Dismantling

Strange weekend at home. My parents are moving from Virginia to Austin in a few weeks, and they have been busy packing up the house. As it happens we are moving that same day from our home in the village to the new place uptown. Originally we planned to pick up a U-Haul on Saturday in Virginia, load it up with the bed, rocking chair, wedding gifts, and books for the baby, and then drive it all back to New York on Sunday. I was nervous about timing, though, and traffic, and work. So we decided to pack up the truck and drive out late Saturday night.

As I sorted through all of the old stuff in my closet, I tried to move too quickly to feel sentimental. I let my eyes fall on old programs, tickets, letters, awards, cards, trophies, yearbooks, and threw most of it away. I saved the journals and the photos. I couldn't let myself think too hard about any of it.

Last night, after we had a great dinner with my parents and sister, we loaded the last of our stuff into the mighty U-Haul and pulled out. We left so quickly. "Don't think about what's happening right now," I said to L, and to myself. I tried to honk the horn jauntily as we pulled away into the night. That was my last time in that house, the last sight of my parents and sister waving from the driveway. Inside the house was a tangle of half-packed boxes and old objects on their way out of the house and our lives. Things had already changed.

It was a weird feeling driving through the cold night from Washington to New York. We left after nine and arrived around 2:30 in the morning. The highways were dark and vacant, no traffic anywhere. The U-Haul rattled mercilessly, cold air hanging around us in the cab as the engine wheezed below us. We listened to pop songs and NPR, kept our jackets on. As L closed her eyes in an attempt at sleep I sang along to the music just to make a sound. The string of headlights on the other side of the highway flattened into a broad smear before my tired eyes.

Driving through a cold night in a truck that isn't yours, carrying your old bed and the rocking chair from which your parents read to you as a child, from which you can still remember sitting in your dad's lap with his soothing arm around your shoulders, listening to the deep timbre of his voice and relaxing into the comfort and security of another night's sleep.

And now: we were hurrying towards a new room, a new dad, a new sleepy child. There was a reason we couldn't wait. Despite the late hour and the cold air and the thoughts kept at bay, it still felt, in its own pained way, like some kind of beginning.

Gratitude 2009

1. For my lovely wife and the clearly gifted child she is carrying

2. For friends, the ones who are seen regularly and the ones who swoop into orbit, comet-like, more rarely

3. For the family we're going home to this weekend

4. For parents who are gutsy enough to go west, looking to start fresh with the liberal politics and live music scene they so profoundly appreciate

5. For the few and hardy people at work who say "please" and "thank you," sometimes even in the context of discussing work assignments

6. For Chipotle

7. For the neighborhood where we've spent the last four years building a marriage and a new phase of our lives, anchored by the small daily relationships that somehow create such a deep sense of connection and community

8. For the three-bedroom manse waiting for us in Manhattanville, for the clean white walls and shiny hardwood floors and sky-filled windows that will soon house us and our tiny little new person

9. For the neighborhood to come, for Riverside Park and Morningside Heights and the new rituals we'll discover

10. For "Imma Be" and "Ring-a-Ling," two songs by the Black Eyed Peas that have really gotten under my skin

11. For the works of Robert A. Caro, whose massive biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson have made me think a lot about the relationship, tensions, and balance between happiness and ambition

12. For our health

13. For this moment in our lives, and recognizing the good fortune of a happy marriage, prenatal normalcy, gainful employment, and reasonably successful urban living

14. For maintaining a clear vision of how we want our lives to be

15. For the tenacity to make that vision happen

16. For yams

Some of these are thanks and some of these are prayers, but maybe that is a meaningless distinction. Happy Thanksgiving.

Changes

There were two significant things today amidst the usual daily cacophony.

First, L went to the doctor to check out the baby, our little man. And it turns out that baby...is a GIRL. It's a Girl! Not a Boy! This news left us both reeling. How did they miss this information? Are they using a sonogram or a dowsing rod? What year is this? It's very weird how you can spend a month imagining a very particular life for yourself with the utmost certainty that those ideas will be realized. For some reason the most vivid thing I could imagine was introducing my kid to other people, saying, "this is my son, X," as a shy toddler hid behind my legs. This was the vignette that gave life to otherwise abstract ideas of fatherhood, identity, and devotion. And now I am reworking those ideas, those scenarios, to wrap my mind around the idea of a daughter. It's surprising how quickly the track shifts. Worries about autism give way to questions about how girls pee. It seems as if life is now cast in a different yet more revealing light. From our little man to our sweet girl, the way it was before we even knew it. Our girl.

