Shades of Lester Burnham

My life has felt very dissatisfying lately.

I feel tremendously guilty even thinking that. I have a lot of things to be thankful for: my health, my family, a healthy, happy child, a job that pays me (just) enough to enable my wife to be a stay-at-home mom, a house (albeit rented) in a comfortable, safe neighborhood, a car that runs well, money in the bank, good health benefits, and many, many material things that make my life comfortable.

The biggest problem I face these days is getting my TV to pick up a good signal from the local FOX affiliate so I can watch the American Idol auditions without snow on the screen. (We decided to forego cable or satellite in order to save money. We therefore have a 42" screen with bunny ears.)

There are many who would kill for my existence. So what the hell am I bitching about?

Maybe it's that fabled Mid-Life Crisis. But I don't think a new Boxster or even the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile would fill the hole (and for fellow fans of The Office, all together now - "That's what she said.") Sure, the acquisition would feel good for a season, as I heard in church last Sunday, but once the novelty wore off, then what? And I don't think pursuing a cheerleader who looks like Mena Suvari would do much good either.

I thought it was my job, but maybe that's because I've been there long enough now (9 months) to see a lot of the office politics. Sure, I could go look for a new job right now, but once I got one, I'd probably start feeling the same way after 9 months there.

I feel like I'm just existing right now. As if I'm a drone in some science-fiction writer's dystopian society that gets up, goes to work, comes home, pays bills, watches TV, goes to sleep, then gets up to do it again the next day. And so on and so on.

I try to console myself with the fact that enabling my daughter to grow up healthy and happy is in itself an achievement. But it doesn't seem to be enough. I feel like I'm not making a difference in this world. I feel like I'm wasting the gifts God gave me.

I am working on an outline for my novel. But even after I write the damned thing, I know myself well enough to predict that I won't feel fulfilled until it's been published.

I suspect that I need to find some way to give back to the universe in general. Maybe I need to adopt a charity or do some volunteer work or something. There are a number of causes I'm passionate about. Maybe I need to physically do something to further them?

Anyone else out there ever feel like this?

School Daze

As I mentioned earlier, on Monday Robin and I visited a local preschool and put Keeley on its waiting list. It's a co-op school, which means that the parents are expected to put in time helping out with the classes and other activities in order to keep costs down. It also seemed like a low-key, nurturing kind of place, with that rustic Berkeley feel...like a rambling hippie compound as opposed to a cell block for preschoolers. There were little garden plots, rabbits and chinchillas in wooden hutches, and an abundance of arts and crafts projects in progress. Apparently the school's focus is on learning and socializtion through play; there isn't a real curriculum, in the conventional sense.

If all goes to plan, Keeley will start in September. She'll go twice a week for 3 hours at a time. Robin will also do her tour of duty in the classroom, so she won't be far away. The two of them may also sign up for a "toddler program" the school has, which consist of playgroups for the parent and child. The purpose behind this program is basically to introduce the child to the school slowly and gradually, in order to minimize separation anxiety (mainly in the parent).

What an odd feeling. Where did the time go? One minute Keeley's a little baby who nursed and wore sleepers all day, and the next minute she's getting ready to enter the system. Robin cried in the parking lot when we finished our tour; I tried to comfort her by reminding her that it was only for 6 hours a week and that she'd be right there with her.

But I understood where she was coming from. That night I laid awake for a while, deep in melancholia. I guess it was because of the knowledge that Keeley's babyhood was truly coming to a close.

Tempus fugit, indeed.

Stallone Again, Naturally

Back from a pretty good 3-day weekend. (I took Monday off as a comp day from work). It was a fairly busy three days. The highlights included:

- Touring a local preschool and put Keeley on the waiting list. (I’ll discuss this tom’w).
- Cleaning up our laundry room, which lately has become a dumping ground for items we don’t want to keep in our house proper but which we haven’t managed to stick in the metal storage shed in our back yard.
- Having a bacon cheeseburger at Tops, which is a local fast-food joint with generous portions of artery-clogging delights. (This is a treat for Mr. Tries to Eat Healthy).
- Going to a matinee (alone!) of RAMBO.


As a male child of the 80s, I got my fair share of exposure to Stallone, Ah-nold, Seagal, VanDamme and their ass-kicking colleagues. And when I heard that Sly was doing a new Rambo flick, I couldn’t wait. My appetite was whetted even further when I watched an uncensored trailer on YouTube a few months ago.

Well, I loved the new movie. It was so graphically violent, it made the first 3 movies look positively G-rated by comparison. I don’t mean to spoil the movie for you, but in this one Rambo kills about a thousand evil Burmese soldiers almost singlehandedly.

