The baby starts to make small frustrated noises. The man is asleep in the bed a foot away. He snaps awake and looks at the clock. Thirty minutes. He has only slept thirty minutes. His alarm has a little over three minutes left until it would have woken him.
The man gets up, making shushing noises, and looks into the crib. The baby is laying on his side jerking his head and arms as he glances around wearing a displeased and confused look. His face is already reddening. The man picks a yellow and white pacifier off the starred bed sheet and places it back in the baby's mouth. For a moment the noise stops and the baby is calm again. The man can smell the not-altogether unpleasant smell of a wet diaper as his hand nearly envelopes the baby's warm torso and gently rocks him. The baby is young enough yet that only one of his wastes actually smells bad.
The man caresses the baby's head of perfectly soft skin and light hair back to front back to front. The baby's breathing slows, the pacifier moves in it's tiny way that no machine or computer animation could ever match. The man likes to watch it.
The baby's eyes pop open, the pacifier falls out of his mouth and he begins to cry again. The man fusses with him, running through a quick list of fixes. Nothing works. He picks the baby up, holding him against his chest, the small warm head in the crook of his neck. He places the pacifier back in the baby's mouth and begins to rock him up and down, shushing in time. He places his hand on the baby's back, thumb keeping the pacifier in place, index along the side of his head, fingers across his neck. This usually calms him.
The man rocks the baby up and down up and down up and down, stepping from one foot to the other. He goes out into the hall where the light is more dim and it's a bit cooler. Once in a while the baby starts awake like he just remembered something he had to do. The man tries to keep the baby's head on his chest but he knows that being too forceful will make things worse. He lets the baby look around then gently lays his head back down. There is a clock on the floor. The man passes seven full minutes this way.
The baby seems to be asleep. The man puts his sleeping pad in the bed and lays the baby on it. He lays down close and pulls the covers up over both of them. The AC vent is right above the bed and he doesn't want the baby to be cold. Within five seconds the baby is fussing. Within ten he is crying and will not accept the pacifier. The man knows it is pointless now.
The man picks the baby up and puts him atop his chest. He is desperate, trying anything. The baby sleeps like this on the fiance every morning. Replacing the pacifier the man rocks the baby, patting his back. It is no use. The baby is loud now. All the man wants is some more sleep for them both. The baby has only slept thirty minutes in over six hours, the man about four hours in the last twenty-four. He is always so tired.
The man suddenly flips the baby over to lay on his back and tells him to shut up, shut up. The baby continues on, unaffected. The man lifts the baby into his arms and pushes the pacifier into his crying mouth and heads for the kitchen. He starts the warmer, pours six ounces of formula into a bottle, and sets the timer. The baby is very loud now. The man rocks him vigorously trying to shush him but his voice is drown out by the wails.
The baby pushes off the man spinning his head to the left and the right looking for god knows what. His face is red and his mouth is a permanent inverted horseshoe. He keeps rejecting the pacifier and it almost falls to the floor. The man squeezes the baby tight against him, feeling the warm skin against his arms. The baby's legs are stretched straight, his head rising and falling with dangerous speed. He almost catches the man's chin with his brow bone. The man is very alone at this moment.
The man yells for the baby to be quiet. He is so frustrated his vision barely registers. All he can do is hear the crying, the crying that never ends. It's weight on the entire length of his nervous system, the wires grounding into a silent scream of his whole being. The man walks from kitchen to living room and back rocking the baby hard. The baby's cries die down a little either from tiredness or the man's attempts to calm him. The man doesn't care which. The timer goes off after six minutes of eternity.
The man and the baby sit on the red couch in front of the television. The baby is still upset. The man begins to feed him without pausing to start the movie stalled on the DVD menu. The baby accepts the bottle. The whole world goes quiet. His tiny hands flutter around the bottle, clumsily trying to hold it for himself already. The man watches as the hands explore. He leans his head down to kiss the baby and smell his skin. He runs his lips against the baby's hair. He leaves his lips pressed to the top of his head for a long time.
---
The baby pushes himself off the man's chest and burps. He lowers himself down and back up; he has spit-up on his forehead, cheeks, and chin. He smiles at the man and glances away for a moment, being coy. He coos and talks to the man in single vowels as the formula is wiped from his face. The man smiles at his son and asks him questions in an excited tone of voice, punctuating his questions by tickling his chest or dabbing at his mouth. The baby is happy, and so is the man. At this moment the man is no longer alone.
The man picks a clean Onesie with a loose neck and easily slips it over the calm face and playful arms. He lays the baby down on the red couch and puts in a new DVD with lots of color and sound. He begins to change the baby's diaper, keeping his tone and face playful. He hands the baby the bottom of his Onesie and asks him to hold it for him. The baby always helps in this way unless he's crying. The baby watches the man with a small smile. After a while he grabs the hanging end of his car seat restraint and clumsily puts it in his mouth as he watches the television.
The baby's face is calm. The man always wonders what he is thinking. The man idly thinks about the baby's future: about what his voice will sound like when he can speak, about what he'll say and ask, about the hundred things he'll want to be when he grows up. He wonders what traits of his he will inherit, like he has from his father. The father's father is his yardstick and his example. There are so many things he wishes he could simply give the baby, things that everyone must learn for themselves even if it takes a lifetime. The man wants to spare him from any pain physical or otherwise.
The man still checks on the baby in the night to see if he's breathing. He will risk the baby's cries to feel his tiny chest rise and fall with his sleeping breath, to brush a smooth arm or leg to see the baby move. He would give up limb and organ for the sake of his son. The man has loved intensely and known with finality that he would forfeit his life for another. But this goes beyond that. No words can touch it. It's in every cell and electrical impulse and thought. It is his being. This is what the entire Universe has purposed him for. It goes beyond cliche and higher thought processes. But the man knows even this is lacking. It is unnameable in the truest sense he has ever known.
The baby is lifted up and held against the man in hug that cannot yet be returned. The man hopes some part of the baby can recognize it. He places him in the seat and sweet talks him all the way to the car.
---
The baby is in his car seat behind the passenger side. Normally the baby is calmed by driving, but now he is whimpering. The man stops singing and looks for a place to put his drink. There is none. He pulls over into a parking spot parallel to the street and stretches back to find the pacifier. He places it back in the baby's mouth and contorts his arm to reach behind him and keep it in place as he drives. He strokes the baby's head and face with his fingers. He has to keep his arm there for the entire drive and his first two fingers feel as fat and as dead as a drowning victim. They drive through the night with no real destination and the baby begins to cry every time the car stops. It is a long drive.
The man wants to bring dinner home to the fiance. He pulls into the drive-through of a fast food restaurant. The baby is finally asleep but the man eyes him warily as the car stops moving. The baby stays asleep. Fifteen minutes go by before the man even has a chance to pay. The fiance calls when he is next in line. Work is over and she is walking the short distance home since he isn't there. The man says he'll be there soon.
The man stops the car at the mouth of the tunnel. A city worker in impossibly fluorescent green coveralls with reflective strips has stopped traffic. There is one car ahead of him. He sees a tow truck enter the tunnel and thinks there has been a wreck. The baby wakes up and begins to cry. The man has read there is no scientific proof that a baby's cry changes with it's complaint, but to him this sounds like the baby doesn't like the stillness of the car. There is no where for the man to go. He is trapped.
The baby turns his head from side to side trying to get away from the pacifier. The man doesn't understand why the baby does this. He shushes him and looks towards the tunnel, helpless. Nothing is moving. He begins to rock the car seat and the baby stops fussing. After a few minutes he is quiet again as long as the seat is rocking. The man tries different positions in the front seat, always sure to keep his arm moving. Time passes and cars turn off their lights and engines. The man's entire faculty is pointed towards the baby, hyper-alert for signs of distress.
The man is able to drive through. When he removes his hand from the baby's head nothing happens and he is thankful. It has been less than six miles to his house since the drive-through but it has taken him an hour to travel the distance.
The man is able to get inside his apartment without waking the baby, carrying the car seat with the child still inside across the lawn and up the flight of stairs. No one answers when he knocks. Unlocking the door he hears the white noise of the shower. He sets the car seat down but does not remove the baby. He sits on the red couch and rests his chin on the heels of his hands. His eyes begin to water. The man takes his glasses off and cries into the darkness of his covered eyes.
---
The fiance enters the room, two colorful towels concealing her clean skin and hair. She asks the man if he is okay. He can only shrug. She comes to sit near him and he begins to cry again. He hides his eyes and can't stop the despair in his voice as he retells the horrors of the crying baby and the long drive-through line and closed tunnel. Even as he hears himself he realizes how melodramatic it sounds. How ridiculous. The man says aloud a thought he would only let himself half realize: it can't be possible for things to be like this. The fiance's hands are warm on his back and leg as she comforts him. After a time he meets her eyes and surprised to see that she has been crying as well. The man feels better.
