Upon this world of rock and ruin
Hate and trouble often brewing
Few who live to love are left
Many follow hate in word and deed
And the rest are consumed by zombies

Sukie, my wife of 10.5 years, is pregnant again.

Planned, of course. After having a child so young, the one aim I had for my future offspring is that their arrival would be planned like a million dollar diamond heist, and they would be brought in to a world of order instead of chaos. Years went by, and it became clear (to me) when we didn’t have another child when our only child was 6 years old, that the world of order wouldn’t exist. Wars waged, the economy tanked, personal dramas ensued. If we waited for a more perfect time, it certainly looked like we would be too old.

Creation is one of the absolute highs of life, as any artist can tell you. Emotionally, the process has been fraught with strange flashbacks to how difficult it was the first time around, being pregnant. In a way, Sukie and I bore that load independently, as it is apparent to me (now) that I did not participate in her side of the process. As a father, and by nature, a hunter / gatherer, and finding the task of providing to be an exceptionally unreachable goal at the young age of 18, it did not work well with my already manic depressive tendencies. The disapproval of nearly every single one of our friends and subsequent alienation shook me hard.

It was OK at first, like a strange trip in to the unknown, and it sounds strange to me (now) that I would ever have been OK with that. I believe the process has altered me; the trauma left it’s marks deep inside my psyche. I felt thrust in to a world of uncertainty, living with my wife’s parents, living in a different schedule, a different rhythm entirely. It was difficult for me, and the general atmosphere broke me down more than once. I was drowning in a situation entirely of my own creation.

Don’t feel bad for me, though, I write about a tough time that was an eternity ago. I was someone else, immature, who thought magical things would happen for me, as if by chance. Well, as 10 years have passed, I can tell you, I first believed that, then I stopped believing it, and now I am back to believing it again. Magical things did happen for me, but I was too inexperienced to enjoy it.

Life was hard, and took on a new rhythm, but in the process I became a much stronger person. I learned that I was capable of managing the struggle, capable of escaping a collapsing world, and taking precious treasures with me as I left. It took me a while but I finally grew up and stopped moping about life.

I am glad that I did grow up, because I finally could focus on being a father and husband.

For one, I have an incredible bond with my son, I love him very much and I am proud of his smarts and his conduct (most of the time.) I recognize that he, myself, and Sukie, are products of those early years, and that this story belongs to us. I know that other people had it harder than us, and I’m OK with that.

I believe that it took me a while to become a stronger person, and I have more growing to do, but I can stop, look at what I’ve accomplished, and look forward to new challenges. It’s important to stop, and look at what you’ve accomplished. Reflection and introspection are important tasks on any to-do list.

I’ve been stressed out to new horrible levels, but you have to take time to enjoy the little things:

always funny to watch somebody get scared

In 10+ years of marriage and familyhood, Sukie, the boy, and myself have gone on a few short sojourns; a weekend in California, a weekend in Moab (two times!) – but this trip we embark upon in 32 hours or so will put them all down. Perhaps.

You see, I have this approach to things. They test me, and so I test them, and often, I best them, and so I must jest them. Often in reverse, for I am a man who loves his wit like he loves his life; a little on the dirty side, but mostly clean.

So, when the great kingdoms of Walt and Disney test me, I shall savour their delicious fruits as they churn through my inner workings; am I improved, or are they improved, in this exchange? Who can say? It most certainly will rain, and I loves the splendours of the rains. I delight in its life-giving powers, it’s tiny, life-giving, vestibules of the purest varieties. The impudence! The impropriety!

Ah, I slipped in to a strange verbal trance there. You see? Even I have capabilities!

That this is a good time of year to go to Florida and the rain stays mainly in the plains. Well, that it rains like somebody just dropped a water balloon on the state, but that it stops raining just that fast.

Here’s to the longest 3 day work week in recorded history! (Though I worked on both weekend days so really this is day 8 of my work week!)

So if you’ve had to be around me at all this week you’ll probably have seen a different Wudan – depressive, cranky, moody …

Oh wait, I’m like that a lot. But I guess I don’t think I do, or something. It rarely bubbles up to the surface, I think. I push all those upset feelings down deep in to a vault that has a label on the door that says “Open In Case of _____” so I’m never sure when the denizens of the vault of upsettness will claw their way through my innards and show themselves to the my waking worlds.

Thank goodness I’m going on vacation next week. The 10-day forecast was looking like rain, EVERY DAY. So in my mind I was thinking, I’m going to the happiest place on Earth and it will rain EVERY DAY.

I like rain, but not EVERY DAY. Well, I checked yesterday and the first Saturday is SUNSHINE.

And so I have at least one thing to be happy about.

In fact, I’m goddamned ecstatic.

ECSTATIC. EXHILARATED.

So I’m glad it’s Friday. HUZZAH!