My cinematic bloodlust was tempered a little at one point, though, due to my status as a parent. There’s a scene in the middle of the movie where the evil soldiers massacre an entire village, using bullets, mortars, flamethrowers, machetes, bayonets and anything else they can get their hands on. No one is spared, not even children. In fact, there are close-ups of children being shot at point-blank range, bayoneted, and even taken from their moms and thrown into flaming huts.

It was hard to watch, even if the killings reinforced my eagerness (as if I needed help) to see Rambo literally take the bad guys apart in the climax. It’s not that I enjoy seeing innocent people slaughtered even in a movie, but before I became a parent I just shrugged it off. But now I find myself always thinking about the human toll. And I couldn’t help but envision myself and my family being assaulted the way countless people in the world are even as I write this. As I left the theatre, I had horrible morbid thoughts of my tiny daughter being thrown into a flaming hut to be burned alive.

Arg. I can’t think about it any more. I still enjoyed RAMBO, but I think I need to watch ZOOLANDER again to get back to my happy place.

The Lateness of the Hour

This has been a looonnnnggg-ass week at work. Not only was it the first full work week after the holidays, but I had to work late twice and through lunch three times in order to meet some deadlines. On Wednesday I got home at 9:30, which was after Keeley's bedtime, so that was the first day in her life that Daddy didn't see her while she was awake. (Because of our wonderful L.A. traffic, I have to leave for work before she gets up.) I did look in on her while she slept, though, so the day wasn't a complete loss.

I realize there a lot of dads (and moms) out there who, because of work demands, frequently don't see their kids during the waking hours. I wonder if it bothers them as much as it bothers me?

I hate having to stay late at work. With a passion. Being a salaried employee, I don't get paid extra for working OT, although we do get comp time. I still hate it. I've never understood why it's considered normal for 'white-collar workers' to work OT when their counterparts in the service or 'blue-collar' industries regularly clock out at the end of their shifts.

Most of my immediate co-workers have no problem with working late. This is mainly because they're younger and single, or at least sans children. I was the same way 15-20 years ago. Like them, I had no domestic commitments. Like them, I had plenty of disposable income to be spent on eating out, drinking, or the latest and greatest toys. Like them, work was a social outlet, particularly if I liked my co-workers.

Well, as Holly Hunter said in Raising Arizona, "We have a child now. Things have cha-aynged!"

Sigh. It could be worse.

Relocation update: I just ordered a free copy of a "Dallas-Fort Worth Relocation Guide". I also subscribed to e-mail alerts from Southwest Airlines in order to get some decent fares to the Metroplex (that's the DFW area, I just learned) when they become available. We would like to go check out the area in the spring and see if we can really picture ourselves living there. Yee-haw!

2008...Ain't It Great

Happy New Year to y'all. So sorry, but I've been too fucked up with a cold for the past week to post. It kinda sucks because I'm one of those people that starts off a new year with a sense of optimism and hyper-motivation. In other words, I'm already thinking about all those things in my life that I'm going to achieve or complete in the coming 365 days. And getting sick kinda kills that.

The Swift family had a good NYE and NYD, all things considered. We spent part of last weekend in San Francisco visiting Robin's mom, her younger brother Jason and his wife Louise. We ended up coming home a day early because J and L couldn't handle Keeley making noise while they tried to sleep (at 9:30 at night). They didn't necessarily have to go anywhere the next morning; they're just a couple of boring old farts stuck in the bodies of 35-year-olds. So actually it was nice to part company with them a day early.

Then Robin caught a cold and I kept Keeley occupied for 2 days so Robin could rest and recover. She felt better enough by NYE to stay up and watch The 40-Year-Old Virgin and the ball drop from Times Square. She didn't feel better enough for me to get some, however.

And, of course, now both Keeley and I have the cold. And I'm here at work because I already called in sick on Monday to take care of Miss K while Robin rested.

Hopefully next week will be better!

I did want to share that we are now strongly considering moving to Texas. We can get a brand new house out there for less than $200K in Austin or the Dallas-FW areas! Booyeah! So now I'm starting to research the job possibilities and plan a trip to visit and check it out. I even applied for a graphics job in Dallas last night; I don't expect they'll respond, but it's a start. If anyone out there knows anything about either Austin or Dallas with regards to jobs for graphic artists, please comment or e-mail me. In fact, if anyone has any info on these two places at all, particularly if you happen to live in either, please comment or e-mail.

Have a nice weekend, y'all.