The man cannot later recall if they let the baby sleep through the night or wake him for a last bottle and change before laying him in the dark bedroom for the only long stretch of sleep he'll have that day. The fiance and the man spend time together on the red couch watching the television and talking easily about nothing. Their legs are jumbled together as they lay at opposite ends. They are enjoying the respite of each others company. Then man's ears regularly perk up for the faint sound of the baby's cry two rooms away but he hears nothing.
The baby is laying on his side, his face serene in the low light. The man looks down on him with an expression he senses is a mix of unbearable tenderness and torture. But the baby is asleep and breathing and at this moment nothing can be wrong in the world. The man lays his hand on his son and whispers goodnight or only thinks it, he can't tell which. Two dogs, a cat, the baby, and his fiance are all bedding down in that room for the night. He lays down next to the fiance and they warm each other as they fall asleep. The man does not dream but he wakes rested the next morning.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Local News
It feels like a good time to have one of those general update posts that don't really have a point besides bringing all of my gorgeous readers up to speed on the mundanities of my little universe. So here we go!
Jonas is getting bigger and more people-like every day. While his laughs are still a little rare we've found some noises that seem to amuse him. Particularly fart noises. He also seems to be teething, which is a cruel joke both on him as he cannot yet hold things in his mouth (unless you count his fist) and on us as we had just started to get a good rhythm down. As you may have read he's also taking us to the end of our wits. He's lucky he's so pretty. He's definitely ensured he'll be an only child. We've busted out a couple new toys for him as he can hold his head up now without effort, including one of those bouncy chairs that dangle from the doorway. I have a video of that I'll upload later, but he really seemed to like it.
My grandma sent us a package for him last week that contained a baby medical book by Dr. Spock (no kidding), some little sandals, and a cool little shirt, along with the life jacket I used a small child. Which I can't believe she still has and love that she sent. It has the very first address I ever lived in written on the inside and bite marks out of the shoulders where I would slowly bite the foam until the orange plastic skin would break. Hidden in the book was some money my dad cleverly asked-without-asking if I found just to see if we'd actually use it. Kasey cracked that thing open with a quickness!
Work is work, with the added bonus of having all my patience sapped by a baby and leaving very little for my agents. Luckily I am a professional and a gentleman and only talk smack about them behind their backs instead of tossing them out of the closest sixth-story window. We have a company picnic tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it. It's always interesting to see how people dress outside of a business casual dress code, they seem totally different. Looking at a map now it's only six miles away from where I park the car to ride into work so I may bikey bike it.
Speaking of bikes, I've been an abysmal cyclist of late. Again (frowny face). For a second there I was commuting more days than not, but that promptly ended when I got way off my sleep schedule. Which I'm also blaming on my crankiness, feelings of nausea and hopelessness, and erections lasting longer than four hours. Usually they last three, tops. I missed a kick-ass race last weekend that when I think about it now still makes me want to chop off my ear or something. Hopefully we do another one like it before too long. Last night I did a little bike maintenance and it was very therapeutic: I installed new brake pads, sewed up sidewall tears in my newest set of tires and put one on the back wheel, lubed my chain, and pumped up my tires. Now if I could only get to the riding part.
We applied for a new apartment. Same neighborhood, just a few blocks back towards the river. It's a frickin' huge two-bedroom two-bath number with enough storage to house a family of runaway immigrants comfortably in and enough old school charm to obsess Kasey for a week straight. I went out and rented Rosemary's Baby because it reminded me of that so much; surprisingly huge apartment in the middle of an area where you wouldn't suspect there to be one and the whole thing is old and kinda strange. We're supposed to hear back here any day now, we got fingers and toes crossed.
And on the topic of obsession (see how I'm tying all my paragraphs together? The hordes of hot high school girls who I just know read this blog should take note) I am going insane over Muse lately. It kind of started when we borrowed Twilight from Kasey's mom and I discovered the only catchy song in the whole movie was from a newer album I hadn't heard yet. I've loved Absolution since about college and Muse was already listed in the Music sections of my various social networking profiles. Still, I put Black Holes and Revelations on my iPod and was shocked to discover I was blaring nearly every song. Promptly I could listen to nothing else.
Y'all know by now that I'm a big softy so I don't mind telling you there are a few songs that are so epic and amazing that I've cried a little listening to them. Biking to work one morning with a song called "Knights of Cydonia" playing over my portable speaker there came a part in the song that blended with my exertion on the bike and the empty dark streets of 5:00 in the morning and created a moment so perfect and beautiful and somehow heroic that I was laughing and crying at the same time. And even though Dr. Kasey McSnobbypants, music Ph.D, says it doesn't technically classify as one, the guitar solo in "Invincible" gets me every time unless I focus a little bit of me on something else. In fact that whole song gets me, and the music video made it even worse!