Second, today we were approved to sign a new lease on a three-bedroom apartment in Morningside Heights, right on the edge of Manhattanville. The apartment is on the top floor of a pre-war six-story elevator building. The rooms are large and flooded with light, with pleasantly warped hardwood floors and crisp white paint over the walls and moldings. The kitchen is large, although a little dated. L and I both realized that this was a good apartment as soon as we entered. The price was fantastic and it's right by the 125th stop on the 1 train, an easy 20 minutes from my office. It's farther north than we expected, and I worry about some of those ramifications, but now we've got it and we have a new home waiting for us. We'll be moving in around the middle of December.

So today has been a day of change. We knew these changes were coming, that this would be a season of transition. In a few weeks we will be taking our stuff and our lives and the new idea of our daughter to a new home, the place where she will enter this world and experience some love and solace and security. I feel very aware that we are entering a new stage in our lives. I can see how these last few years -- our years in the village, years of walking to the bookstore and the gym, years of idleness and books and wealth and thought -- are giving way to something else: possibly something more grounded, more tightly woven. Days of looking out over the roofs of Morningside Heights, wandering with our daughter through Riverside Park, singing her songs she can't understand yet. Teaching a new person empathy and kindness.

There is so much excitement to bear, but there are also fears and doubts. Change requires endings and beginnings, and I've never been able to face an ending without some measure of doubt and nostalgia for the places left behind. Today seemed like a a prophecy, and it left us exhausted.

Luxury, thy name is Trump

L and I had a very enjoyable long weekend at the Trump International in Miami. From the moment I opened the trunk of the cab at the Miami Airport, only to discover a tidy pair of men's briefs lying there, I knew this would be a special weekend. And it did not disappoint.

We never left the Trump compound. We hovered near the pool, splashing under its waterfalls and looking out to the ocean just beyond the deck. We ate at the Trump restaurants, unless we ordered room service, or unless I had a pina colada for my meal. I read a Richard Yates novel, "Young Hearts Crying," which was beautiful and inspiring. I read the Atlantic and the New Yorker. I kept my phone off for hours at a time. It was wonderful.


Take a look, then, at this photo, because it captures most of it. See the pink sky rolling slowly from the horizon. See the lifeguard cabana keeping vigil down by the sand. See the tips of the palm trees. See the bowl of tortilla chips. See the LBJ biography I'm starting to read. And see a pina colada, soaked in rum even up through the straw, decked out with a cherry and a thick wedge of pineapple. It was a delicious cherry.

"Key be to lock"

Last night at hip hop we were doing some hard, intricate stuff, to some new song built around that old Digable Planets couplet, "We be to rap what key be to lock." There were a lot of regulars there and there was a great energy in the room -- the air felt hot, electric. Some of our teacher's cool hip hop friends came in and joined the group, and that amped things up too. I saw them and I thought, hey I can do that. By the end of the night I was sweaty and my knees hurt from jumping and coming down just so, but it was fantastic. On my way out one of the teacher's friends stopped me to give me five (or do that urban handshake thing, you know) and was complimenting me and saying I was the one to watch. He turned to my teacher and then she said, "Oh, him? That's my man, I love him," all matter-of-factly, like it was as obvious as anything. "He goes in."

Tomorrow L and I are going to Miami for three days of sun-splashed leisure. It is a rare vacation in which none of our relatives are participating (except Little Man, of course). We're staying at a fabulous Donald Trump resort property just a little bit north of Miami, with a beach and several pools and plenty of restaurants. I don't know if we'll ever venture out of Mr. Trump's comforting, opulent arms to actually check out the city, but I think some beach-side R&R will be enough. We will read books, L will get tan, I will get tipsy. And I love the fact that we're staying at the Trump International. If there's not a solid gold bidet in our room, the concierge is going to hear about it.

New Yorker Festival 2009

This weekend was one of my favorite events on the snooty Manhattan liberal calendar: the New Yorker Festival! It's that one weekend where you can turn your solitary magazine habit into a smug social gathering of your socioeconomic and demographic peers: it's just you and a bunch of young people in black plastic glasses and old people in socks and sandals, sipping on wine and laughing at Sarah Palin. This year we went to two events: the political roundtable and a lecture by Atul Gawande.

First, we went to the political discussion featuring Hendrik Hertzberg, Ryan Lizza, Jane Mayer, and moderator Dorothy Wickenden, down at City Winery. When we were there, we ran into an old friend of mine I hadn't seen since a New Yorker Festival event in 2007. The political conversation was interesting although a little predictable. Some woman asked a question about Afghanistan and she spoke in such a halting, gasping way that it sounded like she was about to cry. Another old lady in a funny hat asked a weird, non-political question that had nothing to do with anything. I wanted to ask about how the Republican party can pull itself together, but I didn't. At the end we saw Tate Donovan, which was exciting, and I got Hendrik Hertzberg to autograph my copy of his book, which made me feel like a huge nerd. I felt like such a chump lugging his book around beforehand. But he seems like a very sharp, intelligent, good-humored guy, and I wished I had more to say besides the usual praise and platitudes.

