Touch You Last

When I started out writing these birthday tributes to Sarah two years ago, I thought I should never make these posts about me. Sheesh. Only my third post in and I'm failing at that. But give me a break: if I'm going to be writing these for the next seventy years or so I can't tie myself up with rules. So this post is about all the ways my life would be different if I'd never gotten together with Sarah. I wouldn't have gone to University -- After finishing high school, I entered my wilderness years where I worked a few crap jobs and made a few half-hearted, half-assed attempts at 'acting.' After this went on for way too long, it was Sarah who gently brought up the idea of trying something else. Going to school, studying writing. University brought new friends, and closer ties to some older friends. It taught me responsibility and independence. If I hadn't gone to school... I'd probably have a terrible job -- While writing itself didn't become...

I sat down to write this, proud that I was hammeri ng out a post so soon after the last one, then I realized when I’d originally intended to write this it was going to be called “Teddy: Eighteen Months.” Also, we’re only eleven days way from month twenty, which suggests I’ve been meaning to get around to this for close to fifty days now. Oy. Teddy is hilarious nowadays. I’ve enjoyed every stage that came before this, but eighteen months and on has been especially fun. Every day, this kid makes us laugh out loud at something new. The other day before bedtime, we asked, “What’s your name?” Teddy said, “Not Jacob.” We pressed on and asked him again. His reply: “I don’t know.” Which is awesome because: a) He is not in the habit of using whole sentences, and b) He totally knows his own name Just yesterday during dinner, he’d eaten two slices of ham and then asked for more. I said, “Really, you want another slice?” He said, “Yeah!” I said, “Really?” He said, “No.” I said, “Dude, d...

Time passes in very strange ways when you have a newborn. Sometimes two days can seem like a week, then the passing of a week seems to whizz by in a blink. It's because you can alternate between incredible highs and awful lows several times in the same day. At noon you feel like a star and that you have everything under control, then at one in the morning you're in a fit of despair , then everything's totally cool again by breakfast. At this point in time, we're off that rollercoaster officially. Things are great and look to be staying that way. But damn, you really forget what those first few days can be like. I'll go light on detail here because I suspect Sarah will provide the gory blow-by-blow on her sight shortly. At about 3am on the 24 th , Sarah went into labour. With Teddy, the start-to-finish labour was epic, so we were both convinced that we had tons of time. But contractions were two minutes apart by 5am, and we were at the hospital and into serious lab...

I'm in the midst of watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and, well, it's just there. It's not a bad movie; it's beautifully shot and it's interesting enough, but it's not great, and it's not vital, and it's not important. And it just got me to thinking. I've seen a lot of movies in the past few years. Movies that I thought were important (or great, or vital), and as it turned out -- only a very small percentage met any of those standards. So... would anyone care to see my movie recommendations in those areas? Not in regards to whether you should see Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (which you shouldn't, FYI) , but whether you should see the Oscar Winner for Best Picture in 1960, or how many of the AFI Top 100 you should bother to check out. Is this useful information to anyone? Will you act on it? ( that 's the important question) If the answer is no, please don't post anything at all. But if you're intere...

Teddy, I’m addressing this one directly to you. Your mom often asks questions about what I was like as a kid. I’m no good for answers because I can barely remember the start of this day, and my parents only offer up generalities: Dave was quiet, stayed in his room a lot, was on the computer all the time, was very pale. Frankly, we were afraid he might kill us in our sleep. So, I don’t know that much about what I was like as I kid, and what I want to tell you here is exactly what you were like when you just turned one. Your favourite pastime right now is bouncing heavy toys off the hardwood floor. Actually, what you like even better is when you throw something against the hardwood and then it bounces under the c ouch. Then you try to retrieve it… and you can’t… and you get angry and shouty… and then we dig it out for you… and then you throw it back under. At present, that’s your idea of a good time. You also like to slap the cats. Gunther especially, but that’s only because he’ll endur...

Oh, right – momentum. Yeah, I blew that resolution as fast as damn possible, but if it’s any consolation I blew all my resolutions. Huge. But my plan is to reboot as of today. There are two big mistakes I always make when I commit to something. First, if I fail for even a day, I immediately throw up my hands, say fuck it , and forget about even trying again. Second, if I pick a start date that’s some time in the future, I’ll squeeze in as much as that behavior I’m trying to avoid as humanly possible between now and then. (The ‘behaviours to avoid’ almost always involve sloth and gluttony, FYI). So anyway: here we are again, trying to get a routine going. What’s really great, and what this post is really about, is that 2010 seems to be the year the bloggers came back. They all didn’t go away, obviously. Some continue to be pro-stars; some haven’t stopped blogging since the day they started. (A wise eye will see that those first two links go to the same great site.) But the ...

Starting is hard, at least for me. Once I establish a routine and find the rhythm of something, I have no trouble keeping it up. Actually, once I've got a patern down it becomes harder for me to stop. But starting off: I'll do almost anything to get out of those first two or three attempts. Anyhow, I'll stop beating around the bush and tell you what I'm trying to tell you. I want to become a serial killer. No, wait. That's not right. Sorry, I'm writing this and watching Dexter as I write this. I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing. It's one of those resolution things. I'm not too particular about what I write, just that I do it. (That might change once I get my momentum on. Given enough time, I might get around to that erotic zombie novel I've been thinking about all these years.) Three hours a week of writing; that's the plan. It seemed like a pretty small commitment when I made it, but it gets larger and larger the ...