Being a Dad

I wrote this in October and forgot to post it. Looking at it today, I decided I still like it and want to post it.

There’s something about baby smiles that makes dealing with infants about a thousand times easier than before they start smiling. It’s as if over night they go from being an eating pooping machine to a real person. Yesterday, I had no connection to my twin sons. Today they smiled and I love them every bit as much as I do my 2½ year old daughter. Weird response to the likely result of infant gas, yes, but it’s my response all the same.

Watched “Field of Dreams” recently and, naturally, cried towards the end. It touches on a truly sad dynamic in the relationship between father and son. By the time I got to know my father, he was already middle aged and past his prime. The same will be true for my own sons. They will never get to know me as a young man, in my prime. My earliest memories are as a 4 – 5 year old. By the time my sons turn 4, I’ll be 34. By the time they’re teenagers, coming into their own, I’ll be forty-two. I don’t resent growing old (much). It’s something we all have to do. It’s the passage of years that will separate me from my children. By the time they truly understand me, will it be too late? Too late for what though?

There’s a positive message for me and that it’s not too late, because I understand my own father now. I understand what he gave up for my brothers, sister and I. It takes a lot of love to run out of the house at 10 o’clock to pick up milk when more than anything you want sit in your chair drink a beer and watch the game on TV. It takes a lot of love to drag your tired, I work 50 – 60 hours a week, ass out of bed and drive you son to a 6am hockey practice. I hope he knows how much I love him back and how I know I’ll never repay him and can only hope to pass along that love to my own children. Maybe I should tell him.

My Writing Course Got Canceled

For Christmas My wife signed me up for a creative writing course at the local community college. It was a great gift idea and I was looking forward to the first class scheduled for Fed 1st. I called today for the room assignment only to find out that the class was canceled. WTF!

I’ve been trying, with some success, to get back into creative writing for several months. It’s something that’s been percolating in the back of my mind for years, that I’ve got some stories to tell and, maybe, the ability to tell them. This course was going to be a milestone in those efforts. It would be the first time I’ve worked with a professional since I took creative writing in college.

In college my professor encouraged me to seek out publishing opportunities but I never did. I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. Now I’m ready to try, eager to in fact, so this cancellation is very disappointing. I’m not going to give up though. In fact, I think I’ll start posting some stuff here, on the off chance that people are actually looking at this blog. Who knows, maybe I’ll get some feedback.

Financial Freedom

I’ve added a link to another BLOG. It’s about a man’s quest to have his net worth reach $2 million plus the value of his primary residence. He’s up to about $200K now which is impressive enough for a 29 year old. It led me to think about the efforts that my wife and I are undertaking to achieve some measure of financial security.

Living within our means has been a real struggle for us despite the good income I earn in my job. Part of the reason for this is living in New York State. I was born and raised in Massachusetts so I’ve learned to live with taxes to some extent. New York, however, has exceeded expectations. In short, it’s very expensive to live here. I’ve owned a house for almost 2 years now and in that time my taxes have nearly doubled. Taxes now make up roughly 40% of the monthly payment I make for my mortgage. Now with a daughter about to start preschool and twin boys who will become more expensive as they keep growing, the expenses will start to mount.

As I state above, I earn a good income. However, I haven’t received a raise in 2 years, despite consistent good reviews. This is disheartening because my wife and I are so careful with money. We bought used cars so we don’t have car payments. We use cloth diapers so we don’t have to spend a fortune on disposables, and so forth and so on. Despite these efforts we’re slowly being squeezed out. We cant save as much as we used to, we can’t afford to go anywhere to visit family.

I went to grad school, and my wife supported me, so that we could enjoy some measure of financial security. I lived up to my end of the bargain working hard, getting a job at a “good” company and then working hard to get ahead at that company. However, that isn’t enough. So what now?

Step one seems to be, get the hell out of New York State. I wonder why anyone lives here to be honest. It’s nice to be near New York City certainly but what’s the point if you can’t afford to enjoy it. So where can I take my family, make a similar salary and cut our cost of living. I’ve just started looking but it seems like the answer is, anywhere. It looks like my wife and I are about to embark on another adventure.

Writer's Block

Writing can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. I get into these modes where I’m capable of writing anything because as soon as I type the words I doubt them. Is this the best way to say this? Is this even interesting? Who would want to read this? It’s utterly self defeating. That is what writer’s block is to me. It’s not a lack of ideas but a lack of faith in those ideas and my own ability to express them.

I'm hopelessly addicted and it's to Civ 4

By day, I do my job to the best of my ability, help my wife with the children and do tasks about the house. By night I play Civ 4. Despite having twin infants who steal enough of my sleep and a demanding job, I find myself going to bed at 1 AM or later night after night because of Civ. It’s as if I need someone to just walk in and turn off the computer because I lack the will power to do so myself.

I’ve enjoyed the CIV series since my college roommate introduced me to Civ 1 in my junior year. He gave me his copy because my girlfriend had a computer and we didn’t. Suddenly I found myself visiting her not only to complete term papers and have sex but also to play Civ. She got hooked too. We’d play games together and be all cute, naming our people the sex fiends amongst other things.

In my senior year, I got Civ 2 and loaded it on the laptop I shared with my older brother. He was in law school at the time and we both ended up playing Civ 2 in class from time to time. Somehow we both managed to graduate from our respective schools.

More recently, I’ve owned and played Call to Power 2 and Civ 3 but sadly neither of these really had the same impact as Civ1 and 2. Both featured an increadible amount of late game tedium. I never finished a game of CtP 2 and ended up selling my copy. Civ 3 was an improvement but still the late game was very tough. It was like a job finishing a game. Naturally I gravitated towards other kinds of games during this time.

Civ 4 returns the franchise to its super addictive routes. It’s not just me either. My wife, the same girl who played Civ 1 as Danny of the Sex Fiends, is sucked in too. Why? Because, as in Civ 1 and Civ 2 there is the feeling that something important is about to happen or happening and that if I quit now I’ll somehow miss something. I’m always a couple of turns away from x, and when I get to x I find that I’m only a couple of turns away from y. This goes on and on until it’s one in the morning and one of my sons is crying in his crib for a late night snack and I’m looking at the clock wondering what the hell happened. In other words, great game.