to stop in at work and see if I can arrange a few things, put my "out of the office" message up and retire to being a dad for a few weeks without worrying about anything else.