In which the fun begins.

OK, so the baby is six weeks old and I haven't posted at all during that time, but it's not for lack of material, obviously. Just lack of time. And privacy. And time.

It seems that I should make some weighty post about the birth of our son, but I find myself coming up short. For one thing, I find that there is this tendency to behave as if one is the only person on earth to have ever reproduced -- that one's own childbirth experience is so unique and so singular that it must be related to anyone who will listen for their own edification and awe.

When in fact there is a childbirth story for every single human being on earth, neither more nor less unique than mine. So... we had a baby. I was crying myself when he came out. A really large baby -- at 9 lbs. 9.5 ozs, my wife had a person who weighed almost 9% of her pre-pregnancy weight come out of her. We stayed in the hospital for a few days because she had a c-section. What a sad commentary on the state of American society that we were sort of glad for the c-section because it meant an extra two weeks of paid maternity leave.

The grandparents and other well-wishers paraded through. I became a champion baby-quieter. The diaper thing is not really such a big deal -- the thought of regularly working with someone else's feces was one of my qualms about daddyhood, but -- at least for a breastfed baby -- it's nothing, really. Now when he's two and eating solid foods, it might be a different story.

There is an ocean of conflicting advice on baby care. Keep him on a schedule. Don't keep him on a schedule. Swaddle and comfort him. Let him cry it out. We're still feeling our way through on that.

The sleep deprivation is an issue. He has been a largely nocturnal creature, preferring to sleep all day and stay awake (noisely) all night. That slowly seems to be changing, but Cynthia, especially, is exhausted. I went back to work after two weeks and so ever since then she has been handling the midnight-to-six duties during the week (I still jump in on the weekends). We have different attitudes towards his constant crying; if he is fed and changed, I regard his crying like the sound of the ocean, something that it's useless to rail against, but it has an actual physical effect on Cynthia and she's unable to bear it for very long. But slowly, slowly, we're figuring out the difference between crying that should be attended to and crying that should be ignored.

"Colic," I've decided, is a term for a complex constellation of symptoms centered around the absolute physical and mental destruction of a baby's parents. The baby himself seems none the worse for wear after straining and screaming and crying all night. We, however, are wrecks.

I have not engaged in any meaningful exercise since the day he was born. The morning before we went to the hospital I took a nice long run, knowing it might be my last one for awhile. The combination of baby and cold weather (because, let's be honest, my morning run has been exceptionally sporadic during the below-freezing months for the past three winters) has shut down that enterprise almost entirely. Now, my workout consists of hoisting an increasingly heavy baby in my arms many times a day.

Cynthia's mother cam for two weeks after New Year's Day. Wei-Po (the Chinese term for one's maternal grandmother) adores her grandson; we started referring to him as xiao wang-zi, the little prince, based on his grandmother's worship of him. We were very glad for her help. And the delicious Chinese food she cooked every night. So in addition to not exercising, I was consuming massive amounts of home-made noro mein and other great dishes for two weeks. Wei-Po and I would meet in the kitchen and compare notes on cooking. I showed her how to make guacamole (which she could not pronounce). She showed me how to make a stir-fry with pork, bamboo shoots, and pickles (!). The name of which I cannot pronounce. Her mother's great regret was that her breastfeeding daughter did not want to eat too much spicy food, for the baby's sake. Wei-Po is from Sichuan where the food comes in two temperatures -- so spicy it burns your lips (la), and so spicy your face goes numb (ma la).

(I think I am Cynthia's parents' favorite Chinese daughter-in-law, despite being neither Chinese nor a daughter-in-law, because I cook, work 9-to-5, and gave them a grandson. Their actual Chinese daughter-in-law is brilliant, charming, and very successful, with a better education than me, twice my income (at least) and a beautiful eight-year-old daughter. But she works a lot of hours and doesn't like cooking, cleaning, dogs, or spicy food. Who knew that my relative lack of ambition or material success could actually ingratiate me with my in-laws?)

When Wei-Po went home I felt like I should pat her down at at the airport, and search her luggage, to make sure she hadn't smuggled Axl out of the house to take home with her.

My parents are also doting... at a distance. We took Axl to their house on Christmas Eve so he could be passed from relative to relative. My mother could not leave her dogs to spend two weeks with any of her children under any circumstances. And while she would be glad to babysit Axl for a day or two, there would be no request to leave him for a week, like Cynthia's mom wanted. (What Cynthia's dad wanted is, I think, utterly irrelevant to her calculations). My mother is trying to find someone with a pony so Axl can learn to ride. I suggested that he learn to walk first. Or at least hold his own head upright.

Will he be gay? Or a personal trainer? Or both? This week his favorite activity -- besides eating -- is lying on his back in his "baby gym" and looking at himself in the mirror.

That's enough baby stuff for now.

In which the excitement builds.

Depending on which medical professional one believes, Cynthia was due either today or two days ago.  Either way, the baby is a bit tardy.  Clearly this comes from his WASP heritage, not his Asian half.  The doctor has determined that if Axl doesn't join us by tomorrow evening, he'll induce labor and the baby will be born on Saturday.  It's good to have a known date, frankly.  Not only for trivial reasons -- notifying anxious relatives, planning work outages, etc. -- but for broader psychological reasons. One way or another, in 48 hours I will be holding my son.  I find that easier to deal with than the uncertainty.

And then... and then... ???  So it's not like I'm completely out of the uncertainty business.

Cynthia, for her part, seems to swing from one mood to another.  Sometimes she says she is filled with "dread" and that she's never really contemplated anything this permanent in her life before.  I point out that I am permanent, too, and she dismisses that airily -- "you're easy."  But then a moment later she says that having an only child somehow seems unnatural, and that we will be having a second one in fairly short order.  I tell her, one at a time.  Let's see how we do with the starter kid.

Tonight we picked up some tilapia and broccoli on the way home from work and I made a a dinner designed to eliminate a lot of odds and ends laying about the kitchen:  broiled tilapia with a lemon-dill marinade (using up a lemon and some dill leftover from the Turkish lamb I made Monday), and rice with garlic, shallots, and chicken stock (leftover from the Hainan jifan from a few weeks ago), and steamed broccoli.  Based on what I hear from my friends with kids, every part of this evening will disappear after Saturday -- coming home when I was finished working, instead of at a fixed time; relaxing with a book and some music for awhile; then spending an hour in the kitchen to make a meal involving ad hoc combinations of food; and eating at 8ish.

That's too bad, because it is an excellent way to spend a Thursday night.  It's the reason why there's dust on our TV remote and -- at the risk of TMI -- the reason why Cynthia and I have a very active and satisfying emotional AND physical relationship (even though actual intercourse became physically... improbable as of about a week ago).  How do we avoid letting our relationship with the child define our relationship with one another?  We have carved out a beautiful space for the two of us, and it was so satisfying and loving that we felt we wanted to share it with a third person, and so we made him... and while I know that he will help reshape it to accommodate a trio, I can't help but feel a little mourning for the loss of this place where we are right now.

Maybe one day, 30 years from now, when Axl is about to have his own child, I'll find the remains of this blog somewhere and share this with him, and I will have something to add to this -- some coda about the exchange of our cozy space for someplace a little brighter, a little louder, a little more frazzled.

In which I enjoy the calm before the storm.

Cynthia's due date is in one week. These things are, of course, approximations. We have only a general idea of when she actually conceived, and even if we knew precisely, the timing can still be off. Our doctor is in Australia until Sunday, so we are hoping the child delays his appearance until after that time.

For the past few weeks Cynthia and I have been acutely aware of the finality of many things. Spur-of-the-moment outings. Leisurely lounging in bed on a Saturday morning. Trips to hipster bars and 9 p.m. reservations at restaurants that would not even consider having a "kids' menu." Cynthia's advanced state of ripening makes some of those activities difficult even now, of course, but we are gamely out there trying out best to enjoy the end of our twosomehood. At the same time there is not much left out there to be experienced. Coming to parenthood after age 35, we have left few stones unturned. For the most part, everything we wanted to do, we've done (especially in Cynthia's case), or else it's too late to go back and do it (more in my case). What did I want to do before having a family? Spend the 1990s traveling the globe. Not marry so young. Go to a better undergraduate school. Since I can't do those things anyhow, none of them are obstacles to raising a family.

And it is the last few sentences of that paragraph which remind me of my chief anxiety about fatherhood. The boy has not arrived yet and already I worry about falling into clichéd parenthood traps. Chief among them, the desire to relive my life through him, sans mistakes. I want him to do the things I didn't do. I want him to get a better education, to travel overseas, learn another language, play an instrument, delay marriage, fulfill his potential in ways that I never did. I keep reminding myself: he is his own person. He is not me. He is not a do-over. Sometimes I have this horrible image of myself endlessly pontificating to the lad on my past and his future, and imagine his eyes glazing over...

Cynthia's anxieties are much more immediate, which makes sense, since the baby is a physical reality to her in ways that he can't be to me. Yet. As the third trimester winds down she has had a bout or two of gestational psychosis to go with her very mild gestational diabetes. A near-breakdown over the lack of all-cotton, dye-free hooded bathtowels, for example. (Apparently the child can never get into the Ivy League if his hooded bath towels have stripes on them). Another near collapse over having too many baby clothes. I make Hainan jifan and lamb and eggplant with farfalle pasta, and it soothes her savage breast. (I think that Hainan jifan is also a treatment for post-partum depression. I hope it's not needed, but I will stock up on ginger and shallots just in case.)

People ask us, "are you ready?" Of course not. But we are no less ready than any other first-time parent. And it just may be that having this experience after the age of 35 makes us more prepared. OK, we won't do as well with the anticipated sleep deprivation as a couple of 20-somethings, but at the same time, I think we will be a little more laid-back about the problems and a little more appreciative about the good things.

Are we ready? The baby's room is painted. His crib is assembled. There is a changing pad on top of a dresser. A box of newborn diapers next to it. Glass bottles. A Pack-N-Play. A car seat. Three different strollers. We've got the whole baby infrastructure in place, at least. As for the rest... ready as we'll ever be, I guess.

We've put aside our childish things.

In which I prepare to vote.

Election Day.  I will be voting for the Maryland constitutional amendment to allow early voting, so election day rituals may soon be obsolete.

Nonetheless, Election Day involves playing lots of bluegrass.  Including the Carolina Chocolate Drops.  Cynthia wants to hear Wu-Tang "Bring da Rawkus."  No British invasion today, even though I am digging this Kinks CD I just got ("The Singles Collection," all their old Pye stuff from the 60s.)  Etta James.  Who can feel bad while Etta James is singing?

When I went running this morning I ran past my polling place and the line wrapped around the block.  Since I don't have to work today, I will wait until mid-day to vote.  Let the people who have to be somewhere do their voting first.

Election Day usually involves making pancakes, but Cynthia has a glucose test and is fasting.  So I won't torture her with pancakes she can't have.  Today I have the day off and she does not.  So while she's in the office I will finish painting the baby's room and then make a duck confit with fig and port wine reduction for dinner.

Tonight we are going to go out to watch the returns -- hoping to celebrate, unless the Republicans steal three in a row, in which case it will be planning to emigrate.  Once the US ceases to be a democracy, there's really no reason to live here.

On the downticket races, my general philosophy is "all things being equal, vote against the incumbent."  If you have no reason to vote FOR someone, time for new blood.  Ordinarily I would vote against my incumbent (Democratic) Congressman but whoever is running against him has never once asked for my vote -- not with a sign, an appearance, an email, a commercial.  I don't even know his or her name.  In that situation, I can't in good conscience vote for whoever the Republican is.

There are no city offices in play today.  Like most big cities on the East Coast, Baltimore has had virtual one-party rule for a long time.  It has worked out about as well as one-party-rule usually works out:  very effective at first, then corrupt, and then simply inept.  I would like to see a second party seriously vie with the Democrats in Baltimore; it would ensure that everyone did a better job of governing.  However, the Republican Party platform is that if you are black, or educated, or live in a city, you aren't a real American, and don't count.  Therefore, is it any wonder that the Republican Party isn't viable in this city?

I will vote against the slots amendment.

(A) It's bad policy; money spent on slots is money not spent in locally owned businesses.  Slots money is divided into three piles:  a tiny pile to the winners, a slightly larger pile to the State, and a giant pile to some Nevada-based gaming corporation.  This is a stupid, self-defeating policy unless most of your gamblers come from another state, and since Maryland is surrounded by states with slot machines, most of the slots players will be in-state.  (And the arms race continues; Delaware and PA will add video poker, then Maryland will have to, then they will add table games, then we will have to, then they will ad sports book, then we will have too...  making the citizens poorer, the local businesses more strapped, and the giant Nevada gaming corporation richer).

(B) It's bad governance; the legislature could grow a pair and pass a slots bill itself, but it's too paralyzed and chickenshit to take a decisive action.  Constitutions should not be amended except when absolutely necessary.  It sets a bad precedent to amend the Constitution pointlessly.

I will vote, reluctantly, for all the bond issues.  Candidly I think that at least one of the large public institutions seeking a bond issue is going to go under; I never seen anyone go in or out of Port Discovery.  But maybe I'm wrong, and it is viable, and just needs a new roof.

In which I feign youth.

This weekend Cynthia went to Manhattan for a baby shower. While I enjoy going to NYC with her -- being a tourist is so much more fun in the company of a native -- one of the primary advantages to the Y-chromosome is a lifetime exemption from any celebration with the word "shower" in the title. I exercised that masculine prerogative and stayed home for the weekend.

Friday was Halloween, my first in the neighborhood. From my time in Federal Hill I was expecting hordes of kids from other neighborhoods, recognizable chiefly by their skin tones, Baltimore being a fairly segregated city. This expectation was reinforced by a bit of racist idiocy I discovered a couple of weeks ago, when I found a flyer on our door advising that there was going to be a neighborhood trick-or-treat night on October 25, and to turn our porch light on if we were going to be handing out candy on that night. At first, I was bewildered. Why do trick-or-treating on the Saturday before Halloween? Especially when it was on a Friday night anyhow? But then it occurred to me -- the trembling whitebread douchebags didn't want their little (white) kids going around the neighborhood on a night when the little (black) kids from across Eutaw and above North Avenue were going to be going through our neighborhood, too.

For obvious reasons, I didn't participate in this little bit of update Jim Crow bullshit. Instead, on Friday night -- actual Halloween night -- I sat out on my steps and talked to my neighbors and handed out candy. To a mixture of kids from our little mostly-white neighborhood, and from the mostly-black neighborhoods on either side of us. And tried not to think about the fact that the neighbors two houses to the east, whose kids we like, went trick-or-treating the Saturday before. Nice lesson for your kids, you two. FEAR THE UNKNOWN! AVOID THE DIFFERENT!

I gave out four big bags of candy in about 90 minutes. No really outstanding costumes this year, sadly. Nothing from Harry Potter, for a change; a few Darth Vaders, a few sports figures, a lot of Spidermen, a few Batmen. No Michael Phelpses. Maybe it was too chilly to wear naught but a Speedo and a lot of medals.

(I mentioned to one neighbor that I had dated someone she used to work with. When I told her who, she laughed wryly and said knowingly "oh, then you know about her." I replied, diplomatically, "I'm sure she has her version of events." My version is that she was nuts.)

Afterwards I read a habeas file, then punched up "Casino Royale" on pay-per-view and watched it for the first time. It was the first James Bond movie I actually liked. I would say I would take Cynthia to see the sequel, but that's unlikely, given the fact that the baby will be born right around the same time the movie comes out.

Saturday I took the train into DC to feign youth.

Let me just say at the top that I have transit-envy for any city that makes it easy to get around without a car. Baltimore is emphatically NOT one of those cities. DC is -- it is one of the few cities in America outside of New York where it is possible to live without a car. Chicago, DC, and New York are, to my knowledge, in fact the ONLY truly car-optional cities in the US, and it's a stretch with DC. (Maybe San Fran? Never been there, so I don't know for sure).

However, even though the District is but 40 miles from Baltimore, transit links between the two are sorely lacking. There is commuter train service, but it only runs on weekdays at rush hour. There is Amtrak, which is more expensive, but it, too, is limited. Specifically, it is limited at night. There are no trains between Baltimore and Washington between the hours of 10 p.m. and 3:15 a.m.