Today we went to a lecture by Atul Gawande on similarities between the construction of skyscrapers and the practice of medicine -- focusing on the use of checklists to bring different disciplines together instead of relying on one master builder or physician. It was interesting, but I felt like I had already read the article that was the basis of his discussion, and also, I found it a little bit boring. But that was more my problem.

It's a boy

As L said, the little one is a boy. We went to an anatomy scan on Thursday, and our technician assured us it was a male. She showed us his junk on the sonogram, and if she thinks it's a boy based on that, then I will take her word for it. The doctor came in and agreed, so there you have it: our little man.

Now that we can get a little more specific in our planning and in our imagining, my thoughts have immediately turned to what we will name this child. Obviously, the top three possible names are: (1) MKD Jr., (2) Barack, and (3) Justin Timberlake. This list may evolve as the months roll on, but I doubt it.

After our appointment on Thursday we walked through Central Park to get back to the west side. We celebrated with some hot dogs and an ice cream from a street vendor. We ate on a bench and thought about the future. There were some Little League teams practicing in the fields as we walked by, little uncoordinated boys in uniforms and oversized caps, stumbling around and and hollering and missing catches. Then yesterday we saw a father playing with his sons in the Park, batting them easy grounders and laughing good-naturedly as they threw the ball towards each other, waving their tiny mitts in the air. I saw all of that and I thought, I can't wait to do this.

Robert Frank's "The Americans"

We saw the Robert Frank photography exhibit at the Met today. In the mid-1950s, with a Guggenheim fellowship in his pocket, he drove all around the country taking pictures of the people and places he encountered. He picked through his contact sheets, selected 80-some images and carefully organized them into a book that became a lightning rod of political and artistic criticism. He was a deft photographer who arranged his images carefully, so that each one bore some relation to the images that came before and after. He discovered and chronicled a nation of highways, jukeboxes, sharply-dressed men and elegant women, lonely shoe-shiners or elevator girls, crowded trolley cars, bustling dinettes, couples in love, wary bikers and transvestites, cads and children, bars and funerals.



I bought the reprint of "The Americans," complete with a breathlessly verbose introduction by Jack Kerouac. It's no comparison to seeing the prints inflated on a museum wall, but it packs a punch. There is a lot to admire in this work, not least of which is Frank's own ambition. Who embarks on a road trip with the intent of capturing the national character of a sprawling place like this? Does anyone even try to do that anymore? Sometimes I stumble on a novel or a movie or a portfolio like this, the effort of someone who has tried and attained some degree of success in the endeavor, and every time it happens I realize that this is my favorite kind of art.

Stella on Sunday

One of the most decadent ways to spend a Sunday afternoon must be sitting outside at a bar drinking a beer while you read for pleasure. Who gets to do that? Rich people? Although I felt sort of guilty taking up valuable table space with my used UK copy of "Rabbit is Rich" (which included a French train ticket stub from 1991 tucked between its yellowing pages), that did not stop me from enjoying a Stella or two while L sipped on tea and read her book across from me. Walking inside to use the restroom, I saw other readers enjoying their books and newspapers at the bar, and people lounging at tables snacking on french fries and bar food and sipping on drinks. It felt like a conspiracy of leisure: the lazy afternoon sunlight filtering through the warren of rooms, voices raised in slow-paced laughter and conversation, all of us sharing in the seemingly illicit pleasure of entering a night space and claiming it for the beautiful, unhurried day.

Exciting news

Here's some exciting news: L is pregnant. We are in the family way.

It's such a tremendous thing, and we've known for a while now, but I am still trying to grasp it all the way around. Nothing will ever be the same, that's for sure. L is due on March 27, which happens to be her mom's birthday, and we are now in the second trimester, on the brink of week 15. Each Saturday we get a fun email explaining what the little one is doing ("your baby is now yawning, winking, and cracking its knuckles...") and offering a new estimate of approximate size ("...and is the size of a beet"). Anticipation of these emails is the force that gets me out of bed on Saturdays.

I have been conspicuously quiet on this blog for the last several weeks, and this beautiful new fact is a main reason behind it. Thinking about this baby and our new lives has been such a source of joy, of refuge, for me these last few months, no matter what other storms we are weathering. Realizing that I'm going to be a father soon, just on the other side of this coming winter, has inspired in me surprising feelings of cool confidence and serenity. I was afraid this would magnify my stress in other aspects of my life, but instead it has acted as a counterweight, reminding me of what is important and urging me towards the knowledge that I need to get my life together by the time this kid arrives. To make the nest. I am excited to enter a season of change, of preparation.

L and I spend a lot of time musing about the kid and who he or she will be. I think a lot about how amazing my parents are and have been, and how I can support this kid and love him or her and be a guide and a protector. What if this kid is dumb as a brick, and an extremely good athlete? What if it hates reading? I won't know what to do with that. What if the kid has eyebrows like Bert on Sesame Street? This is a real possibility, genetics-wise. Let's be honest here.

I have a million things to say about all this. My beautiful wife is looking lovely and voluptuous, with that baby curve already announcing itself. We are batting names back and forth and musing about how we'll be as parents. L will be patient and kind, and will expertly know how to deal with a child, while I will make be making fun of the kid for my own amusement like the dad in "Calvin and Hobbes."

I really love this sonogram of the little one. Those are his or her legs flailing outward, floating in its little nest while we are outside surrounding it with love. I am so glad this adventure is with L and me. No matter what else is happening, these are such bright days for us. There is a world in every minute.

Redskins

One of my goals for the fall is to follow the Redskins and pay attention, as a true son of Northern Virginia should. Football is a sport I actually don't suck too badly at, but I usually don't follow the sport very closely because (a) I don't spend a lot of time watching sports on TV and (b) I'm not entirely sure that I totally understand the rules 100%. Sometimes I ask L stupid questions like, "what exactly is an offensive line?" or "remind me again how downs work," and she starts to explain it, and then I get mad because I knew it all along and then I look like an idiot.

The big difference this year, though, is that some of my colleagues at work are actually somewhat aggressive in their sports talk, and they expect me to represent for the Skins. Every Monday one of them will come lumbering into my office, where I'm very intently trying to do some work or read the internet, and launch some open-ended ambiguous question like: "So, how about your boys?" or "So what do you have to say for your Skins after yesterday?" and wait for me to respond. And I can't just flee the scene, because it's my office. There's not a lot of wiggle room there.

After two weeks of trying to follow along, I've been pleased with my progress. I like the Washington Post's sports coverage way more than the New York Times' (in large part because NY teams are almost uniformly vile) and so I usually read their sports columnists, which gives me most everything I need to know. And football gives you some great narratives, spread over a reasonable period of time, with only a small number of games to dissect and analyze. Right now I know enough to worry about said offensive line, to wonder if Jason Campbell will ever throw a touchdown pass, to grow impatient waiting for Zorn's west coast offense to pan out, to hate and scorn Danny Snyder for suing little-old-lady season ticket holders, and to be relieved and anguished by last Sunday's pathetic dribbling victory over the Rams.

I have an autumn fantasy where L and I spend some chilly Sunday afternoon ensconced in some bar, getting pleasantly drunk and watching the game and clinking glasses with garrulous Washingtonians and singing "Hail to the Redskins," verse and all, after a victory. The Redskins are a really big deal back home and it makes me feel good to root for them. The brash colors, the racist name, the legacy of greatness tarnished by a decade or so of mediocrity - it's all a part of it, of us. Fight on, sons of Washington.

Nights

Hello, my dusty old blog. I am trying to remember how to write again. Bear with me.

The weather has been changing, a shift is taking place. The night air comes in and we sleep cool under all the blankets. Saturday morning was a grubby, gray day, gusty winds and half-hearted rain. It was the first day in a while that I've worn my jeans and sneaks for the day. We went to the farmers market, loading up on the last of summer vegetables and welcoming a new array of pumpkins and squashes. We read for a while at home (I'm plowing through Richard Bausch's stories - what a master he is) and then ventured out for a movie. We saw "Julie and Julia," which, honestly, was not that good. I had a weird altercation with the man sitting in our aisle, which was actually the fault of a miscommunication between L and me, which left me feeling like a jerk.

After the movie we wandered over to The New French on Hudson Street for a late dinner. There is really nothing I like more than sitting across a table from L, seeing her in night-time sepia: a little candle light, the street lights shining through the dark slatted blinds. We talked about everything, ate some white pizza and home-made sausage. I felt so lucky. I had three glasses of wine and a bowl of mussels. Our hipster waiter was friendly. We ate dessert. It was wonderful. We came home around midnight and I had dance hour for a little bit, singing low songs like "Can't Help But Wait" and "Officially Missing You" and "Do You Remember When" - songs that really let me dig deep.

Then I got an email from work saying they needed my help on Sunday, and when could I come in. I deflated.

