School starts today!

But I take evening classes, so I've gotta wait until 4:30. Lemme see what my schedule is, I'll write it down for you (it'll help me remember) ...

Autumn Quarter Class Schedule:
COM    343 EFFECTS OF MASS CMU MW 700- 920P
COM    444 PUB RELTN & SOCIETY TTh 430- 650P
POL S  405 AM POLITICS ADV SEM MW 430- 650P

Two communication classes, one political science.

And full-time, too! Last school year, Fall-Winter-Spring, I took two classes at a time, just cause I didn't want to totally be ultra-super-busy.

That was fine. But it's time I live in the present. Being ultra-super-busy (USB) is what it's going to take to get my life in order, so being USB it is and I'm going to have to like it.

My money's being held up in the wracket jackets of the financial aid offices, though, and that's been stressing me out. They say it's going to take "approximately 60 days" to sort out. Gross.

Also there were a few other things going on this week that really stressed me out, on top of the money thing, things I'm not going to go into. I tried it--going into it. I laid my thoughts down on paper, but that process took so long, and caused me to detailededly think about my problems so focusedly that I ...

I was just kinda wallowing around in angry mush while I should have been concentrating on my family, and I turned into a mega bitch and ended up kind of exploding at my kids and wife.

So that sucked. It was pretty bad. Sometimes I fly off the handle, that was a 8 out of 10 on the Rychkter scale.

But Megan and I talked it out, and it gave me perspective. Talking it out helped, and I recommend all dads try that with their significant others.

If you feel like you're losing it, just talk about it, and be honest.

I've changed my behavior. I'm being nice now, I promise. I know there will be other times when I'm tested with life's outside pressures, combined with the pressure from the inside of the delerium doldrums of raising kids.

I mean, yeah kids are great, but shit man, this shit is hard.

Some days.

Time-consuming, I should say. The hardest part, as Louis C.K. said, is the boredom. The waiting. The sitting on the floor with them and letting them be kids. The pretending that everything they do is awesome, so that they build up self-confidence, and having to mean it every time you say it.

You sort of start saying these routine things without saying them, thinking about other things you're doing, completely compartmentalizing your kids' needs in your mind, along with household chores and whatever else is going on. So basically you take on this tone of voice that's completely instinctual, it just comes out of you. It must be the most boring shit to hear.

I've ended up reminding myself of my parents so much now that I just take it as a given. I sound like my mom and my dad when I talk, and it's unavoidable, and I just don't care anymore. Why should I let that bother me. There's too much else to do. Genetics and learning and the brain are what they are.

Lastly, one thing Megan said to me was particularly effecting. I said to her, after expressing regret at having yelled way too loud at Lucy, that I am not cut out for this parenting thing.

Then Megan reminded me of how much my girls love and trust me, and how I take good care of them every day. That made me feel a lot better.

The vast majority of the time, things are fine, and I do alright.

I'm ready to start school today.

Don't sit on lions

We've sort of adopted this neighborhood cat. Well, really, we just added to her roster of houses she can go to for food and shelter.

Smokey is her name. She exists within the neighborhood. One of my neighbors says she belongs to someone around here, but no one has actually stepped forward to claim ownership.

Meanwhile, Smokey continues to show up at our house, sitting right outside the front door, her little grey head poking up thru the low windows.

She's a nice cat. She handles my children very well.

My children do not handle her well.

My baby grows

Beatrix is 15 months old, and rocketing up like a giant. Also, she’s smarter.

Lucy is three and a half, and she’s growing and learning too, but right now I want to talk about Beatrix. She did something last night that made mama and I crack up. Mama was brought to tears out of pride for her baby. It was a really beautiful moment.

Helping myself not relax

Lucy was playing Mario Kart Wii while I was reading from my laptop w/headphones on. BB was sitting directly in front of the tv.

I glanced over see Lucy erasing my player license. "GlennDoom's license will be erased. Are you sure you want to do this?"

(little finger moves to "Yes" with confidence)

"GlennDoom's license has been erased."

I looked over at her. I must have sighed pretty heavily, cause they both looked at me, expecting to have to brace themselves for my discipline.

Deciding to try to put my feelings into words, I said, "Don't do that on mario kart again. You just erased my player license. I'm not sure what that does, but it can't be good."

Lucy looks up at me while turning her face down in a frown, shaking her head and whimpering, like I'm a total asshole.

BB stares at me in wonderment.

Uuuuhhhhggghh. I'm slowly fucking up my kids. Ignoring them by putting them in front of the tv. Only speaking to them when I have something negative to say.

"Don't do (x)" dominates much of my speaking patterns lately. Lucy is really acting out a lot, exploring life, getting into stuff she shouldn't. BB is doing this too, and though it's to a lesser degree, it only adds to what I have to watch out for.

This I interpret in my brain as giving me more stress. I could just say, "My kids stress me out," but that's not true. I choose to do it. It's how I learned to self-medicate, possibly. Thusly, I turn into Dick Dad a lot, and it's not cool and I need to relax. Though the surrounding world doesn't exactly help me to relax, often I'm not helping myself to relax either.

