Edie and Pop - Ep. 15 - Baby Prisoner

The continuing saga of text messages between me and my baby.

EDIE:  Hey, have you noticed something weird about Mom?

POP:  Does she have another man? What do you know? I knew I was never good enough for her. Let’s kill him. 

EDIE:  No, I was just saying she was gone.  That’s weird, right?  Like where is she?

POP:  Oh, she’s gone for the weekend.  I’m watching you.  No big deal.

EDIE:  How long is a weekend? I don’t understand time and space! Do you know nothing about babies?

POP:  I really don’t. I hated hanging around babies before you.  I hated pictures of them even more.

EDIE:  You’re a monster.

POP:  And yet you stick around.

EDIE:  I can’t open doors, dummy.  I’m a prisoner.  A prisoner with a nice Mommy Warden and an evil Pop Guard.

POP:  Are you still mad I took away that bottle of aspirin?

EDIE:  It made a wonderful rattley noise!  Why do you poop on my happiness?

POP:  That’s disgusting and I’m protecting you. 

EDIE:  You’re stifling me.  I demand you unchildproof this house.

POP:  I demand you never like Dora!

EDIE:  I don’t even know who that is because you keep me locked in a tower!

POP:  It’s called a house and she’s a little annoying girl with a football head that keeps company with a filthy monkey and is always trying to push Spanish on me!  You can never like her!

EDIE:  I’ll like her just to spite you!  Now show me Mom!

POP:  I can’t. She’s gone.

EDIE:  She left me?! Forever? Waaaaaaaaaaaah!

POP:  Why are you spelling out your crying?  Why aren’t you just crying?

EDIE:  I express myself better electronically.  I pour my emotions into my thumbs.

POP:  I’m taking away that phone.  You’re too attached to it.

EDIE:  Then how will I call Mom?

POP:  You’ve never actually called Mom.  You’re talking to Siri.  She’s a robot.

EDIE:  Whew.  I thought Mom had a ‘phone voice’.  I was worried she would need a weirdo intervention.

POP:  She’ll be back tomorrow.  Go to sleep.

EDIE:  I don’t feel safe. Hold me.

POP:  I’m sorry, baby. Of course I’ll hold you. I’m coming.

~ 2 Minutes Later ~

POP:  You threw a Glow Worm at me!

EDIE:  Siri told me to do it!  She said it would knock you unconscious and then we could use your body as a ladder to escape the crib.

POP:  You’re in big trouble. You’re getting no treats tomorrow!

EDIE:  You’ll cave!  You’re weak!  You’re no Mom!  I’ll be shoving my face full of craisins by sun up!

POP:  I’m going to get you a new Mom.  A mean one that never wants to snuggle you.

EDIE:  Good luck.  Mom already told me she’s getting me a new Dad.

POP:  I knew it!  It’s not just paranoia.  What is it? Am I overweight?  Do I talk about nerd movies too much?  Is it how much I like poetry?  Do I need to become a lumberjack?

EDIE:  Goodnight, Former Dad.  I’m sleepy.

POP:  Answer me!

EDIE:  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

POP:  You typed a bunch of Z’s.  You’re not actually asleep.

Things To Remember

I don’t keep a journal very well.  I never have.  What you’re seeing on my blog is what is in my journals.  Random crap.  Some confessions.  Nicknames for Non-Intimidating Gunslingers.

If anyone ever reads my journals, they will either understand nothing about me or everything.  They’ll know that I didn’t care about minutiae or collecting or wanting more.  The only thing I’ve ever really cared about is creating things.  That’s when life makes the most sense to me.  When I’m in the middle of putting something into being.

Edie is different because we didn’t create her.  She’s a soul our Father in Heaven loaned to us.  We provided her a body and a stable place to grow up.  And a lot of books and treats.  We’re always good for those. 

We’re just creating the world around her. She’s lucky our genetic grab bag made her so cute.  She could have had my caveman feet and broad shoulders. Instead she got my eyes and Valerie’s chin and Valerie’s nose and some random gene’s blond hair.  Her fat legs might be from me.

But I need to remember things.  Need to capture a few moments.  And I have with pictures.  But what about the words she knows right now?  This is the downside of not keeping a regular journal.  I’m not recording the day to day things.

Right now at 19 Months Edie can say:

Guck (Duck)

Eye

Nose

Rain or Raining

Wind or Windy

Up or Uppy

Happy

Cool

Whoa or Whoooooa!

Hand

Block

Rock

Cup

Coat

Cake

Pud-ding

Treat

Mommy

Da Da

Tree

Hat

Kids

Baby

Teeth

Snoo (Snow)

Why (Wall)

Ball

Sy (Sky)

Moan (Moon)

Tuh-ruck

Cah (Car)

Train

Suh-wing (Swing)

Bug

Book

  

Of course, I’m forgetting some.  She picks up new words every day.  It’s very gratifying.  To be able to help with a person’s development, to see results.  Can you believe I kind of barely liked babies about two years ago?  I’ve always thought kids were cool.  But babies? Blah.  Hand me a sack of flour with a face drawn on it.