Today we had lunch with John and Anna and young Naomi. I left to head into the office to tackle my work. Radio City was decked out for the MTV Video Music Awards. The building was ensconced in rigging, lights and cranes and cameras. People were already gathering behind police barricades, armed with their cameras and craning their necks to see across the way. Throughout the afternoon and evening I could hear the roar of the crowd from my office. Sometimes their sound would become strange and urgent, rising to a new pitch, provoked by some unseen stimulus. For a while I could hear Taylor Swift singing "You Belong With Me," a great song with some really endearing lyrics. Her voice sounded warped and rounded by the time it reached me in my perch, like she was singing underwater. The crowd seemed broken by ecstasy.

One of my first years in New York, I remember watching the VMAs with friends in someone's apartment -- friends I have mostly lost track of, most of whose names are long gone -- and afterwards, around midnight, we all went to a secret Justin Timberlake concert at Roseland Ballroom. I don't know how we had tickets, and I didn't find out about the concert and I found out we were going. That afternoon I bought a cool new shirt at some vintage store near my apartment at the time, a shirt I wore exactly once, for the concert, and never wore again. After the VMAs ended on TV we left the apartment and headed down to the show. After waiting in line outside, we were packed in the room, and finally around one or two in the morning the concert began. I was stunned by the celebrities who were there, like Cameron Diaz and Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, who seemed important in some way, and John Mayer and Pharrell up on stage. It was a night that seemed to justify everything.

Before the concert we had to relinquish all of our cameras, so the disposable camera I had brought, which was full of pictures from a friend's recent wedding, disappeared with the security guards. After the show I was shocked to find out we couldn't recover our cameras, and soon I was poking through garbage bags in a useless effort to find it. It's funny to think about, and kind of embarrassing. How young and foolish you can be, stumbling into secret concerts and then pawing through the trash, trying to find pictures you could barely remember taking, pictures that are of course long gone now.

It's a happy memory, don't get me wrong. It's just funny to think about.

Three years

You know what always makes me think of my wife? That line from Beyonce's song "Upgrade U" where she says, "It's very seldom that you're blessed to find your equal." Indeed. But I definitely lucked out with L.

Happy anniversary, love.

Inside the fortress of solitude

I haven't said very much this weekend. L went down to Florida to see her grandma, so I've been on my own since yesterday afternoon. I have taken this time to briefly withdraw -- from the world, into myself. I feel like I needed time to regroup. Today I only left the house to go to the farmers market, and then again to eat lunch and read "The Power Broker," and finally I went on a walk around the block a couple of hours ago. I have spent a lot of time reading and watching television. I watched "Sophie's Choice" and "The Contender." I thought a lot about writing, which I've put on the backburner after a couple of daunting weeks at work. I've been listening to a lot of music, too, and when John Mayer's song "Home Life" came on, I felt that strange feeling of nostalgia that music can provoke. It is almost palpable, like drunkenness, like feeling something rolling over your shoulders and consuming you. Hearing that song made me think of how much my life has changed in three years, made me think about how I live and what I have now. It was one of those nights where I was just shuffling through all the music on my ipod, rediscovering old stuff and cobbling together a strange and rich medley of stuff, enough to put me in a reflective mood.

Throughout the day I wondered if I should call somebody up or try to meet anyone for a meal or a drink, but I decided not to. Not to mention that the list of potential invitees now seems pathetically small. It was a beautiful day and I felt bad for not running or spending more time outside, but it was enough to run my errands and feel the breeze coming inside, through the plants and the herb garden perched on the fire escape. I didn't even shower today. But that was my choice, and I figure tomorrow when L comes back I can get all spruced up and be sociable. Today it felt good to dig in.

Also, last night I went to an intermediate hip hop class and really got my ass handed to me. It was pretty tough, intricate stuff and I realized I was out of my league about twenty minutes in. There were only a handful of us in there. Two of the other people had clothing with dance studios' names on them, which was a bad sign. Somebody else was some high school prodigy who had learned choreography from our teacher's DVDs. And there I was in my running t-shirt and sneaks, knowing this may have been a mistake. The teacher, who is a pretty accomplished dude, taught really quickly and didn't break things into eight counts. Instead everything tracked the lyrics of the song, so it was tough to place it within the music. Once I realized that he was really hitting the bass notes, things made more sense. By the end of the class I was about 70% there, I would say. It was fun but also very trying. He was calling me out at times during the class, telling me to not think too much and get stuck in my head. There were moments when I would feel those first hot pangs of stress and panic and embarrassment, and I tried to push it as far away as I could. Beneath the immediate knowledge that you alone are very conspicuously not doing something correctly is a deeper and more gnawing realization that you are not as good as you think you are, Mr. Hot Stuff. It was not fun in those moments. And frankly, if I want to feel bad about myself and get yelled at, I just show up at work. No need to extend that into my...hip hop life, as it were.