This created a dilemma. The plan for Saturday was to go into the District, see part of the film noir festival at the AFI cinema in Silver Spring, then hit some Capitol Hill bars with a few friends. The trouble: how to get home? Do I zealously restrict my alcohol intake so I can drive back? Hitch a ride with friends? Split the cost of a sedan service with someone else? I took the train in, because when I was young, these things had a way of working themselves out.

So then the DC subway out to Silver Spring, where I saw Raw Deal, a 1948 Jack Alton/Anthony Mann noir gem featuring Dennis O'Keefe, Marsha Hunt, and Claire Trevor. And a very young Raymond Burr as the crime boss. It was followed by a short, "Grand Inquisitor," also starring Marsha Hunt, filmed 60 years later. (Did the Zodiac killer take trophies? A cursory googling doesn't say. It's not critical to the short film but might answer a question I had.)

Back on the subway to Union Station, then a short cab ride to a sketchy part of North East. Granville Moore's. More Belgian beer than you can shake a stick at. Bison burger. Old friends and new. We hopped to a few bars. The lightweights started nodding out. One by one they were poured into cabs or otherwise sloughed off. I kept saying "this is my last night out until 2026" (when the soon-to-be-born one will graduate from high school). They kept buying rounds. We drank a toast to the barmaid's ass. Several toasts, actually. (She was a friend of Moxie, one of my boon companions, whom I hadn't seen in far too long. So it wasn't as demeaning and sexist as it sounds. In fact, it was something Moxie and the barmaid did when the two of them went out on the town together. The barmaid is (justly) proud of her ass.) We talked about music and film and books and cooking. Moxie's brother is as genuine and personable as Moxie herself. An Army guy with biceps bigger than my thighs passed out. A DC cop was impressed that I knew what a "jump-out boy" was, but he, too, had to call it a night before the rest of us were through. We wound up back at Moxie's place around two in the morning.

On the way there we stopped at a 7-11 to rehydrate. Gatorade and diet Coke. Why could Moxie, her brother, and I drink Jameson's and beer all night and leave the others in our dust? Besides a lot of scar tissue on our livers? Because we drank water all night, too. Anyhow, at the 7-11 at 2:00 a.m. on the House side of Capitol Hill, a middle-aged guy was buying just a bottle of pancake syrup. I am trying to imagine what sequence of events would lead to that, and coming up empty.

Back at Moxie's place I chided the two still-conscious males in our party about their failure to chat up, or get the number of, the barmaid to whose ass we had toasted. I, I pointed out, was married, but none of them had that excuse.

Then back to Union Station at about 2:45 to catch the 3:15 train back to Baltimore. As I had thought, the return-trip dilemma had resolved itself. Except for one catch: the end of daylight savings time. The hour from 1 to 2 a.m. was played out twice that morning. And so when I reached the train station, I discovered that I would have to wait there an extra hour.

I finally got back to Baltimore at 4:15 am, Eastern Standard Time. I had been awake 22 hours. I climbed into bed, and got about 4 hours sleep before daylight woke me.

Four hours was enough. No hangover, astonishingly. Good hydration, that's the key.

On Sunday I spent money at Lowe's (we've finally exhausted the hong bao from her brother, which came in the form of a Lowe's card), painted the ceiling in the baby's room, and primed the walls of the stairway. While watching the Ravens upset the Browns in Cleveland. (At the same time as the football game, there was an Obama rally with 80,000 people. That means there are about 150,000 extra people crammed into the same few blocks of downtown Cleveland yesterday afternoon. Jesus Christ.)

Cynthia came home around ten that night with baby shower gifts, a shorter haircut, and some carefully wrapped bahn mi from my favorite Vietnamese sub place on the lower East Side. Her belly had somehow gotten even larger in the three days she was gone. I was glad to have her back. Feigning youth is fun, but being a grownup is much more rewarding.

In which I beat a dead horse.

In California, voters will cast a ballot on Question 8, deciding whether to amend the state's constitution to forbid marriage between same-sex couples.

I'm not sure what more can be said on this topic, but I'll try.

What is wrong with people?

There is no principled basis for forbidding same sex marriage. None, nada, zip, zero. I have seen many people try and none have come close. To be sure, there may be scads of reasons for any given individual to oppose it. There may be lots of perfectly sound theological reasons for a church to refuse to perform such ceremonies. But there is no intellectual, moral, ethical, philosophical, legal, or rational basis to forbid the state from granting any two consenting adults the right to marry one another. Sorry. No. We don't work that way.

But some people in California felt that the constitution needed to be amended to actually take rights away from a disfavored minority. Do you know why the favorite tactic of gay-bashers is the constitutional amendment? It's because they know that time is against them. Constitutional amendments are much harder to undo than regular laws. By amending the constitution, de jure discrimination will remain the law of the land long after it ceases to garner even a plurality of public support.

The single greatest indicator of someone's position on same-sex marriage is... age. (Well, I suppose sexual orientation might be a bigger one, but you know what I mean). The younger you are, the less you care whether two adults you don't know get married. The homophobes and haters read the demographic writing on the wall, and know that every year that goes by, more of them are dead, to be replaced by people who simply don't care about that issue.

So they seek to amend the constitution so that their cold, dead, homophobic, hateful hands can reach out from beyond the grave to keep people they don't know from getting married.

Fuckers.

In which I learn new things

I have learned a new aspect of the law of unintended consequences:  smoking has been outlawed in bars for months now, and as a result, I might have to actually pay for matches.  The free match gravy train has ended.

I have learned that I do not live in America, because I live in a city.

I have learned that pregnant women are especially flatulent.

I have learned that exercise and drastically reduced beer intake are not enough to bring back at 32-inch waist.  If I only liked salad more than cheesesteaks!

I have learned that there is no decent mass transit for intercity hedonism in the Baltimore-Washington area.  There are no trains from D.C. to Baltimore between 10 p.m. and 3:15 a.m. on Saturday nights.  There was a time when I would not have blanched at a 3:15 return train... but I question my stamina for partying that long now.  My choices for a night in DC are to either (a) end it by 10 p.m., early even by my decrepit standards; (b) keep the action going until 3:00 a.m., difficult when you have no plans on hooking up; (c) don't drink, so I can drive myself home; or (d) crash at a friend's house.  If you think (d) is the best option, you're wrong.  The only people I know to crash with are people whose breasts I have seen, and while that's all in my past, it still wouldn't be seemly to spend the night with them, however chastely, while my wife's out of town.

I have learned that I can substitute blackeyed peas for black beans in one of my staple dinner entrees.  I'm not sure if there's any dietary advantage to this, but it's good to change things up once in awhile.

In which my commute lengthens.

Cynthia will be at 32 weeks tomorrow and has gained about 15 pounds -- essentially increasing her weight by around 14% throughout the process thus far, if I am doing the math right. This has led to her finding virtually everything difficult to do -- sitting, standing, walking, everything. Our commute has lengthened; we still walk to work each morning, but we walk a lot more slowly up the hills.

Her doctor is thrilled that she walks three miles a day in addition to her gym workouts (which are also increasingly limited). I am entertained by the grunting and gasping noises she makes when she tries to roll over.

On the way into work this morning we overtook several immense people on the sidewalk, parting to pass around them and then linking up again on the other side. These are not people who have an extra 14% of their body weight to worry about, unless their normal weight is 270. These are people who are carrying 200% and more of their recommended weight.

When I started in private practice, I used to handle Social Security Disability Claims. You could draw SSDI for disability. If memory serves, you had to be at 300% of the median weight for your height, age, and gender. (Given that most of us are a little overweight in the US, the "median weight" chart is misleading; median is too heavy.) I handled a few obesity claims. I think they've since changed the rules on that; you now need other medical conditions on top of the obesity.

My point is that Cynthia is struggling with an extra 14%. How do people manage with twice their healthy weight? This coming from someone who gained a lot of weight in law school and ignored it for years -- it didn't look good, but it didn't interfere with my breathing or my ability to walk. I could sit in a single airplane seat (at least to the extent that ANY adult can sit in a single airplane seat) and walking between the seats at a sports stadium. I am, therefore, fully cognizant of the fact that weight gain can sneak up on you when you get older, and that it is a bitch to shed it once it's there.

