post-interview, babies

You are all dying to know about the interview. I've gotten a ton of email. I can't believe that people ... are interested.

The interview went really well. I was interviewed by only part of the search committee, the faculty decided not to show up and the CIO had to rush off campus for something. So instead of 8 people I interviewed with three. I had a lot of fun. One of the guys interviewing me graduated with me. I thought he looked familiar, but I didn't know his name until we got on the alumni topic. He's been there for a year and is really happy.

The job seems like it will be hard. A good part of me wants to work only for professor CM as he is continuing to make contacts and sell his ideas to local school districts. Another part of me knows that I need to be making some serious money in the next 4 month time frame. We'll see what the future holds.

I could see myself doing this job easily. It is the first job I've interviewed for that I can actually envision being in without saying "Oh my GOD! I am so lame! How did I talk my WAY into this job!!!"

So that's a good sign, right?

Today -- follow up cards to the interviewing staff thanking them for their time.

Alright. This was a quickie. I have to get Geoff ready for school and I've been goofing on this for an hour now with my joys in playing with Photoshop. Snarf...

First things first... an email from Chad that I didn't expect to get this morning:

Our new arrivals are here a bit early but in good health.

We are happy to announce the birth of Jacob Michael XXXXX and Jadon Tyler XXXXX at 5:38 and 5:39 respectively on October 9th, 2002.

Jacob is 3 pounds 12 ounces and Jadon is 3 pounds 7 ounces. They are currently in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Medical University of XXXXXXX. They will remain there for one week and then they will be brought down to the step down unit.

As of now, Jacob is doing very well and Jadon requires help breathing from a respirator, but that condition was expected and he is doing very well. Both are expected to be fine.

Mom is recovering nicely after a c-section. Her water broke some time on Tuesday and she would not dilate past 3 centimeters, so in order to prevent risk of infection, the doctors opted to take them out. Remi will be allowed to come home on Saturday. The twins will be in the hospital for at least four weeks.

Dad and grandmom are exhausted from attempting to sleep in hospital chairs while Remi was given drugs to help relax. I guess that's only fair because she did all the work.

I will write more later and provide pictures on my website sometime in the near future. For now, I'm going to bed a happy guy.

Wow. Shocker. I totally didn't expect this one. Great joy, great praise and thanks for a good delivery for these little guys. They weren't due until ... oh, December? So send them good vibes, hearty prayers and mojo to be able to do what twins do these days and make it home in a decent amount of time. I love his line about being exhausted from sleeping in hospital chairs while Remi got drugs to relax... hardly seems fair, eh? Snarf! Funny. Way to give me a good laugh.

And I whipped this up for them quickly this morning to welcome Slash and The Bus to the world. If I'd had more time today, I'd have made little Steelers Jerseys for their bodies. Yuk Yuk. As is, I had to quickly grab a picture of a newborn and just slap the heads on. It didn't come out too bad. I love the hand position on the kid's body (I used just one and flipped the second one horizontally so they'd look good.

Relationships, Yankees, Dishwashers Hurrah.

Funny how some relationships work. Even though you aren't connected as closely, you're still connected.

I got email the other day from folk musician and friend Jon Svetkey showing off his little baby boy, and a few weeks ago got similar email from another folkie from the past, Brian Doser. I won't put their pictures up here with lack of consent... it is just funny that such pictures exist in this life.

A lot of time has gone by since I was in college, and I have some friends just getting around to getting married, others just finally figuring out they never should have gotten married in the first place -- and others hatching babies. It's somewhat stunning to me. I still can't believe I have kids, much less that I'm married. Jebus!

I was looking at pictures (oooh-ing and aaah-ing) this morning of my old roomie Bonnie and her baby girl at the first birthday party of said baby (we missed it -- we were in Chicago) and I'm just stunned at her hipness and mommyness, all rolled into one.

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Met with Prof MF today to finalize the site. Class runs on Thursday. Her dream of running the class with Cu-SeeMe may or may not be fully realized... we discovered a new FREE tool called ivisit.com, and started to test drive it this afternoon but she had to go to another meeting.

We'll give it a whirl this evening, or in the morning, and if it works well for the two of us -- we'll introduce it to the class on Thursday. They're meeting in person, and she'll go over the system requirements and the first class in person. So this could work. We shall see. I'm awfully apprehensive, but... willing to make it work. I have some final edits to the first week's content, which have got to be done tonight or first thing tomorrow. And then I'll be there in person to show the kids how to download the interface for ivisit.com and get them going.

Should rock, hopefully.

I spent a great deal of time chatting with two of the student employees at the college, one I used to work with and the other is new. From what I understand my being back and involved with faculty is causing quite a stir amongst my former administration. Some people are elated, nay, thrilled. Others are pissed. Imagine that... my coming and working for fucking next to nothing money has people pissed. Go Figger. I know who is pissed too, and I'm laughing. Be pissed. Go ahead -- be pissed. I'm an independent contractor now mother fucker! HA!

I've always wanted to say that.

I'm not back there to piss people off. I'm back there to work for (note the word FOR) a select few people whom I adore, admire, and want to see succeed. I'm not costing the college a red frigging cent. I'm there because I believe in what each of the two faculty members I am working with are doing. I want to see that fully realized.

Why should that piss anyone off? And anyway -- I really don't care if they are happy, unhappy, disgruntled, gruntled... I'm having a blast. I'm in it for ME. Put that in your pipe and smoke it long and hard. I'm there for me for a change -- and I have never been happier.

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Recently, a reader and very close friend asked me why I don't have a dishwasher. I think I was pining over the fact I had work to do and that included doing dishes.

Simply put -- the house didn't come with one, and we don't have the space to put one in the kitchen, even a portable one that you roll over to sinkside to do the dirty (or cleaning) work. That got me thinking about my dream house... what would I want in my dream house? What must it have? The next place we live -- the non-negotiables.

So I'll lay that out for you here.

1. Dishwasher and kitchen that has enough counter/cupboard/storage space. Our current kitchen doesn't have enough countertop space or storage. It's a pain.

2. Access to the basement without leaving the interior of the house. Currently, to get to the basement and laundry, one must go outside and in through the bulkhead.

3. Four bedrooms. One for each kid, one for me and Doug, and an official "guest" room rather than our fold out couch. Our guests deserve that much

4. DSL or Broadband. Our stupid town doesn't have either. In this day and age. Really. I mean, Tess has it in Alaska for cripes sake! Jebus! I live in the heart of the big city -- the cradle of civilization. My town doesn't have DSL, Cable Modem, Broadband... anything. It sucks my big toe. So I swear to Gott im Himmel that is the first thing I ask a realtor in my next house search.

5. More land.

6. Not so close to the street -- I want a house back from the road. I'd rather have a longassed driveway than be up close to the street. Although, our house has ample parking for tenants, friends, friends who are deceased (Clayton's car is still in our drive...)

7. Two Big Bathrooms. We have two tiny bathrooms right now. I want two big assed mother humpin' lavatories. I want a sink to myself.

8. Laundry facilities on main floor of house -- rather than in the basement. I don't mind one flight of stairs coming up, so if my next house is a two flight jobbie and all my laundry facilities are in the basement -- that's a hell of a schlep to get the stuff up to actual drawers.

9. Wall to wall in living area. No more of this hardwood floor crap. Carpets can be shampooed -- hardwood flooring looks like ass when your dogs and kids have made a mockery of its existence.

10. Ample outlet availability throughout house.

And I think that's it. I'm sure I can come up with more shit. But that's my top ten wish list. I think we're here for the long haul though, so my wishlist may have to collect dust on a shelf someplace until further notice. Then perhaps I won't need four bedrooms, but just two. Sigh.

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I got email from a stranger recently asking me why I hate Derek Jeter.

It has been a good long time since I've gotten any stranger email (outside of the awesome JulieK who sent me an email, but that's because I mentioned her in thanks here for neibelunging me).

Actually, the email said "why u hate derek jeter" as the subject line and the body of the text.

I hate Derek Jeter and AOL speak, but I didn't say that to her.

I wrote her back, saying that she obviously found the journal through a search and must have read the entry in question, but I went over my reasons, which appear elsewhere in the month of November.

She was really cool about it, and gave me my God given rights to have an opinion contrary to hers... thank goodness. And was even wicked funny and cool to write to. I was then shocked to find out that if you put "I hate Derek Jeter" in a google search my #59 amusing from November 1, 2001 comes up on the first page.

Anyway I wanted to just take a second and say that HATE is a really strong word, and looking back I don't know if HATE is what I meant.

Strongly dislike.

Find annoying.

HATE... no.

I'm sure Mr. Jeter is a really nice person. I'm sure if he wanted to have a beer (and I'd so make him pay for it because ... he's so rich, yet another reason to dislike him) I'd have a nice time talking to him. He's from the midwest, and he seems down to earth, except when he's playing so well and so amazingly and then he comes off to me as just plain cocky.

But confidence makes you cocky, and I dislike cockiness... so. That's how I came to the conclusion I hate him.

Plus, I hate winners. I hate the top of the heap. Hence, I so hate the Yankees. I'm a Red Sox fan for crying out loud. I'm supposed to hate them Yankees.

Jason Giambi... now he's the next person on my list. Oooooh I hate that guy...

Now I'll get email from people saying "Why u hate jsn giambi?"

So... Kathleen, if you're still reading the journal, thanks for dropping in.

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Geoff is nagging me to allow him to play on the computer. I think Doug is napping. Jessie just got homework for the first time this semester... so she's off doing that. I'll relent here, go relax for a while, and come back at it for Professor MF. I still have work to do for CM, and that'll get done tomorrow while I have the day to myself.

I thank God I had the forethought to tell Cateringman I was unavailable this week. I have to knuckle down and finish my work for the college.

Procrastination is my middle name...

No it isn't. Bet you don't know what it is... some of you do. Some of you would laugh your asses off if you knew. Okay. I'll tell you.

It's Louise.

Yeah. My middle name is Louise. Thanks Mom! Couldn't be something pretty, could it? Has to be something that Doug can call me "Weezie" with once in a while. He has done that since the day he found out the L didn't stand for Lollipop in my monogram. Louise. Flibbity Floo! Hurrah for me.

Anyway. I slept in. Not really sleeping mind you, with a puppy and a big dog rolling around in my bed trying to get the most love they could get from me. I caught up on my journal reading. And I'm sort of dragging my big assed size 10 feet on getting work done today. It is already 3:30pm. I have a 10am phone meeting with Professor MF tomorrow to finalize her site and I still have about 10 hours worth of work to do, damnit! I suck.

All that will change. I plan on working tonight... I work better under pressure. So Procrastination isn't my middle name, it's Danger.

Tess survived her oral surgery... poor thing. Before I left the mail came and in it was a box from her out there in Alaska filled with picture postcards of her city and dog treats for my dogs. Now how cool is that y'all? Get over there and give the girl some love.

MMMMMMMM.... Coooookie. Gaaaaaggghhhhhh....	What cookie? Oh, the brown mark there? Nah. There was no cookie there. Burp.

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Chad and Remi, the expectant parents of twin boys there in South Carolina, had a scare last week. Remi got put into the hospital for 3 days in the middle of the week, she's in her 28th week and is 80% effaced... so she's on full bedrest a month earlier than planned.

The boys, aka Slash and The Bus to me and Doug, are "due" in December. They will most likely make it to November.

So please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. Send good mojo. Lift 'em up. And I know how crummy Remi must feel. Having spent a month in hospital on bedrest and an additional 2 weeks cooped up at home alone and on strict orders not to get out of bed, it can become overwhelmingly depressing. So please pray for her to have an easy go of it spiritually and emotionally. And mentally.

After June's loss of baby Ryan, I'm keen to have another happy baby story shine on these pages. My buddy Sean's baby is doing well, and another buddy Sean in Chicago just welcomed his baby on July 30th... so there are happy baby stories out there. I want to keep 'em coming though.

Did I mention my buddy Dan and his wife are expecting? They're the ones who got married in November of last year. They are due in mid October... they didn't wait long. I guess Mrs. Dan felt they had lived together long enough, the marriage was a month old -- let's have a baby! They know they're having a boy, not sure of the name yet (or jokingly "Dan, has she told you what the baby's name is yet???").

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My "baby" who claims he is not a baby, is currently playing a video game and singing a song from "Veggie Tales." Are you familiar with Veggie Tales? Essentially, it is a series of christian children's videos that are hysterically funny. So funny in fact that they make me pee. No lie.

Veggie Tales isn't your usual evangelical bible thumping treacle. It's all computer animated, and very intelligent, very funny stuff. There are little vignettes in the middle of the videos called "Silly songs with Larry," and they are... hyper silly. Geoff is singing the 'Cheeseburger Song,' which is a song from "Madame Blueberry," a retelling of "Madame Bovary," at the top of his lungs. Larry doesn't sing it... Mr. Lunt does, while Larry is sent on hiatus so the series can have a more sophisticated vignette segment called "Love Songs with Mr. Lunt."