Not sad emo cries like, "Finally someone understands my pain, wah wah wah razorblades", but just an overwhelming feeling of... who the fuck knows. I hesitate to even try to find the words. It's just amazing to me, utterly amazing. My iPod battery died yesterday and I had some driving to do so I found me a Best Buy and practically ran in the store to get the CD. The CD! That should say something. I ended up getting a second one that came with a DVD of the concert for Black Holes and Revelations and I've watched it twice already. I'm straying into fanboy territory already, but if you haven't heard this album you should give it a shot. Fer reals.
And with that it's time for me to go home. Have a good weekend, sees you guys on the other side.
- David
Jonas is getting bigger and more people-like every day. While his laughs are still a little rare we've found some noises that seem to amuse him. Particularly fart noises. He also seems to be teething, which is a cruel joke both on him as he cannot yet hold things in his mouth (unless you count his fist) and on us as we had just started to get a good rhythm down. As you may have read he's also taking us to the end of our wits. He's lucky he's so pretty. He's definitely ensured he'll be an only child. We've busted out a couple new toys for him as he can hold his head up now without effort, including one of those bouncy chairs that dangle from the doorway. I have a video of that I'll upload later, but he really seemed to like it.
My grandma sent us a package for him last week that contained a baby medical book by Dr. Spock (no kidding), some little sandals, and a cool little shirt, along with the life jacket I used a small child. Which I can't believe she still has and love that she sent. It has the very first address I ever lived in written on the inside and bite marks out of the shoulders where I would slowly bite the foam until the orange plastic skin would break. Hidden in the book was some money my dad cleverly asked-without-asking if I found just to see if we'd actually use it. Kasey cracked that thing open with a quickness!
Work is work, with the added bonus of having all my patience sapped by a baby and leaving very little for my agents. Luckily I am a professional and a gentleman and only talk smack about them behind their backs instead of tossing them out of the closest sixth-story window. We have a company picnic tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it. It's always interesting to see how people dress outside of a business casual dress code, they seem totally different. Looking at a map now it's only six miles away from where I park the car to ride into work so I may bikey bike it.
Speaking of bikes, I've been an abysmal cyclist of late. Again (frowny face). For a second there I was commuting more days than not, but that promptly ended when I got way off my sleep schedule. Which I'm also blaming on my crankiness, feelings of nausea and hopelessness, and erections lasting longer than four hours. Usually they last three, tops. I missed a kick-ass race last weekend that when I think about it now still makes me want to chop off my ear or something. Hopefully we do another one like it before too long. Last night I did a little bike maintenance and it was very therapeutic: I installed new brake pads, sewed up sidewall tears in my newest set of tires and put one on the back wheel, lubed my chain, and pumped up my tires. Now if I could only get to the riding part.
We applied for a new apartment. Same neighborhood, just a few blocks back towards the river. It's a frickin' huge two-bedroom two-bath number with enough storage to house a family of runaway immigrants comfortably in and enough old school charm to obsess Kasey for a week straight. I went out and rented Rosemary's Baby because it reminded me of that so much; surprisingly huge apartment in the middle of an area where you wouldn't suspect there to be one and the whole thing is old and kinda strange. We're supposed to hear back here any day now, we got fingers and toes crossed.
And on the topic of obsession (see how I'm tying all my paragraphs together? The hordes of hot high school girls who I just know read this blog should take note) I am going insane over Muse lately. It kind of started when we borrowed Twilight from Kasey's mom and I discovered the only catchy song in the whole movie was from a newer album I hadn't heard yet. I've loved Absolution since about college and Muse was already listed in the Music sections of my various social networking profiles. Still, I put Black Holes and Revelations on my iPod and was shocked to discover I was blaring nearly every song. Promptly I could listen to nothing else.
Y'all know by now that I'm a big softy so I don't mind telling you there are a few songs that are so epic and amazing that I've cried a little listening to them. Biking to work one morning with a song called "Knights of Cydonia" playing over my portable speaker there came a part in the song that blended with my exertion on the bike and the empty dark streets of 5:00 in the morning and created a moment so perfect and beautiful and somehow heroic that I was laughing and crying at the same time. And even though Dr. Kasey McSnobbypants, music Ph.D, says it doesn't technically classify as one, the guitar solo in "Invincible" gets me every time unless I focus a little bit of me on something else. In fact that whole song gets me, and the music video made it even worse!