Megan and I took our two girlz to the doctor a few days ago for BB's 15mo checkup. Our doctor is really cool, a woman about our age. She likes how we parent, she always says. She's even said we're her favorite parents that she sees.

Since it's in my nature to second-guess myself, I always reflect on it with a grain of salt. Of course, hearing it always feels good. Often I feel that I yell at my kids too much, but when it comes down to it, I'm nice to them way more than I'm mean.

But sometimes little things tip me over the edge, and I react in ways I regret later.

Here's my latest: I was taking a shower, and Lucy comes in and goes to the bathroom on her little toilet, which must be emptied directly after she goes. Also, she needed me to wipe her.

I had just spent 15 minutes brushing my long, tangly hair and going to the bathroom myself before heading into the shower, which would have been a great time for Lu to come in and go herself.

And I had been really looking forward to the shower, I was dirty and stinky, I had just gotten BB down for a nap, and it was all lined up.

But like it always is with kids, plans parents make don't EVER turn out the way they're ... planned. There's always a wrench thrown in the gears, slowing you down, making you stop, slow down and help your kids.

So my reaction? I get mad. I didn't yell, but I raised my voice at her, about how bad her timing was. How I was all wet and cold and I didn't like it.

But then through my anger fog, I begin to hear my brain telling me that it's not fair to get mad at her for that, she's only three years old, she's impressionable, and I'm scaring her.

I mumbled, "I'm sorry, I know you can't control when you have to go to the bathroom," but she was gone. Too late.

Sometimes I act like a dick and it's hard to take it back, cause you know the effects are lasting. I had to get back in the shower too, without talking to her about it.

It was a hard day for me overall. Last day of mama's workweek, and I was really tired of taking care of kids. It doesn't always hit me on our fridays, but last friday was one of them.

I think I'm allowed to have one a month. 

Setting-up-apt. progress today:

Me: Pine Sol'd the sink and wiped the wall trim all the way around the bathroom. And most of the floors. One sponge.

Megan: unpacked two sizable boxes, clearing space in dining room, set up the record shelves, moved two bookshelves on either side of it as big heavy bookends, placed records, kids books, and some cds on said shelves.

We rule. It was hard to pay a lot of attention to the kids today. Mama and I both were home all day, but our weekends are for getting things done. Lucy acted out a lot today, and it's no surprise, really.

I'll just have to make sure to give both of them lots of attention tomorrow.

Cause even though parents live to serve, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Right now I'm trying to type this real quick, drink my beer, text my friends, and get ready to play New Vegas, which is on right now, tempting me with its scary ambient tunes. My character looks on forlornly, waiting for me to jump at the controls... I'm coming, Abeladro... just a few.. more.. texts!

Oh, let me throw this out there: yesterday, I had a jam with two people. One is a good friend, the other is someone I met for the first time, a friend of said good friend's. Me on bass, good friend on drums, new guy on guitar. But get this--new guy has all sorts of sweet recording equipment, uses Pro Tools, has a bass rig with a Fender Jazz Bass that I can use (though I like mine better--I'm more used to it), and ... well, he sounds like my main man Jason Noble, RIP and bless his heart, Steve Albini, and David Pajo, but with his own style too.

My good bud on drums sounds like Todd Trainer, and Sebastian Thomson.

And my good gosh, they need a bassist with a good mid-tone, not a full low tone. That's me all the way, baby. We sounded pretty good together for our first jam, and though I was "trying out," I'm so totally in. They've already asked me to come back next week, same time same place, no big deal, but yeah dude, yawn, I'm totally a rock star now, see ya next week, when I'm big and famous dude.

Serve by Example

Lately on this blog I feel that I have been focusing on myself more than my kids. They're a permanent fixture in my life, and I take it for granted that people aren't as familiar with them as I.

Additionally, our move and my musical production career pursuance going on has been distracting me from blogging about them. So here's a little bit about my kids.

Moved

This week has been crazy!

We've switched apartments within the same house, and boy are my arms tired. However, the increased space in every room is immensely relieving. There are windows everywhere, the sun's coming in, I've got the front door open and a baby gate in it, and the air is fresh and clean.

Horse Pushing Cart

We're moving on Thursday. Right downstairs in the same house. Pretty weird.

We're going with Seattle Movers, a division of Mountain Movers. There is this other company called Awesome Movers, ("we're three men and a truck"), but the owner has a knee condition he's in physical therapy for. Sorry, ladies.

Video games, bedtime

Since Grand Theft Auto V is gonna be out soon-ish, I've taken to playing GTAIV just to make sure I'm all done with it beforehand, and to extremely dork out.

And just so you know, people, that almost every time I turn on the video games, I think to myself, " ... isn't there some chore you should be doing? Don't you have to get your kids into daycare?" And I feel like a piece of shit every time, but then I see the colorful lights, hear the cool music, and smell the smells of these new, graphically awwwwesome games I'm playing lately, and I think to myself, "You need some time to yourself. Turn your brain off."