It's one of my favorites. And he sings it to me when I'm in the kitchen. Making Cheeseburgers. If you have kids, or know someone with kids, these videos are fabulous object lessons based on stories from the bible and literature, and there are more than one nods to Monty Python throughout the series (my favorite being the French Peas in "Josh and the Big Wall," when they tell Joshua and the Israelites to "Go Away," a la the french guard in "Holy Grail...").

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In other more boring non-baby, non-singing animated vegetable news, I am trying to convince someone I know very well to start a blog. Single, sassy and lookin' for booty is her theme. She's got some funny assed stories, and would have to remain completely anonymous in order to put up what she wants to say, but I guarandamntee it'd be a good read.

Like I have nothing better to do than to encourage others to become exhibitionists with their lives, and web journaling addicts. I so need a 12-step program to get me out of this journaling thing.

Sigh.

Anyway. I really only wanted to post a picture of Jack enjoying the Dog Treats from Tess. I have to get to work, and I have to go to Walmart to get damn pillows (didn't go last night, ended up not having enough time in the day so we slept pillowless again. Not gonna happen tonight though!). I need to assess what the kids have for school clothes, school starts a week from today. I can't believe it. So much to do...

Wish there was something more interesting to post. But I need to be web design queen for someone other than myself now. So I'll chat later.

Holy Flerkin' Schnit.

Got email today from my buddy Chad, who used to rent our upstairs apartment and we've know him and his wife for just SO long... and they had a pleasant piece of news.

We already knew he and Remi were expecting. They've been married for like 6 years or something, and they've been working wicked hard to get Chad's undergraduate degree finished up. He graduated in May from some Charleston Area College which I won't divulge, and they bought a house a couple years ago there, when they left us (sniff. no one to cheer for the Steelers with here!)

So knowing the details of their life... we've always felt pretty up to date. Chad's good at making sure friends know what is going on. He isn't one of those Christmas card only friends... you all know that type.

Today's email made me drop my teeth.

That isn't a major set of cajones on one baby.
That's the headS of TWO little baby boys.

Wha wha WHAAAAAT?!!!!? As Kyle's mom would probably say. Twins!? Oh boys! Oh boy-oh-boys.

Chad said in his email that her first ultrasound missed one baby. It was in May. I believe they are due in ??? Chad, help me out here... August? I forget (I thought I knew everything). So that's the craziest news I've had in months. Joyous news. After a bunch of loss in my life, this is pretty hot damn super skippy freaking news. And if it were me having these kids, that'd be my quota right there -two kids maximum. One pregnancy. Bang. Done. Woo hooooo!

I wish her the ABSOLUTE best.

And him. Don't forget the daddy. Never forget the daddy.

So Doug and I were trying to come up with funny names for them. Here are some of our choices. Some are from the kids.

Itchy & Scratchy
Sonic and Tails
Lennon & McCartney
Doug and Chris
"Slash" and "The Bus" (I didn't get it when doug suggested it, but true Steelers fans will).
Wolverine and Cyclops
Homer and herb Professor X/Professor Charles Francis Xavier and his evil arch nemesis Magneto/Erik Magnus Lehnsherr
[Sponge] Bob and Patrick
Kang and Kodos

Excellent!

And if you have any good suggestions, send them to me and I'll forward them along!!

Raising Chloe, Raising Arizona, Washing Machines and West Shore Road Memories

Pictured is of course the lovely new addition to my extended circle of friends, apologies to Bonnie and Duncan but she's so stinkin freakin cute that I could not resist lifting the picture from the hospital nursery page and posting it.

Meet our friend Chloe.

Man is she gorgeous or what? I love that hair, and I love how babies just always have their hands up by their mouths or cheeks... I went through most of the pictures on the hospital site and all the babies were there with hands up, ready to raise the roof. Only a couple were so deep in sleep that their hands were nowhere to be seen.