Stupid dad instincts and all the stupid feelings that opened up inside of me.  Le sigh.  I guess my indifferent tough guy days are over.  Oh wait.  I was never tough.

I want to remember this step.  Not because “it’s going too fast”.  It’s not.  I don’t pine for the past.  I like new better than old.  I order new things at restaurants.  I hate trying to recreate the thing before.  It’s not possible.  Get over it.

I won’t try to recreate my childhood for Edie.  This is her childhood.  Whatever is created is what she’ll be nostalgic for.  Whether I raise her in New York or Michigan or London or on a planet made of candy, that’s what she’ll love.  That’s what she’ll think childhood should be.

For Edie, for Valerie, for any future spirit loaners, I just want to create memories worth having.

My Mother In Vermont

If you’re reading this, you may or may not know my Mom.  That’s okay.  I’m going to tell you about her.

When my Mom was a junior, she went to Vermont.  I’ve forgotten details about it.  I know that she’d become a Mormon by then and that she was staying with a Mormon family.  It was far from the industrialized rust of Michigan.   Away from the complications of parents and brothers.  She was gone for almost a year.  An eon in teenage life.

It’s not even the story.  It’s the way my Mom tells it.  The excited quality of her voice.  I’ve tried to write a poem about it multiple times.  Here’s examples of lines from the poem:

It’s okay to say Vermont like that,

like a prayer-word, like a rainstorm—

And this later:

It seems odd to want my own undoing,

but many times I wished you in Vermont.

Because I wonder what life would have been like for my Mom if she hadn’t left there.  If she’d stayed.  A lot of her story, of the man who helped to create me and Candace, how young she was, and how it spun her away, is her own.  Only she can tell you of those later years.  I can't retell her story.  I can only tell you a story I imagine.

She told me how in Vermont the neighboring asylum wasn’t great with security and how the full moon drove the patients crazier.  She’d find them wandering on the lawns.  The father of her host family was a doctor there.  I imagine my mother, long haired and wild-eyed, racing out in the night, leading these nomads of the mind back to their rooms. Barefoot in the dew settling on Vermont.

To me, my Mom is always barefoot in Vermont.

I’m sure she’ll tell you that we, her kids, are her greatest joy.  And I’m sure we are.  And like all experiences, it’s hard to say if we would trade that experience for who we are now.  The amalgamation of ourselves is a hard thing to argue against. The Lord has granted my Mom a lot of strength and foresight because of her life.  You can’t dissect that out from her.

In Vermont, she lived in a mansion.  She was the New Girl.  She was alone and full of destiny.  She could recreate herself.  She could be any version of her she wanted.  When I picture her, I don’t want her to meet my Dad.  I want her to stay. Visit her family in the summers and roadtrip far to the North.  Go to Prince Edward Island. Look out over the ocean. Know that she could swim it if she wanted to.

I’m an adult now.  I’m well adjusted despite the rollercoasters of childhood.  Our Mom pulled us through all that.  I don’t think she had a bad life or wasted it.  That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m saying that as an adult I want the most happiness for her.  As a child you only want happiness for yourself.  Now I wish I could go back and give her Vermont.  Give her the place that puts the most light in her voice.  Even if it derailed my life.  Even if I never happened.  I would want my Mom to have any existence she dreamed. Vermont ever after.

BEST BLOCKBUSTER SUMMER EVER? or How I Set Myself Up For Hulk Sized Disappointment But Can't Help Myself

I think it’s healthy to be excited about things.  It makes life more topographical.  No matter what I’m doing, I can see a mountain in the distance.  That mountain can be a lot of things.  The new Marvel movie.  A festival or journal I submitted to.  A trip.  A new burger place.  A project being filmed or staged.  Whatever it is, I like knowing it’s coming.  Feeling its nearness.  It’s like driving off-road.  Steering for the peaks and valleys instead of keeping to the even road.

Admittedly, it sets you up for greater disappointment. Anyone who has owned a BMX bike knows there are painful possibilities from going off the jump.  In layman’s terms, it’s called “crotching” yourself.  This analogy is apt because a good crotching is not life altering or damaging.  It’s just a momentary incapacitation, a discomfort you wish would pass so you can get back on the bike.  It also is obvious to everyone else around but it’s not a wound that can be treated like an arm break.  It’s treated with sympathy mixed with “I Told You So”.

Life is easily crotchable.  Especially if you set yourself up for it.  You don’t have to build jumps.  Most people don’t.