So on Saturday, around noonish, an army of good friends descended upon what used to be a dated basement room, which until about a month ago or so was just storage for Sukie’s excess fish junk. She has been working up to this remodel, first by reorganizing the garage, then by moving all her fish junk to the garage (which she then sold at huge losses), and then we ripped the room down to the studs, which was laborious, involved a trip to the dump to dispose of the waste, and finally we did some wiring and drywall hanging (last weekend)

So this weekend was *more* drywall hanging madness, window replacing, vent-box-cover-building, furring strip hanging, in a 12+ hour blitz that wouldn’t have happened at all without the help of really great friends. Oh yeah, we also replaced a basement window, which is just about the craziest thing I have EVER replaced in a house (well, the guts of the water heater was a pretty insane job, too.) Oh, and at like 1am I also got wireless working on Striker’s laptop.

I have been dreading a lot of the stuff that we got done yesterday, as I dread many things that seem beyond my capability or understanding. I’m not a handy guy, damnit. Take furring strips – I’d just write some code to handle it:

for xpos < ceiling_width:
tack_strip(xpos)
xpos += 16

But actually fastening a board to the ceiling is an insane task, hammering through a 2x2 and then in to a joist, potentially through a knot in the wood (note: breed trees without knots), is just asking for issues. Did I mention we got the kind of nails that have a friction-activated glue on them, so when you are driving one in you can't stop half-ways? We did get it and now everything from here on in gets attached with screws - well, except for the closet overhang thing.

We're still at <$1000 for the project, however, having just bought wood, drywall, screws, nails, a window, and the flooring (and Sukie bought mud and tape and stuff yesterday), so the room coming together like it has is starting to have it's benefits, chiefly being the sense of accomplishment, and knowing that it's shaping up to be a great room that the family can utilize for it's PC and study needs. I even ran power to the 'closet' because that's where I'll stick the router and wireless gateway. CRAZY, right? It won't just be in a pile next to my PC?

It really wouldn't be happening so quickly without great friends, and my beautiful wife of over 10 years.

for not blogging more often.

My Love is from a run down part of town where the kids may not be nice to each other, the parents might be too busy working but if you really understood the thing that is human survival you would understand the thing that is everything here, among the broken down, happy but not rich denizens of this sprawling concrete pile, is Love. In a sad, cosmically and comically unpleasant sort of buzzing in the back of ones head, these people might not quite see that it is all Love, but will all be touched by it, by the pure fact that after you have boiled down our relation to one another from anything else, Love is what these people have to live with, eat with, breathe with.

My Love might not get you flowers, or write you letters, but will think of you always and fondly recall the way you do these things for me. My Love appreciates your Love.

My Love is tougher than steel-plated-toughness and is known to withstand nuclear blasts. After the fools of man have had their way with this planet, this people, and the Love of a dying world, the survivors will be; cockroaches, Twinkies, and My Love.

My Love sees the miracles in life, sees the world as a child sees it, and seeks out Pure Joy wherever it might be lurking. They were roommates at university, so things can get a little crazy when they’re together.

My Love is always sad to see you go; always happy to be with you.

My Love doesn’t need, doesn’t want, doesn’t understand, and can’t be told no. It doesn’t ask to be felt, it simply pervades like street lamp light. It is not the bulb, not the pole, it is the thing that you are seeing when you are seeing but contains none of the properties of the thing you observe and encompasses all of them with a soft, lulling glow. I just hope it’s not one of those god-awful orange street lights. Some times it might be, and I guess that’s okay because it is better to see than not to see; better to Love than not Love, and even when the light is off the Love would still be there – maybe scared but maybe not? I’ve been in the dark before and the Love felt fine to me so I guess it really isn’t scared at all, but like an observed particle the acknowledgment, salutation, and ‘how do you do?’ of Love will only happen to result in a measurement unpredictable and most certainly not the same as an unmeasured unobserved un-intruded upon particle and I am certain that I have not yet found a method of observation that did not yield an unpredictable result which leads me to believe that there is magic in this world because after all the years of scientific progress a quantifiable entity such as the thing that I am can not begin to quantify the nothing that is everything to me; Love.

My Love hopes you don’t mind that I wrote this at 5am.

So on Saturday Sukie, the Boy, and myself headed down to Sandy for a birthday party. We ate awesome pulled pork sandwiches and watched Kung Fu Panda, the latter of which was projected on to the side of a bouncy castle.

So while I was sitting there with Lucas, we observed our friend’s son (4 or 5 years old) watching over his new, two-week old sister, talking to her and trying to soothe her.

I told him what a good job he was doing and then asked Lucas if he’s going to be a good brother when Sukie and I have another one. His response is proof that I have raised a cold, calculating supervillain:

“Are you going to be a good older brother?”

“It depends”

“Depends on what?”

“Certain factors.”

“Like what?”

“I choose not to reveal them at this time.”

He was being 100% deadpan serious, no grins. I love that kid.