My friend Lori went through the site. She saw Chloe and swore she was the cutest baby on the page, then proceeded to rag on all the other babies! We had a good laugh making fun of names and making fun of kids that were born without the benefit of being cute like our woman up here. I feel sorry for babies when they're butt ugly. I mean, they just came down the narrowest passage of their lives, got battered, bumped and bruised, and they look like who did it and ran, and here we are picking on them. Poor things. hee hee hee. But this is one good looking kid and the respective Bonnie and Duncan clans should be right proud.

Now, I'm gushing praise and schmoopy-doos over here for this kid and one of my co-workers asked me if i wanted to have another.

Let's get one thing straight here, dear reader, unless God Himself wills it, I'm not putting myself through another labor and delivery again. The pregnancy part, okay. Those were fun. I loved feeling the babies move, each had a personality before they came to the light. Geoff always had the hiccups... on a daily basis I could count on at least a round of 20 minutes or so of him jerking like a freak. Towards the end when things got cramped in there for her, Jessica would stretch her legs, and I have a distinct memory of playing with her feet up right below my left bottom rib, and I'd push back at her, and we'd play. We'd play. I played with my kids and knew them well before I ever even laid eyes on them. Those are very special moments.

But I don't want to repeat the thing, the unspeakably painful thing, one must endure to get to the point of laying eyes on them. Shudder. Quake. Ugh. No. So for me, I'll enjoy playing with my kids now that they're on the outside and I will live vicariously through friends like Bonnie who have new ones for me to cuddle. Speaking of which, here's the segue to the next topic...

One of my favorite movies ever is 'Raising Arizona.' I love when Glen is telling H.I. that Dot wants another baby because "Thesuns is gettin' too big to cuddle." That kills me. All like 9 kids are running around wrecking stuff ("Now you take that diaper off your head and you put it back on your sister!") and writing on the walls, breaking things, and these parents are just standing around all stupid and proud of the brood and shit. And there's poor H.I., overwhelmed at what his sudden vision of parenting is. These kids can eat you alive... and Ed is suddenly overwhelmed by Dot "Hi, We got the dip.tet for him yet? We got a pediatrician???" at the responsibilities.

Having two is enough for me. But H.I. stands there with this look on his face that kills me. With his eyes huge and wide, mouth gaping open. Oh My God, what HAVE I just gotten myself into.

All parents should feel that way. Shocked. Stymied. Overwhelmed. Then you shake it off, blink a couple times, shut your gaping mouth so you don't catch any flies and get in there and do the job. Once in a while you'll feel like H.I. again, but standing around gapemawed isn't going to do any good.

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We went out last night and bought a new washing machine so that gets delivered a week from today. I'm relieved. This weekend we're going to Maine, to see Wayne and Marcia. They have a great house, and hopefully Chris and Laurel will be there too. It's been a while since we've seen them. I feel like I need a weekend of kid related fun. Where the kids entertain themselves and have fun, and I lean back and watch. I'm sure there will be some good stories out of that.

And I wanted to make a short list of stuff I remember from the House on West Shore Road. When I was little we lived in a house in NY on West Shore Road, and I think most of my clearest memories are from there. Here are a couple:

• I had an easy bake oven. It worked.
• I had white furniture, and my room was up on the third floor, there were 2 rooms up there, the back room was mine, the front room was Linda's
• I remember a tree broke one of my windows in a storm. I think there were four windows in the room, and the one that broke was on the left side of the room as you stood in the doorway.
• A cat of ours, I think it was Smokey, my mom's FAVORITE cat, had kittens in my bedroom closet and I touched them all and she killed them (not a good memory... someone correct me if that one is fictional).
• Once my cousins came down to visit from Cape Cod and Billy and I got to sleep in the same bed. My parents pushed my bed, which had a princess canopy on it, so the foot of the bed was against the closet door and Billy slept at the foot of the bed. We got yelled at a TON of times for not going to sleep and being silly.
• I used to melt crayons on the light bulb in my bedroom. I think it was a clown lamp, and I loved the smell of the crayola crayons melting on the light. Then I'd let the light bulb cool off and I'd peel the wax off. My mom caught me and I got in trouble.
• You could see the hospital from the balcony on my parents' room, and at Christmas they put this crazy "tree" of lights up there, and I remember standing looking at it for hours.

Okay, that's enough for today. I've got more, but I need to go home to my family. I also have to schlep some clothing to the laundromat because I have NOTHING to wear and I think Geoff has no more underpants... So I'll do a quickie load and then finish everything up on Saturday morning before we trek to Maine.