But at the same time, when you can't walk, sit in a car, or breath while sleeping, you would think at some point a lightbulb would go on and you would resolve to do what needs to be done. Carrying an extra 20% body weight is one thing; carrying an extra 150 pounds is another.

The journal Obesity (got to love the internet!) confirms what is apparent from casual observation: obesity is a socioeconomic indicator. In what is probably a first for the history of humankind, it is the poor and disadvantaged who are most likely to be fat. This is not merely an American phenomenon; the Obesity article looked at studies from Europe, too. One thing that was interesting about the studies was that for women, childhood economic status appeared be an even stronger indicator of obesity than one's adult economic status. Parental education levels were, oddly, the single highest correlative; the less educated one's parents, the more likely one was to be obese.

This has led to me coming up with three half-baked ideas, each seemingly guaranteed to piss of a different group of people.

(1) Junk food is a lot cheaper than healthy food.
I lost most of my excess weight and have managed to keep most of it off for several years now. One thing I learned was that eschewing unhealthy food for healthy food costs a lot more money. It costs more for a good salad than it does for an immense McDonald's meal. Whole grain bread costs a lot more than white bread. Fresh fruit costs more than chips. Now, in the long run, I think it evens out -- even if you don't factor in healthcare costs -- because once you adjust your diet, you eat less, and eventually it takes less food to feel satisfied. Nonetheless, if you want to eat cheap, eat poorly.

(2) What else does education level indicate?
It is not universally true, but it is generally true that education and income levels are indicators of a capacity for deferred gratification and self-discipline. These are, I think, learned behaviors. These are the same traits necessary to keep one's weight under control in a society where, as noted above, junk food is ubiquitous and cheap, while healthy food is relatively scarce and expensive. ("Scarce" as in "harder to find," not "unavailable." Compare the number of produce stands to the number of fast-food joints in most neighborhoods). The same thing that causes someone to say "I am going to work hard for a long time and spend a lot of money getting my Ph.D." would also cause someone to say "I am going to reform my diet and exercise to bring my weight under control." Conversely, the person who is unable to say "I am going to exercise more and eat better" is probably unable to say "I am going to study more and educate myself." By this I do not mean that all fat people are lazy, or that all skinny people are hard workers. We are talking about trends here, not individual cases. But for a variety of reasons, in the developed world, it is simply easier to be fat than it is to be skinny. The question I am wrestling with is not "what makes us fat?" -- that's pretty obvious. Cheap junk food and a car-based society. The question I am trying to understand is "what keeps us fat?" Why would someone who can't sit on the bus or walk up a flight of steps not undertake corrective behavior? Why would someone take diabetes medication and blood pressure medication and back pain medication and undergo arthroscopic surgery on her overstressed knees and suffer from depression and low self-esteem and body-image issues, all on account of her weight, and not simply eat less, eat better, and exercise more? The answer, I think, is that losing weight takes a long time and takes a lot of work, and a lot of people are generally incapable of that sort of sustained effort and discipline. These same traits are linked to educational success and, therefore, to income. And that's the connection.

(3) Normative abnormalities.
The final factor is, I think, the normalization of obesity. A person stays fat because everyone around him stays fat. He fails to lose weight because failure is acceptable. Think of how many people you know who always speak of losing weight, but never accomplish it. Speaking for myself, I ignored being overweight for a long time... but when I decided to do something about it, I did something about it. And when I started to backslide a couple years later, I reversed course pretty quickly. Yes, it's easier for me to lose 20% of my body weight than it is for someone else to lose 50%, but then again, I stopped ignoring it when it got to the 20% mark -- I didn't wait until I was twice as heavy as was healthy.

When I was in private practice, the hardest part of my job was saving people from themselves. One of the most common, and aggravating, things I encountered was this belief that good intentions were sufficient by themselves. Directly tied to this belief was the notion that having a really good excuse for not doing something was the functional equivalent of actually accomplishing something. There is a parallel phenomenon -- the person who is always on the verge of getting her shit together, but always has some really good reason why it hasn't happened yet. I'm going to start my own business as soon as I... I'm going to go back and finish my degree after I... These are the people whose cars get booted because they ignore parking tickets. The waitress who believes that she is way too smart and talented to still be waiting tables. The office worker who bounces his rent check a couple times a year. The people who take eight years to get a B.S. in early childhood education (and continue working as daycare assistants for $8/hour.)

It is perfectly possible that some of the grossly obese people I saw on the street today are smart, well-educated, industrious, hardworking people who have their acts together and who accomplish whatever they put their minds to; they just haven't put their minds to losing weight. As I said, I am talking generalities here, not specific individuals. But my hunch is that the really dangerously overweight people are people who are out of control in many aspects of their lives, and their girth is just the most readily apparent manifestation of this.

In which I prepare to prepare

If I don't, at a minimum, clear my boxes of books and CDs out of what will be the baby's room this weekend, Cynthia advises me that she will begin the search for an alternative baby-daddy. All I have done in that room thus far is tear out the old built-in shelves and patch the plaster that was damaged by the old shelves.

This weekend: empty it out, primer it. Maybe, if I am quite industrious, put some color down. Last weekend we tentatively agreed on blue, yellow, and green paint for the room. But it's the end-of-quarter reporting period and that means Cynthia is working nights and weekends. I will be doing the cleaning, priming, and painting by myself this weekend.

(Semi-related aside: Cynthia has received her quarterly statement on her 401(k). The geniuses who manage it are losing money faster than she can replace it. Over the past three months they have taken thousands of dollars from her, piled it up, set it on fire, and then opened up her account to take out some older contributions and set them on fire, too. There's a lot to be said for just burying money in the back yard.)

I hope that I will not have an unexpected opportunity to catch up on home renovation in the form of an unpaid furlough from my job. The State is making noises about such a thing. Here's my take on it: I took a job making less money because it would be very stable and because the hours would be regular and because the benefits are good. But now I am working very long hours because we are 25% understaffed, the benefits are worse than what Cynthia gets at the investment firm, and they are talking about a temporary layoff and what would amount to a wage reduction.

Does the bank give me a week off from my mortgage payment? The utility company? Do I get a week off from paying alimony? No, no, and no. So I'm kind of pissed that the State is thinking about taking a week off from paying me.

In other pregnancy news, Cynthia does not have diabetes, but the doctor said her glucose number was "high." So I introduced her to spaghetti squash and stopped baking. On her morning cereal there is now half a banana, not a whole one, and I hid the honey. This is making her cranky. I have promised her a Cake Love birthday cake and a flask of single-malt Scotch in her hospital room after the delivery.

Oh, and the doctor strongly recommended against a trip to New Jersey for her brother's wedding ten days before her due date. She's still weighing a trip there AMA. There will be at least a half-dozen doctors at the wedding, including both of her brothers and the bride. If you're going to go into labor at a wedding reception, that's the one to do it in.

In which I tempt fate

I have too little money and too much stress, the economy is falling of a cliff, and a clueless, cranky, senile dinosaur has a (dwindling, thank God) chance of becoming president. Yet I am as happy as I think I have ever been. Is it bad luck to say this? Will I jinx myself?

Cynthia grows ever larger. To the point where there is some small fear that she has gestational diabetes; her glucose test was done improperly the first time (thus its normal result is suspect) and so she has been retested. This worries me far more than the fact that we haven't started to paint the nursery yet. But not overmuch; she seems the picture of health (despite a stupendous, for seven months, belly) and from what I can tell, gestational diabetes is not a problem if detected early. As the chief cook, I can assure you that any adjustments to her diet will be accommodated.

A recent ultrasound of the baby was perfectly normal -- brain structures, renals, etc. The ultrasound machine has a feature which fills in the image so that the translucent blob looks more like an actual picture of an actual baby. The trouble is that the computer enhancement is rather clumsy. The picture they showed us of the baby's face looks like a blurry post-Impressionist portrait. The ultrasound technician pointed to the baby's very bow-shaped lips. "He has your lips," she said to Cynthia. He also seems to have her short, flat nose. Poor Cynthia. She wanted the baby to have her epicanthic folds, but her father's straight nose and full lips. (She's going to be disappointed in her desire for a green-eyed child, too; my German/English genes are no match for 5,000 years of Han hegemony.)

I truly could not care less what the child looks like, so long as he is healthy; life is hard enough without starting out unwell. Life is easier for a good-looking person, though. He'll get that from his mother.