Not sad emo cries like, "Finally someone understands my pain, wah wah wah razorblades", but just an overwhelming feeling of... who the fuck knows. I hesitate to even try to find the words. It's just amazing to me, utterly amazing. My iPod battery died yesterday and I had some driving to do so I found me a Best Buy and practically ran in the store to get the CD. The CD! That should say something. I ended up getting a second one that came with a DVD of the concert for Black Holes and Revelations and I've watched it twice already. I'm straying into fanboy territory already, but if you haven't heard this album you should give it a shot. Fer reals.
And with that it's time for me to go home. Have a good weekend, sees you guys on the other side.
- David
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Anger
I watch anger well up in me like back-flow from a clogged drain, all silent and dirty with a liquid momentum that seems unstoppable.
I compulsively avoid getting upset; my bastard philosophy of Buddhism, various defense mechanisms, and laziness governs that I ignore negative emotions like anger and jealousy and focus on the more positive ones, like a buffet of emotions where I take what I want and leave the rest. It has not been lost on me that perhaps this isn't the most effective method.
But lately I am made up of disgust seething just below the surface of my smiling face, disgust for every living thing I come in contact with that gives me the least bit of friction. It bubbles up and only an unsteady surface tension keeps it from spilling over, it's skin vibrates and seems just on the edge of giving way. Co-workers, traffic, pets, my infant child; hell truly is other people. Anything that's not anger is just bland timelessness chipping away at a day that will turn into another just like it, with neutral flecks sprinkled throughout.
Yesterday was the worst day I've ever had with little Jonas. He just would not sleep. I know he was tired, I could read it on his face and hear it in the stream of dissatisfied noises that went on without end. His grandma had laid him down and gotten him to sleep ten minutes before I got home, and twenty minutes after we were left alone he woke up and fought sleep for at least three hours. And even then he woke with screaming mouth and scrunched face after not more than sixty minutes later. As a semi-logical being I know that yelling will not quiet a crying baby, but we had occasion to verify it first hand a few times yesterday. Jonas, I am sorry, but Jesus Christ kid, there's only so much a person can take. It's a scientific fact that a baby's cries go off in our nervous system like Satan's nails on our soul's chalkboard. If you think you'd never yell at a baby then you've never had one yourself.
I don't know what's wrong with me. Could lack of sleep make me feel like this? Like how I imagine sociopaths and serial killers feel? Nothing seems real. I'm covered by a layer of anger, and latent or active nothing can breathe or escape it. I have no outlet, and most days I feel too exhausted to get out of bed in time to enjoy the one outlet I do have. Eating doesn't even do it for me, lately.
I can't stay like this. I am the counterbalance. I need to recover. All I need is a moment, I'll catch up. Just let me rest a sec. Just a minute, I'll catch up...
- David
I compulsively avoid getting upset; my bastard philosophy of Buddhism, various defense mechanisms, and laziness governs that I ignore negative emotions like anger and jealousy and focus on the more positive ones, like a buffet of emotions where I take what I want and leave the rest. It has not been lost on me that perhaps this isn't the most effective method.
But lately I am made up of disgust seething just below the surface of my smiling face, disgust for every living thing I come in contact with that gives me the least bit of friction. It bubbles up and only an unsteady surface tension keeps it from spilling over, it's skin vibrates and seems just on the edge of giving way. Co-workers, traffic, pets, my infant child; hell truly is other people. Anything that's not anger is just bland timelessness chipping away at a day that will turn into another just like it, with neutral flecks sprinkled throughout.
Yesterday was the worst day I've ever had with little Jonas. He just would not sleep. I know he was tired, I could read it on his face and hear it in the stream of dissatisfied noises that went on without end. His grandma had laid him down and gotten him to sleep ten minutes before I got home, and twenty minutes after we were left alone he woke up and fought sleep for at least three hours. And even then he woke with screaming mouth and scrunched face after not more than sixty minutes later. As a semi-logical being I know that yelling will not quiet a crying baby, but we had occasion to verify it first hand a few times yesterday. Jonas, I am sorry, but Jesus Christ kid, there's only so much a person can take. It's a scientific fact that a baby's cries go off in our nervous system like Satan's nails on our soul's chalkboard. If you think you'd never yell at a baby then you've never had one yourself.
I don't know what's wrong with me. Could lack of sleep make me feel like this? Like how I imagine sociopaths and serial killers feel? Nothing seems real. I'm covered by a layer of anger, and latent or active nothing can breathe or escape it. I have no outlet, and most days I feel too exhausted to get out of bed in time to enjoy the one outlet I do have. Eating doesn't even do it for me, lately.
I can't stay like this. I am the counterbalance. I need to recover. All I need is a moment, I'll catch up. Just let me rest a sec. Just a minute, I'll catch up...
- David
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