Maybe that class is what set me on this course for the last twenty-four hours. Quietness, minimal talking, books and the tv, a few strangled verses of old nostalgic songs. Yet for one day it's enough.

Telling my parents

My parents were in town this past weekend, and we got to tell them the great news. After two really long, stressful weeks at work, I was so excited to see them and tell them. The idea of that moment kept pulling me through.

My parents and L were waiting for me at their hotel on Washington Square. We spent a few minutes visiting and checking out the room, and then we started meandering through the park on our way to dinner. We were going over to Stand for some burgers. It was turning into a very nice evening -- the heat had broken, the sky was a watery bluish pink, and people were strolling all around. We pointed out some of the renovations made to Washington Square lately, the wide boulevards and colorful flower beds and wrought iron fences and lightposts. We were just talking about work stuff, nothing major, just visiting with each other. We were over by the south side of the fountain, watching the jets shooting up, standing in a little circle. I had made eye contact with L and she gave me the go-ahead.

"Guess what?" I said. My parents looked at me expectantly. I looked at my mom and then at my dad as I said, "Lillian's pregnant!"

There was a real moment of silence then, as what I was saying settled in with them. Then it was all hugs and good cheer. L said later that she saw my dad tear up as soon as I said it, but there was a real moment of astonishment there. They were so excited. "Oh, this is so special!" Dad said. "How could you not tell me?!" Mom said. It was such an exciting thing. Mom said later she thought that maybe we were getting a dog. She started crying a little bit out of happiness, and told us how much we would love our child. She said Kelsey's and my cheeks used to turn red because she would just kiss us so much. "You will not believe how much you love that child, you will kill for your child, you will kill for your child," Mom said in a way that was funny and only a little weird.

I'm smiling even now as I write this. Dad said we must have planned this, to tell them this news in such a perfect setting -- in the middle of Washington Square under a clear pink sky on a great July evening -- but we really didn't. Telling them cast the rest of the weekend in this great glow of love and excitement. My parents said they would be talking about this for a long time that night. Mom insisted on calling her friend Jill to share the news immediately ("I'm going to be a grandmother!"). It was so wonderful to feel such love and support from them. I had this strange fear that they wouldn't be excited -- that they would think it was too soon, or that we were too young or not established enough or too indebted or something -- and even though I knew those fears weren't rational, it was nice to have them dashed anyway.

Telling my parents was different from telling friends. Like marriage, having a baby is a significant event in the life of an entire family, not just the immediate participants. It was nice to add another circle of love around the little one.

Collect $200

Every week we are getting emails from Babycenter.com that talk about the baby's development, its size, and other issues that will pop up. Every week there is some tidbit about how wives can get their stupid, lazy husbands involved. These are tips for women married to comically inept men, and the suggestions are all hilariously inane in their own right. "Invite your husband to come to the doctor's appoint with you." "See if your husband would like to think of some questions that he'd like to ask." Who are these people? The other fun thing is this "Quote of the Week" feature, which highlights some twitterish lines from some random pregnant woman somewhere on the internet. They tend to be depressing. "What's happening to me? I feel sick all the time. It's like my scalp is on fire" -- Jenny, from Buttock, Iowa.

The really exciting thing, though, is that by the time you figure out you're pregnant, it's already week 4. (True, pregnancy is something like an 80-week process, but it's nice to not start all the way at square one.) It feels really good to dive in with a few weeks under your belt, like in Monopoly when you collect $200 just for passing Go. We're really moving now.

Currently, at the six week mark, Little Blabe is about a quarter of an inch in size. This is a real measurable quantity! No longer comparing the baby to seeds! L.B. also has dark spots on its head that will turn into eyes, which seems weird, and its heart is beating furiously quick - something like 100-160 beats per minute. Our little lentil bean.

Day one/Dandelion

I came home tonight after another long, rainy day at work. I was chatting with L as I stripped out of my dress pants and shirt, putting on shorts and a t-shirt. I was telling her about my day at work, a day of minor victories and defeats, long waiting hours. I asked her about her day, if she was feeling better from the fever and headache that kept her home. She was feeling better, and in bright spirits, except for a dull headache. The apartment was clean and she looked sweet and pretty, wearing a light blue t-shirt and a summer skirt. L said, "I'm pregnant!"