We have collected a vast amount of baby clothing. The child will not be born for two more months, and yet he already has more clothing than I do, thanks to boxes of stuff from friends and family. Cynthia's brother and sister-in-law recently donated a large pile of baby stuff, too: two strollers, a car seat, a high chair, a crib, and some toys. They occupy our living room, at present. There are advantages to not having any furniture!

(Cynthia has decided that a laundry basket with a blanket in it is a suitable substitute for a bassinet. This, from a Manhattanite who had never set foot in a Target before she met me, who thinks $200 is a good price for jeans, who doesn't find anything odd about her friends hiring a gardener to water a few potted plants on the balcony of their condo in the East Village. She gets pregnant, and all of the sudden she's collecting tin cans on the street and stealing packs of Splenda from restaurants.)

A part of me wants to provide an update on the status of the home renovation. A part of me finds it too tiring to get into. I'm going to listen to this latter, paint-speckled, weary part.

In which all my fiscal problems are solved.

Dear Mr. Paulson:

I pissed away all of my money on a preposterious Ponzi scheme that a brain-damaged fourth-grader would have seen through. Please give me $700 billion. Don't dare touch the multi-million dollar salary I pay myself for my brilliant stewardship, either.

XXXOOO,

Dingo English.

In which I recall the very recent past

Last night one of my mother's dogs died. He was a great big Golden Retriever, very personable and low-key. He was a handsome ex-show dog, an AKC champion. And very young to die -- not quite seven.

When I was single and living in Federal Hill, I used to volunteer to dogsit for him when my parents were out of town. She always refused.

The problem was not Federal Hill. There was a big park on either end of my street and plenty of places for us to walk. The problem was not with my dogsitting skills; before I lived in the city, I watched her dogs on many other occasions.

The problem was that he was such an attractive, friendly dog. My mother would say to me: you can't watch him. You meet too many women as it is.

In which I do some math.

On January 19, 1993, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 3,255.99.
On January 19, 2001, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 10,587.59.
That would be, unless I'm mistaken, an increase of over 225% in eight years.

As I write this, the DJIA is 10,609.66 (and falling). That's an increase of two-tenths of one percent since January 19, 2001.

On January 19, 1993, the S&P 500 was 435.13.
On January 19, 2001, the S&P 500 was 1342.54.
That would be an eight-year increase of over 208%.

As I write this, the S&P 500 is 1166.85 (and falling). That's a decline of just over 13% since January 19, 2001.

On January 19, 1993, the NASDAQ was 696.81.
On January 19, 2001, the NASDAQ was 2770.38.
The eight-year increase was almost 298%.

As I write this, the NASDAQ composite is 2,115.44 (and falling). That's a decline of nearly 24%.

At the end of the day, the duty of the President is to leave the country stronger than he found it.

Why would we reward this performance with four more years of the same?

In which I ponder 10%

I taped plastic sheets and newspapers all around the baseboards to protect the floors. I removed the light fixtures and switchplates. I taped the window in the front hallway and hung plastic sheeting in the doorways to the living room and the dining room. I put a canvas dropcloth on the front steps.

I put two coats of oil-based primer on everything -- ceiling, walls, moldings. I used the low-pressure sprayer to get into the corners and the fluted moldings. I used mineral spirits to scrub off the droplets that wound up on the floor despite my best efforts. Then I used the sprayer again to put white ceiling paint on the upper trim and the curved edges of the ceiling. And followed with a roller on a long stick to paint the rest of the ceiling. The white was almost indistiguishable from the primer that was already there, but I knew the difference.

After much moving back and forth with different color chips in different lighting, and pondering other, future color selections for the living room and the dining room, Cynthia opted for a sort of dark salmon color for the main hallway.

I spent the first half of yesterday taping off the moldings and trim; Cynthia shored up the floor coverings where it had pulled loose from the baseboards. I spent the second half of yesterday coating the walls with the colored paint. I painted part of the hallway and proposed that I stop and let it dry so Cynthia could be sure she was happy with it. No, she said, I like it, it's a little more saturated than I thought, more colorful, but I like it.

The weather is hot and humid and I was dripping wet when I finished. I stood there pondering whether I needed a second coat, or just some touch-ups here and there.

That's when Cynthia said: boy, that sure looks more orange than I expected.

There was a pause. Then she said, do you like it?

Yes, I said. It's not as pink as I thought, but I like it.

I'm not sure I like it, she said.

Give it time, I suggested. The walls are still wet. Let it dry. Plus, there is navy blue tape bordering the whole thing. That makes it seem brighter than it really is.

Last night while we were walking the dog (we are dogsitting) she said, what would be involved in painting over that?

It was my turn for a long pause. Painting over it with what? I said.

Something that's not so... orange.

I would have to re-primer it, I said. It's so dark, I couldn't just paint over it with another color.

Would that be really hard? she said. Hard? It wouldn't be hard. It would erase the last two weeks worth of work, that's all.

I said, let it dry all the way and then decide. This morning she said, I like it better. But I still hate it about 10%. I can live with it 90%, I hate it 10%.

To the extent that I understand the way women communicate -- women who share my bed, in particular -- I interpret that 10% to mean that I am spending next weekend re-primering the walls.

In which I disavow hotness

Straight men should date a few really hot girls early in adulthood so that they can blithely turn their backs on hotness ever after. Once you've had a prolonged relationship with a hot woman, you will never have quite the same reaction to hotness, and it frees you up to be much more sensible about such things in the future.

(1) No matter how hot she is -- no matter how far your jaw dropped and your tongue protruded the first time you saw her -- it will wear off. You don't realize this if you only ogle hot women from afar, but trust me, there will come a time when the hotness is more or less invisible to you most of the time. At which point you are paying attention to character and personality and intellect, which are no more likely to be compatible with yours than with an average-looking woman.

(2) Hot women put a lot of effort and a fair amount of money into looking hot. The payoff is both feeling good about themselves and getting attention from men, which also makes them feel good. There's nothing wrong with this. But being hot is a talent, like being able to tango or play guitar or hit home runs. If you put a lot of time and effort into developing a talent, you like to be able to use it as frequently as possible. The use to which one puts "being hot" is: attracting members of the opposite sex. Thus, a hot girl in a steady, monogamous relationship has a much reduced incentive to continue to be hot. And her boyfriend has an increased basis for jealousy. This is neither rational nor fair, but let's face it, relationships are rarely rational and never fair.

(3) After you date a hot woman or two, your reaction to hot women changes. You still look. You still have an aesthetic appreciation and physiological reaction to hot women. But you have a much reduced desire to approach them simply for their hotness. It is much easier to say "no" to a hot woman once you've gotten it out of your system.

My advice to my son is that he chase really hot women (or men, if that turns out to be the case) in college so that by the time he's old enough for marriage, he'll be able to make a much more sensible decision not based upon looks. And will be much less likely to cheat on his partner simply because of an unsatisfied lust for hotness.

In which I get some work done.

I have started bringing my iPod to the office and I have found that it greatly increases my productivity. There seems to be some music that is more helpful in that department than others. Jimmie Rodgers is better for productivity than the Foo Fighters, for example. Lucinda Williams is better than KT Tunstall.

The productivity boosts don't seem to be related to the tempo of the music, or genre. When I get tired of being a lawyer I will get a grant and try to figure out what music actually makes people work better. Maybe it varies from profession to profession? Maybe what makes lawyers research and write briefs faster won't help accountants review financial records any more efficiently. Maybe a journalist will get a bigger efficiency boost from the (pretty good) new CD by The Roots than I do.

Speaking of hip-hop, the other day I found a Wu-Tang Clan onesie. As the third trimester nears, we have started getting gifts of baby clothes from people. We have yet to purchase a single baby-thing, and yet already the lad has more clothing than I do. (My favorite thus far: a tiny shirt that says "Lock up your daughters!" on it. Chip off the old block.) I found a place that makes onesies out of old rock concert T-shirts. Can you imagine dressing your baby in an old Foreigner World Tour 1982 shirt? Me, too. But I can't really justify buying one when we are getting crates of clothing from all over the world.

(Seriously. We've gotten stuff from Cynthia's friends in Hong Kong, Brussels, and LA. I needed to go online to translate the French on the Belgian outfits. Most of them are accompanied by notes to my bride, the former partygirl, that say something like "I cannot believe that YOU are reproducing.")