There are definitely larger applications for this but I’m going to use my love of blockbusters. In the Spring, I map out my Summer.  Not by vacations and swimming  but by which movies I’m most excited about.  I love Blockbuster Summer.  It’s a mountain I watch on the horizon, a mountain full of superheroes and face punches and car chases and witty banter and space battles and me stuffing my face with candy and Coke.

The success of Blockbuster Summer depends on these factors:

1.     The Amount of Blockbusters I’m Excited About

2.     The Amount That End Up Being Great

3.     The Amount That End Up Being Just Okay

4.     The Amount That Make Me Want to Die By Drinking Lava

It’s not all blockbusters.  It’s just the ones I want to see.  In 2011 there were 6 and it ended up 5/6.  In 2012, it was 3/4.  This year there are 7.  And about 5 Maybes.  It could be the Best Blockbuster Summer Ever.

Now uttering those words has put me in a dangerous, imminently crotching place.  But I have to live like this.  I have to be excited.  I have to share my excitement.  I have to find like-minded excitable people.

So when I say it can be likened to movies, it can.  But it's really more of a philosophy for me.  A choice to live life out in the open with hopes and dreams sewed on my sleeves.  Did you know I'm writing a new script? Of course you did.  I told you that.  Did you know that I'm waiting to hear back on a few other writing projects?  Sure.  Because I have to tell you.  It keeps me boiling.  It keeps a horizon in my eyes.

I’d rather be disappointed than regret.  I’d rather wallow in all my failures then obsess in my thoughts over might-have-beens.  And it’s not fame and recognition I want.  It’s completion.  It’s creation.  It’s standing over the sandcastle I’ve built and being okay that we may not outlive each other.  But at least everything I’ve made is here now.  I don’t care about immortality.  I care about the quality of my mortality.

See?  It’s a much bigger issue.  It’s not just me obsessing over Iron Man’s 42 suits of armor.   That’s a part of it, though.

For those of you interested, here's my Blockbuster Summer List:

Iron Man 3

The Great Gatsby

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Man of Steel

Pacific Rim

The Wolverine

Elysium

Long Overdue Thank You Notes

These are some thank you notes that I've been meaning to write for years.  And since I don't know where any of these people are, I'm asking the internet to deliver them for me.  Thank you, Internet.



THANK YOU,
Bum That Followed Me Into Barnes & Noble And Tried to Fight Me For Looking At Him, 

Thank you for splattering me with bum spit as you yelled at me.  I can’t tell what hepatitis smells like but I bet with one well shot loogie I could have acquired the whole alphabet. I’d bet that you’d be happy to know I’ve stopped looking at people.  I’d bet that you’d be happy but what I should really bet is that you’re lost inside Crazytown, USA, which has a PO Box inside your rotten mind.

THANK YOU,
Sharon, The Girl Who Dumped Me At My Birthday Party At Putt-Putt Golf,

I realize we were only in 4^th Grade and ‘going out’ was as big a commitment as choosing which flavor of Slurpee you wanted but still.  I was in like with you.  And I gave you all of my tickets I won at skeeball.  I wanted to get you that CD clock radio but 4000 tickets takes time and multiple allowances.

Did you know you were going to dump me before you had the cake?  Because if so, that funfetti cake should have tasted like dog sweat.  The only thing good that came out of that was my being close to tears put me in some sort of zen video game mode in which I got the high score on Karate Champ.  So I thank you/hate you.

THANK YOU,
Gay James For Offering To Let Me Be Gay With You If I Ever So Desired,

I’m sure it would have been a gay old time.  I appreciate the offer.  If I had been gay or not weirded out that a guy named James wanted to make out with me which would have been like making out with myself, then who knows?  But it was awesome being introduced as Straight James that whole night.  Like I was a powerful drink you could only order from a smoky bar in some film noir.

THANK YOU,

High School Drama Teacher Who Told Me I Was “Nothing Special”,

Well, look at me now, huh?  I have a blog!  With a medium sized readership!  I have lots of friends that “like” my posts on facebook!  I’ve done things in New York! (mostly eating)  I don’t have diabetes!  I’ve kept my hair!  Steve Buscemi said my name to me once.  My waist size hasn’t changed since high school even if what’s above my waist has fluctuated!  I’ve tried lots of cheeses!  I have an IMDB page (that I need to update)!  My appendix is unbursted! Suck on my specialness, Lady!

THANK YOU,
Mr. R For Driving Me Home In Complete Silence After You Caught Me Sucking Face With Your Daughter,

I don’t know if you were silent because you were being cool or you were crazy pissed and knew you'd just scream at me.  Or you were just shocked at your daughter.  Or you were sad for me because your daughter has a different dude every week and this is like a bad tv show you have to flip past.  Seriously.  I’m so grateful for that silence.  The mile back to my house was the longest thing I've ever experienced.  You could have stabbed me and I would have felt like I deserved it.  And I'm sorry I betrayed your silence by meeting your daughter the next day and making out with her in the woods.