I started laughing. I was happy but also just amused by the whole thing. We've been trying for a mere three weeks, and you're pregnant already? And, after telling me that a wife's announcement to her husband is like her own version of a proposal, and thus can be done with any degree of creativity and romance, this is how you tell me? These two thoughts were running in parallel through my head. Just this afternoon I was worrying about if it would take a long time, if it would be stressful if it would even be possible. And now this?

I felt so, so happy. Just a big grin on my face. I felt a new wave of energy and we talked about how incredulous we felt. She had already taken two pregnancy tests, as well as made a call to the doctor and done a bunch of research online. It looks like we're in week 4 of the pregnancy. The baby is but a mere bundle of cells. I am happy that we are aware of the kid now; that while it's still forming and developing, something out of nothing, there are already people in the world who love it. We love you.

I still can't believe this is happening. We read about how 20-30% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and I hope our little babe makes it through. I spent a lot of time tonight kissing on my wife's belly, telling our new kid that I loved him or her. L will be such a beautiful mother. She is already. Of course I told her, half-facetiously, how they say you're not really a father until you see the baby -- but I am enraptured nonetheless.

I wandered to Chipotle to pick up some dinner in a happy cloud. I listened to Musiq's "So Beautiful," which seemed appropriate. We ate dinner, watched television. I called James to tell him this unbelievable, wonderful news. It was so good to tell him. He was impressed, as was I, with my ability to get this job done quickly. We had a good laugh over that -- I told him how I figured I should be able to do it, since even my limited knowledge of my genetic background tells me that indeed, those kids were able to do the trick. I feel proud of myself in a dumb, masculine way, but still proud. I am so happy L and I were able to interlock ourselves in this way.

Tonight I keep thinking of the blossom on a dandelion. Our little guy (or girl) is but a mere puff of cells right now, something small and beautiful and perfect and loved. So delicate, yet strong, the miracle of life itself. Please don't scatter, dandelion -- remain and grow and come to us. We are in love with you already.

Such awe and gratitude tonight. And laughter -- incredulous, genuine laughter.

State Update: Bethlehem, PA

L and I have spent the last two Saturday mornings taking a bus from Port Authority to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in order to go visit James. Bethlehem is the kind of snug little town where one might move in order to participate in the Witness Protection Program; James is there, however, for grad school classes at Lehigh, so the only logical thing to do was head over to Bethlehem to check it out.

It seems like the history of that town is symbolized by the great steel mills hunched over the river. They used to be the engine of the town's economy and culture, yet they now rest empty and disintegrating. Walking through the south side of town last week, we were struck by the vacant parking lots and the eerily quiet sidewalks; it seemed like the town had been built for people who were no longer there. All of the mills shared the same rusty color, the same uniform degree of decay. A few broken windows, a few tall weeds.

But if that's the past of this once-proud city, what, pray tell, it its future? The Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, baby! That bus we took from Port Authority brought us to the door of the casino. To reward us for riding the bus, casino personnel clambered aboard as soon as we pulled up and distributed plastic cards pre-loaded with $30 for use at the machines, a little gift card to encourage your gambling and ever so gently nudge you towards the slots. The casino itself appears to have been built in the husk of an old steel facility. The great central room is bright and vibrant and orange; there is an audible hum coming from the scores of computerized slot machines speckled across the floor, a single golden high note ringing constantly. It sounds like angels, it sounds like money, it sounds like action. To me this strange constant note was the most memorable part of all of it.

If only the patrons of this golden orange palace could match their surroundings. Most people we saw were at least two of the following: old, overweight, pushing walkers, and/or smoking constantly. It was somewhat grim.


When we arrived today we fled the casino immediately to experience the Blueberry Festival in town. This was delightful. We went to a petting zoo, but didn't touch any animals (including goats, sheep, pigs, and a calf, and a number of mangy birds). We ate barbecue. We walked through grassy lawns looking at crafts booths, like hand-woven baskets and homemade baby clothes and ipod cozies. We ate blueberry funnel cake. We saw a horse-powered carousel. We watched a pie-eating contest. We went on a tour of the plantation where the festival was held, and learned all about the Moravians, who, to my disappointment, were not an alien race who colonized parts of Pennsylvania and then interbred with the locals, but rather a group of Protestants who seem perfectly nice and reasonable.


We returned to the casino for a few rounds of gambling with our free $30, as well as dinner at Emeril's Chop House, the fancy Emeril Lagasse restaurant that is his only establishment in the entire northeast. We had a lovely time, although the restaurant seemed surprisingly sophisticated for being nestled in the desperate, smoky heart of a casino. We felt awkward in casual clothes and flip flops, and I was clenching my feet as we walked to minimize that thwacking sound, and holding my head high with the knowledge that I was indeed wearing my finest cargo shorts.

On the way back tonight I just listened to music and watched the darkened countryside slowly assemble itself into the city skyline. It was good to leave the city, even better to spend a few hours with James. Not bad for a Saturday.


P.S. This last picture was from last Saturday, thus the different clothes and the longer hair on me. Do you know how much that beautiful pitcher of beer cost? Maybe four bucks. I'm telling you, it's a great town.

Michael Jackson

I always felt a connection with MJ. As a kid, I found the fact that he had the same name as me confusing, but vaguely positive. Whenever my parents played "Beat It," I would start dancing furiously in a move that came to be known as the "Boot-head Shuffle." Even now, when I hear those first few strains of the song -- those guitar chords pulsing relentlessly, the drum kicking in -- I still feel the ghostly echoes of whatever that old feeling was. Whatever the feeling is that makes a three year old plaster on a scowl and then dance like his ass is on fire for the next four minutes. When I heard "Beat It," I didn't even know the force that was driving me, but lord knows that same thing still pushes me forward every day. I must have heard "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" around that time -- I remember thinking how cool it was that Michael Jackson had a tiger on his album cover -- but nothing shook me up like "Beat It."

Only later did I go backwards to his earlier work -- the disco perfection of "Rock With You," "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough." (Hell, only a couple months ago did I hear "P.Y.T." and think to myself, wow, this song is great.) The kid who did those songs, the kid dancing with his big smile in a '70s spacesuit amid the green laser lights, is the one we've all been mourning. He seems so fresh and talented and new, even now, even knowing everything we do. As an obnoxious seventh grader I wrote a paper about MJ and how weird he was, and why that might be. His decline was such a horrible spectacle. Our shameless pleasure in watching him destroy himself was only tempered by the knowledge that real kids actually seemed to be getting hurt. Had he died tragically in, say, 1992, can you imagine the sterling legacy he would have left? Nothing worse than a few weird habits, a chimp, strange but harmless.

But then again, if he departed in 1992 we might not have had "Remember the Time," and that was my song. Also his later stuff -- "Break of Dawn" and "Butterflies" breathed some life into his music on the contemporary R&B charts.

He was a tragic figure, but there was a time, a time of "Off the Wall" and "Thriller" and the Boot-head Shuffle, when he seemed to capture everything that was great about music and let everybody else experience it, too. He was the genesis. At hip hop on Wednesday night we did "Thriller" as a tribute, and coming up this week is "Remember the Time," but our teacher took a few minutes to talk about her own experience of MJ -- the fact that she had auditioned for his last volley of shows in London, that the energy in the audition room was palpable and unlike anything she had seen before, that the people dancing there were giving everything they had, sweating through their shoes, even though Michael wasn't even in the room until the final round, when he was merely a soft presence in the back row of an auditorium. She said she was telling us about that experience because it didn't solely belong to her, but it belonged to all of us, to everyone, and that we should share it too, because it carries on. And so it does.

Witness

Last night I woke with a start, opening my eyes to a pitch-dark bedroom. Outside there was a strange murmur of voices, and I knew something was wrong. It was too late for people to be outside. I lay in bed and turned towards the windows in the far room, listening to the litany of voices churning outside. It didn't make sense.

Then a woman screaming: "GET THE FUCK OFF ME! AAIIEEEEE! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING! HELP ME!"

I cowered in bed for a second, ashamed and afraid. My heart was pounding.

"GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME! AAAIIEEEEEEE!"

I thought about calling 911. I thought about Kitty Genovese. I thought about the previous time I called 911, when my phone locked itself in 'emergency phone' and the police called me back a few minutes later with questions I struggled to answer. The woman screamed again. I leapt out of bed and ran to the window, grabbing my glasses and my cellphone. Angled against the glass, I could see several police cars parked askew in front of our building. Their lights and sirens were off, making the cars look oddly demure. The police were standing around, and the person screaming was strapped to a gurney that they were loading into an ambulance. Her cries softened, and then stopped.

L was awake at this point too. Across the street I could see a few more lit windows separating themselves from the uniform darkness of night. I came back to bed, noticing that it was 4:30 in the morning.

I lay in bed for a while, waiting for my heart to slow down. James and I used to talk about the worst things about living in the city, and for me it was always this: there is no insulation, no protection from ugliness of so many kinds. Since I've lived here I've heard screams of abject fear. I've called 911 to help someone who was being attacked. I've seen people doing drugs on the street in front of me. I've seen people whose lives seem so irrevocably broken.

Last night was one of those nights when the city seems like a place of chaos and fear. There is no luxury of ignorance here. Eventually I fell back asleep, and woke up again to another new morning, no police cars in sight. How this place can turn on you.