Anyhow, my point -- to the extent that I have one -- is that if I keep up the iPod in the office, I might actually update this site more frequently.

In which I learn a new word.

Today I learned the word flâneur, which is something I have been for a couple of years now. But don't tell my countrymen, because I'll be accused of elitism. And Francophilia. (Come to think of it, since becoming a flâneur, I have slept with women with unshaven armpits, consumed lots of wine, seen "De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté," and capitulated to Germans. Coincidence? I think not).

The flâneur is one who strolls -- specifically, someone who walks around the urban landscape drinking in its sights, sounds, smells, and complexities. A gawker at the carnival of city life.

I would like to find a way to work "flâneur" into the conversation, but that would mean having a conversation with people who used words like flâneur, and I don't think I'm up for that.

In which I downgrade my diet.

Some time ago I stopped eating at Burger King -- not for the obvious reason (I have much better food options) but for altruistic reasons. Burger King was hosing the tomato pickers for over what was chump-change for BK, but an important organized labor success for the tomato pickers of Florida. It was the "penny a pound" deal that the Coalition of Immokalee Workers struck with the big tomato-growers consortium in Florida. Most of the big tomato buyers like McDonald's were on board with it -- but BK sabotaged the deal. So I stopped eating at BK, even though there's one a block from my office and sometimes a nice cheap BK Broiler was just the thing when I was hungry and suffering from a cash-flow problem. OK, the food wasn't great, but that's not the point of fast food -- the point is that the food is cheap, and the exact same, every time, so you know precisely what you're going to get no matter where you are.

Anyhow it's tomato season in Maryland now, and I am going to buy a bushel and teach my city-slicker wife how to can them. I had to go into the office and work today but we went to the Farmer's Market first to arrange for delivery of a bushel of tomatoes next week. (And to buy a week's worth of fresh produce... I love the Farmer's Market.) Once I got into the office, I checked out the CIW website and discovered two things:

(a) Burger King caved, but
(b) Chipotle is the new target of CIW tomato-picking wrath.

The thing is, I like Chipotle a lot more than BK. I could go the rest of my life without eating at another Burger King, but sometimes you are stuck somewhere in the suburbs where it's nothing but chain restaurants, and a big fat 1,000 calories Chipotle chicken-and-black-bean burrito is hands-down your best choice. And while you know the food is not particularly good for you (at least they are up front about that), the Chipotleans spout a very convincing line about "food with integrity." Eating at Chipotle allowed you to suck down fast food and feel self-righteous at the same time. Even though McDonald's used to own them.

But Chipotle won't abide by the fair labor practices rules that the CIW is trying to establish. (In a nutshell, the CIW negotiates a deal with the buyer, who agrees to pay an extra penny a pound, which the grower agrees to pass on directly to the pickers.) Plus, on the CIW website there's a picture of a cute girl waving a protest sign ("There's no integrity in slave wages!") outside the Chipotle headquarters in Denver. I went to the Chipotle site to see their side of the story but... they don't have one. Actually, what they did was pretty shitty: they said "What? Poor labor conditions for tomato pickers in Florida? Oh, we can't have that. We won't buy any more tomatoes from Florida." And moved their contracts elsewhere, where there is no CIW negotiating higher rates or better conditions. (Apparently bigger companies can't do this as easily, because they need a lot more tomatoes).

(Aside: slave wages? Really? I though, by definition, slaves didn't get wages.)

Oh, and in researching all this, I came across an article on the subject in The Nation. Let me just say here that I want to track down some of the people who left comments on the Nation article, and kick them in the face. I thought I was a self-righteous douchebag, but some of these people really take the cake. Lots of people saying things like "of course I've never eaten there, because it is a national chain and therefor by definition the embodiment of evil, but shame on them!" They're like the people who sniffly assert that they don't even own a television and they are, therefore, far, far superior to the millions of people who do, and at any rate, all television sucks, so therefore, they don't own one.

Here's something that really made me want to launch a smackdown: "well, after checking the menu, it seems to be "mexican" food only a gringo could love. do yourselves a favour and visit a local mamá y papá restaurante and have some real food!" Fuck you, you fucking self-righteous prick. First off, the fact that a restaurant is owned by someone with brown skin and accented English does not make its food automatically better. I have eaten in some really vile Mexican restaurants owned by actual Mexicans. Second, there are vast swaths of this country where there is no "mamá y papá restaurante," and third, your use of the Spanish just makes me want to punch your fucking smug teeth down your fucking smug throat that much more. Fourth, it's not Mexican food, it's tex-mex, and fifth, don't call me a gringo, and I won't call you a fatuous queef. Sixth, don't fucking tell me where to eat.

Despite the fact that I don't want to be like the unctuous little self-parodying leftist assholes on the Nation's comments section, I probably wll stop eating at Chipotle for awhile. Because the CIW has a cute girl with a sign, and Chipotle Inc. just has hypocrisy. Luckily, I don't go to the suburbs that often anymore. And there's usually a Qdoba or Baja Fresh around if I'm really jonesing for fast-food tex-mex. (I know, they're probably not any more ethical than Chipotle -- maybe even less so -- but I'm trying not to look too closely, here.)

In which I do not delight you with my musical aesthetic

I signed onto blogger today with the notion of adding to the layout of this, my blog. The plan was to attached a link to my Muxtape page, which would thus allow you, my loyal reader, to actually hear some of the fairly obscure music about which I write from time to time.

You would be so smitten that you would instantly click on the Muxtape links and purchase the music. Yes, that was the plan, except that the Recording Industry Association of America has forced Muxtape to shut down.

This is emblematic of the problems plaguing the recording industry. It is so blatantly inimical to the best interests of the members of the RIAA that one has to wonder whether the RIAA has been taken over by a band of psychotic groundhogs. Because certainly no human being with even the faintest trace of business acumen would do something so colossally stupid.

Here's how Muxtape worked: you could open an account and upload up to 12 songs in MP3 format. Anyone could go to your page and hear your virtual mix tape. You could also surf it and hear other people's virtual mix tapes. There was no way (to my knowledge, at least) to download and keep the songs that were up there; you could just click and listen, one mix at a time.

If you liked a song, you could click on it and it would take you to Amazon or some other music retailer so you could buy the mp3 yourself, or find more stuff by that artist, etc. When I first used it I was tickled by what an easy, effective marketing tool it was for lesser-known artists. It was a great way to hear music that other people liked, and get into new artists you wouldn't otherwise hear.

The RIAA website says that the organization's mission "is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members' creative and financial vitality." A service like Muxtape seems to be so good at accomplishing those two things that if it didn't exist, the RIAA should see to it that such a thing was invented. It "supports and promotes. . . creative . . . vitality" by ensuring that lesser known artists and music gets a much wider distribution than through the tottering corpse that is mainstream radio, without costing the labels a dime. The people who bought the music actually promote it for them! At the same time, it "supports and promotes . . . financial vitality" of record labels by funneling new listeners to places they can legally purchase the music.

So how does shutting down Muxtape help the artists, the labels, the music lovers, or the music retailers? Seriously. Anyone? Anyone at all? Am I missing something here?

Whenever recording industry executives whine about sales being down... it's not because of piracy. It's because of decisions like this which are just inexplicably stupidy. Suicidal, even. Is there any chance that the short-sighted, mentally fossilized nincompoops who destroyed the American automotive industry got jobs running record companies?

In which I wonder where to begin

I'd prefer to leave politics out of this blog... but they seem to be the only fly in the ointment these days. I believe that people get worked up over little things because they don't have big things to worry about, and so perhaps it's the truly astounding, almost embarrassing level of domestic tranquility that's making me get so worked up over political things these days...

But then again, maybe it's the notion that my son will have to live in the world we're making today.

I try to be sanguine. Hatred and stupidity and fear were not invented in 1982, after all. There were ignorant and small-minded people voting and electing their own kind then, as now. But I find it increasingly hard to laugh off the public idiocy of others these days.

There are certainly people with whom I can respectfully disagree. That's not the issue. Reasonable minds can differ on questions like, what's the best way for people to have access to health care, and what's the best policy for ensuring a well-educated populace, and how to maximize economic prosperity. (Of course, I'm right, and they're wrong, but nonetheless, it's not an unreasonable sort of wrong...)

But people say it's OK for the police to spy on political dissidents and for the president to place himself above the law. What do you say to someone like that? You can't have a rational discussion with those people; you need to send them back to the third grade and have them relearn everything they were supposed to learn about civics, social studies, history, and political science.

People say that they won't vote for a black man because he's black, that money spent on urban schools is wasted because "they" can't learn, that cities should be allowed to burn because they are full of "animals." They use the term "illegals" as a euphemism for "Hispanic" and feel obligated to place weapons in their vehicles if, by chance, they have to drive into an unfamiliar part of their area where they might (gasp!) see someone who doesn't look like them. And, in the interest of equal injustice -- what do you have to do to a child so that by the time he's in the 5th grade, any classmate who does well in school is "acting white"? How do I consider myself as a part of the same body politic as people like that? What is our common frame of reference, from which we can compromise and reach practical solutions to problems we both face? I'm not sure that any amount of education can fix that. I think for something like that you need those shock collars that they put on dogs to keep them from running out into the streets. (And chemical castration -- 327 generations of idiots is enough.)

There is the notion that dissent is treason; that we must surrender freedom for security; that to question war is to disparage soldiers; that those who do not do our bidding are our enemies; that it is better to die in a losing battle to maintain the status quo than it is to accept and manage change. That all science is suspect and unreliable. That everything can be expressed in terms of dollars. That we do not need to think about the consequences of our lifestyles, multiplied by 6.7 billion, on one another and on the planet. What message does any responsible politician use to get people like that to support intelligent governance?

I have been reading lately about the Marquis de Condorcet, a Frenchman who lived in the late 18th century and who was Girondist during the French Revolution. He was a well-regarded mathematician outside of his interest in politics, and his writings on societal reform. He also believed in universal education, and -- very rare for his times -- the same education for men and women. This was a man who was very deeply concerned (for obvious reasons) about making the transition from a monarchy to a republican (small r) form of government. He believed that an education should not be simply literacy and mathematics, but should include a lot of both the hard and social sciences, reason, logic, and ethics. (He was also famously opposed to the Jesuit education system that dominated France, and that was indeed the source of his own education).

Condorcet felt that it took an education to transform someone from a subject to a citizen -- from someone who acts according to belief to someone who acts according to reason.

I look around me and I read the newspapers and I wonder where all of these subjects came from. And I fear what happens when you give uneducated, unprepared, unreasoning "subjects" the powers of citizens -- from Condorcet's example. He was imprisoned during the Terror and died in his cell, either from poison or murder.

In which I recount the weekend.

Because I must, like all bloggers, assume that the excruciating and mind-numbing minutiae of my quotidian existence is endlessly fascinating to the rest of the world... I present to you my Weekend in Review.

It was God-damned hot.

Artscape had all the streets in my neighborhood screwed up.

I made, and drank, two pitchers of iced ttea from Stash® ginger-peach green tea.

My morning jogging route has altered slightly and so now I am at a hair over 4 miles each morning.

Half of the mouldings on the second-floor hallway are now painted.

Cynthia's friend Pearl came for a visit. I like Pearl. She and Cynthia shared an apartment when they lived in Hong Kong in the late 1990s. I hope she visits more often.

At Artscape I went to performances by M. Doughty, Gary B. and the Notions, and Rusted Root. Plus whoever happened to be at the DJ stage when I got a kielbasa -- the food court was by the DJ stage. The Soul Coughing fans and Doughty fanatics (you know who you are) will hate me for saying this, but I found the Doughty show rather dull. Gary B. and the Notions have a good garage-band sound and I will definitely go see them again. Rusted Root was a lot of fun but fairly predictable; they haven't really progressed beyond "Send Me On My Way." It was just too damn hot to stand out in the sun, anyhow. Next year: Whartscape, where I can see bands I've never heard of. The drawback is that 90% of them will suck; however, the 10% that will be a pleasant surprise will make it all worth while. You can't do anything new and good if you aren't willing to risk doing something new and lousy.

That last sentence would also be my dating advice for Pearl. Why is it that women are far more likely than men to fall into the trap of not liking anyone who likes them? I call it "Groucho Marx syndrome" -- he said he would never want to belong to a country club that would have him as a member.

While I'm giving unsolicited dating advice to Pearl, let me add: you can meet people and learn to like (or dislike) things about those people. Or you can create in your mind an imaginary perfect person and then judge everyone you meet against that imaginary yardstick, dismissing anyone who fails to meet these preconditions. One of the troubles with the latter policy is that if you somehow managed to meet a person who met all of these criteria... he probably wouldn't be into you. With the former policy, your world will become much bigger and more interesting.

Keep in mind, however, that unless I am talking about Maryland criminal law... I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Which doesn't stop me from bloviating away, of course.

Back to the weekend:

Artscape ended at 10 on Saturday, and thus after 10 we could leave and return to the neighborhood with a reasonable chance of finding a parking space. So we went to the 10:30 showing of the new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight." I must say, it was really good. The script was much more nuanced and complex than any other superhero movie I've ever seen. Heath Ledger's performance was really good, and I say that as someone who is completely unsentimental about the fact that it's a posthumous review.

On Sunday we took Pearl back to the train station for her trip home. I made Cynthia scrambled eggs for breakfast. I make scrambled eggs with a little bit of milk and a dash of herbs de Provence. The herbs make a big difference. Also, you can never stop scrambling. I whisk it together into a bowl and then when I pour them into the frying pan I keep on stirring away.

Also for breakfast on Sunday: bagels from Cynthia's favorite New York bagel place. I split them, lightly toast them, butter them, sprinkle some fresh chopped chives and rosemary from my herb pots onto them, put a giant handful of gorgonzola cheese on each half, then stick them in the oven at 250º until the cheese melts and seals in the buttery herbs.

Or, from Cynthia's perspective: "I had eggs and bagels for breakfast. It was yummy." It's not that she doesn't appreciate good food. She really does. It's just that the kitchen is a black box to her. Bags of groceries go in, and tasty food comes out, but what happens in between is largely a mystery.

Later on Sunday we went to my aunt's house. My aunt is a bit of a neurotic. Her daughter, my cousin, is worse. I never met someone so... anxious, all of the time. My cousin has two daughters. They were sweet and personable. I wonder: given that my cousin has somehow managed to be more neurotic than her mother, will her daughters be even worse? How can that be?

I wish, actually, that I could remove a little of my cousin's anxiousness and keep it for myself. In moderate, being a spaz can be useful. She over-studies, over-prepares, over-worries. I under-prepare, worry insufficiently. If I had just a touch of her compulsion to fret and overdo, I might have accomplished a lot more.

But her quality of life...! Who can go their whole life without ever feeling comfortable?

At my aunt's house we borrowed a baby-seat base and tested to see if it would fit in the back of my car. It will, but getting a baby in and out of it with the top closed will be difficult. My solution: just keep the top open. True, it will be December when we bring him home from the hospital, but then again it's only about a mile and half.

My father gave me two CDs to check out when I saw him on Sunday. Reviews to follow. I am still digging the new My Morning Jacket, however.

In which I pose three questions.

My three immediate concerns, in no particular order:

(1) Circumcise? Or not?

I am generally opposed to lopping off parts of some one's anatomy for religious and/or cosmetic purposes. If someone can present me with a decent medical reason for doing it, I might be persuaded. For the most part, though, it seems that the arguments for chopping off the foreskin boil down to "everybody else does it." Ladies, would you be less attracted to a man with a foreskin?

(2) Can I fit a baby seat in the back of my car?

Not only do I really like my car, but (a) it is paid for, and (b) now that I am a civil servant, I will never again be able to afford another one like it. It is six years old. I was hoping to get at least another year or two out of it. But while it has a back seat, it is a smallish two-door convertible. Should I trade it in now, while it still has some market value, and get a Matrix or a Fit or some other small, baby-seat-friendly vehicle? Or do we try to get another couple of years out of this car first? As part of the deliberations on this issue, we must consider that my car sits parked and motionless for five or six days out of the week, because live in the city and can walk nearly everywhere we need to go. And also, Cynthia -- my wife -- hasn't driven a car since she was 19. Plus, she can't drive a manual transmission, which is what my car has. So we don't need or want two cars.

(3) How will I afford infant care?

I don't understand how people can hand their infants off to their parents and go back to work. My parents are both retired, but I can assure you that they have zero interest in spending their days at home with a baby to take care of. They did their time raising babies. Decades ago. Cynthia's parents -- her mother, anyhow -- might be temperamentally inclined to provide regular day care, but she has a job. And lives a few hundred miles away.

Here is the list of countries which do not require paid parental leave for workers: Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and the United States of America. I'm not sure what I can add to that. It goes beyond disgraceful. Beyond embarrassing. It's so pathetic it's funny.

My employer, and Cynthia's, adhere to the disease-model of parental leave -- 12 weeks of FMLA leave, which is unpaid, except to the extent that you have leftover vacation and/or sick leave to use up. After the 12 weeks, get your ass back to work. One wonders: where do employers think that each succeeding generation of employees comes from?

At any rate... a neighbor referred us to a downtown child care facility that offers infant care. We looked it up. It charges $1,700 a month.

That's simply out of the question. There is no way on Earth we could afford that.

Which leads to my next point: Cynthia and I, combined, make a lot of money compared to most other people in the city. We are not rich, by any stretch of the imagination; we have to skimp and save to pay for the repairs and upkeep on our house, and we don't own or do anything extravagant, but we make a little more than five times the median household income for Baltimore City, and almost three times the median household income for the state. Compared to our friends and peers, we are perfectly ordinary, but these figures mean that there are a LOT of people out there with a lot less than us. So what do they do with their children? They have jobs, just like we do; they have abominable parental leave benefits, just like we do; the childcare center charges them $1,700 a month, same as us. So what do they do? Do 2/3 of working parents rely on friends and family to take care of their infants while they work? What if your friends and family all have jobs of their own?

I don't know what the solution to this problem is. Mandating paid parental leave -- at at least 2/3 salary, for at least six months -- for large employers would be a net good thing, I suppose, although it wouldn't solve the problem entirely. France has a pretty good system -- creche care until age 3 or so, followed by preschool until age 5, all of it government-subsidized so that monthly childcare costs are no more than a couple hundred Euros. But to pay for that, we would have to either raise taxes (which the very rich people -- whom we now bail out with tax dollars, whenever market forces and/or their own greed and stupidity threaten their riches -- won't like) or cut vital services (such as stupid, mismanaged wars of choice.) Since the idea of collecting taxes in a rational fashion, or spending them according to legitimate national priorities, is anathema to the political leaders of both parties, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Which still leave the questions unanswered. How will we do this? And how do the many people less fortunate than us do this?

In which we put a stem on him.

Today we went for our third ultrasound. This one was the "anatomy scan." It took longer than the others. The technician had to look for the various organs and limbs. Oddly, the fetus looked much more blob-like than it did at the first two sonograms. The technician said it was because the fetus was moving around a lot, and kept turning away from the camera.

(Yes, I know it's not really a camera, but you know what I mean.)

The news we were waiting for: it's a boy. Or, as the ultrasound tech put it, "whoa, definitely a boy." (Does she say that every time? If so, good for her!)

So now I am not the last male "English" in a line that we've traced back for a few centuries. Or at least I won't be when my son is born in December.

It seems really weird to type the words "my son." Never truly believed it was going to happen.

In which I listen.

New pursuits: to reward myself for being a very good lad, I had the folks at Amazon send me two books and two CDs.

"The Yiddish Policeman's Union" by Michael Chabon. Very good. Hardboiled Jewish Speculative Fiction. I'm not sure how else to describe it. It starts with a speculative premise: In WWII, the war in Europe took an extra year to end (with an atomic bomb in Berlin). Therefore in 1948, Israel was not strong enough to hold off the onslaught and was wiped, bloodily, off the map. The United States offered up the west coast of Alaska as a temporary place of refuge. The Jewish "Sitka" settlement grows to two million people, with Yiddish as the common tongue. Sixty years later, the territory is about to revert back to the U.S. and the protagonist, a broken-down Sitka cop named Landesman, is trying to solve one last murder that nobody cares about.

I like it a lot.

"Atlantic Cousins: Benjamin Franklin and his Visionary Friends" has been out for a few years and somehow I was late in getting a copy. Jack Fruchtman writes gracefully clear, eminently readable biographies that are more about the thinking than the lives of his subjects. In fact it's not entirely accurate to call them biographies at all, in the traditional sense. They are sort of... intellectual histories. This book doesn't concern itself so much with the minutiae of Franklin's life as with exploring the influences on, and from, his long life as a public intellectual. It reminds me in many ways of another excellent intellectual history, "The Metaphysical Club," about the common threads and influences running through the work of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Peirce, John Dewey, and William James. Hell, read them both. I am under no ethical obligations to make full disclosures in this blog, but I'll note that Jack Fruchtman was my poli-sci professor in college and later a personal friend.

While reading these books, I've been listening to "Evil Urges" by My Morning Jacket. Also excellent. And the superdeluxe re-issue of Whiskeytown's "Stranger's Almanac," which has been excellent for years and continues to be so in this re-issue with a second disk full of extra, also very cool, music.

Writing about music is sort of like dancing about architecture, which doesn't stop a lot of people from making a really good living killing trees in the name of describing music. My Morning Jacket is fun, smart, accessible pop. Whiskeytown didn't know it was helping define Americana and Alt-Country when they made Stranger's Almanac back in 1997, but they did. If you like that sound at all, Stranger's Almanac and Uncle Tupelo's "No Depression" are more or less mandatory listening.

As an aside: I really hate the term "alt-country." But I find myself using it (and also "alt-bluegrass" when it comes to the Avett Brothers and a couple of others) because if you just say "country," people think you mean the unlistenable bilge that is played on Clear Channel's country music stations. Instead of calling "real" country "alt-country," why don't we come up with a new name for the horrifying crap being churned out of Nashville these days? I'm looking at you, Rascal Flatts/Toby Keith/Kenny Chesney/etc. I am hoping to suggestions for the new name for this music -- I'm leaning toward "vapid, soul-killing flatulence," but that doesn't really roll off the tongue, so if anyone can think of something catchier...

In which I eat bagels

Baltimore is a pretty good food town, but it has some shortcomings. No bahn mi -- the Vietnamese sandwiches that I discovered in NYC. No really good Chinese, Thai, or Vietnamese restaurants. There are a few that are acceptable but the nearest good Chinese and Vietnamese places are in Columbia.

It is a myth that all pizza is better in New York. There is good pizza in New York, but there is good pizza in a lot of places. New Yorkers' belief that there is no good pizza outside of New York is based on tautology: if it's not from New York, it can't be good. This belief has nothing to do with taste. It's a sort of geographic animism.

However, I am saddened to report that the bagels in New York are generally better than the ones in Baltimore. There are acceptable bagel places in Baltimore -- Greg's in Belvedere Square comes to mind -- but a David's Bagel from Manhattan, kept in my freezer and thawed when needed, tastes better than a new, fresh bagel from Greg's. Sorry.

On the plus side, Baltimore's crabs are better (if you know where to look -- avoid the touristy places), its produce is better, the farmer's market is better, its microbrews are better. And you can't buy scrapple in New York. Or Berger cookies. (Or the Otterbein cookies, which frankly I prefer, although Berger cookies get all the press.)

WANTED: someone to talk me into going to the rockabilly show at Fletcher's on Sunday night. Ten bucks, a lot of good bands. But I am too frickin' old and broken-down to party late on a Sunday night nowadays.

This band will be there, and they are very good.

I keep telling myself I deserve it, I have earned it. I wrote two major appellate briefs this week and on Saturday I will finally finish painting the second floor of the Moneypit. But frankly, this just means that on Sunday night I will be that much more inclined to sit on my ass and drink beer.

Which I could do at Fletcher's, and hear some good music...

All of this exercising is supposed to be giving me MORE energy. Maybe it's incipient daddyhood.

In which I start anew

The blog is dead. Long live the blog!

I feel compelled, once again, to start with a manifesto. But Mimi Smartypants still writes the best mommyblog, I've never found a decent daddyblog, and these days I'm too tired/busy/happy to have much interesting to say.

And yet... here I am again, anyhow.