The excuse holds thin. Time for myself to do what? Waste time? My finite life fades away while I play video games. What if we got rid of our tv... huh yeah right. Someday I'll get older and re-evaluate my responsibilities vis a vis pursuing entertainment.

So anyway, yeah I just stayed up a half hour too late doing that one mission on GTAIV where you kill about 50 guys in a warehouse, taking like 12 or so bullets to random parts of the body, blowing dudes' heads off and shit, & hiding behind stuff before making the ol' break for it. All to steal some kingpin's drug money. You know that one?

GTAV is going to rule. The Grand Theft Auto series has been around longer than I've been playing it, but I'm in love with the games since then. I don't really dig Vice City. Too primitive for me now.

I started with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It's a fairly recent installment in the series, for PS2. You play this gangsta dude named Carl, and you go around killing dudes and taking like a thousand bullets to all parts of the body. For some mob boss's drug money.

It's the most violent bloody fucking game I'll ever play.. oh yeah except for Resident Evil... Resident Evil 6 comes out soon...


No bother! I always stick to Skyrim and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword when the kids are awake. Skyrim's borderline too violent for the kids, but much of it is talking to people and improving your character and making weapons and building up skills--really boring stuff. Kids want nothing to do with it. THEY CAN'T EVEN READ and anyway half the enemies aren't human.

Where was I going with this... you ever go into your kids' room at night before you go to bed, and instead of just checking on them real fast and going to bed, you stay for a minute, and kneel down and really look at your kid? I did that tonight. Felt this intense love for her. Put my hand on her back. Thought, "I really hope I'm not fucking this kid up."

I don't want her to have my neuroses, but I she's going to.

It's almost like you can't stop yourself. There's nothing you can do sometimes to stop acting like who you truly are, neuroses and all, in front of your kids--which they emulate and copy. It's a vicious cycle, the passing of negative qualities from one generation to the next. Of course, the positives are spread too. I can't forget that.

Bad Home Smell ... and the neighbors are complaining like dicks

But first, area man Green Meanswallow explains why Facebook sux now: 

Because I abuse it. I keep scrolling down thru the updates I've already seen. Yesterday I caught myself at it more than once in the same minute. There was nothing new on there, and it occurred to me, as I was doing it, that I didn't know why I was doing it. It was mindless.

Facebook friends:

Be prolific, will ya? Do I have to do it? I mean, just post whatever's the top entry on the front page of the Internet. I mean, Reddit.

Switching gears here, I gotta say, I'm all done with my business on the john, but I just don't want to get up. I'm perfectly happy. Sure, it leaves a red ring on my ass, but that's livable. I don't have any responsibilities in here!

Changing subjects, my house has smelt like nail polish for a week.

Well, it's not my house, and the smell was floor polish, and it was for like five days.

Now forgive me if I don't sit in the living room and watch Curious George with my kids as I write this, but I gotta say, it's tough when these particular circumstances affect one:

• Noxious floor finish smell in your private living space
• You're at home with your kids
• It's too cold to go outside
• It's August

The reason the floors are getting re-finished is so that my family can move downstairs to the larger apartment. In all, not much to complain about.

It's simply been a bit of a to-do this last week dealing with this obnoxious, harmful smell slowly wafting in through our floor.

Sometimes the smell was so bad in the pantry I had to hold my breath. I'd be going in to get something, and breathing in would actually cause a physical sensation. It was a sort of a light burning, inside my face. To the tune of nail polish.

Unpleasant. A haiku:

All the fans blowing
Maintaining consistent wind
Repels finish stink

The kids' closet, which has no door, has been a great ventilation space, apparently. Every night before I go to bed at about 11, I open their door for the night and check to see if they're ok. About three or four nights in a row, their room stank fairly hard. And with a window open and a fan going!

But as I write this, the smell seems to be gone for good. I hope those jokers at D.J.'s Hard Wood or whatever are done putting varnish coats on.

I swear, at some points, they would come by real quick at odd times in the day, like in the evening close to the kids' bedtime, paint but a section of the floorspace, and then bolt!, closing and locking the doors behind them, allowing the smell to brew really nicely down there, like a thousand girls doing their nails at once and they all spilled it all over the floor.

Oh, and when I'd go downstairs to practice guitar, the whole consarn basement would stink. And two of the windows down there don't open without a fight, but luckily the one in my studio opens without a hitch. I actually broke a pane of glass in the thing recently, and had to get it replaced. Cost me like $148.

D.J. said the whole project would take three days, and that the smell wouldn't be harmful to us up here. HOWEVER, like all large-scale housing projects put into the hands of small-time companies, and not to mention set in the historic location in a century-old house, it took longer than estimated. I should expect this by now.

BUT!-- The smell is gone. And that makes me much happier because it's cold and windy out today, like in the high 50s, and I want those consarn windows closed.

Here's a picture from today: