I, Ian

The writing groove

2009-11-15T10:02:00.003-05:00

I want to hear how you do manage to write while taking care of two littles! Does it involve lots of plan and structure, or a willingness to improvise? (I mostly manage at naps and after bedtime, but I always like other ideas.)

That was from Melissa, in response to my solicitation for post ideas for NaBloPoMo.

It's an especially apropos question right now, because November marks Lisa's return to work after her maternity leave, so we're establishing a regular routine for me to be at home alone with both children. And a critical part of that has been coming up with some way to give me time to write for the first time since Abigail's birth.

So Lisa and I sat down last week and came up with a schedule. What we ended up with was fifteen hours a week, spread from Friday to Monday. It's not perfect, and it's not really quite enough--but it's a big step up from when my only writing time was Paul's two-hour nap on a weekday afternoon. Not only does it give me (a bit) more time than I was getting then, but it also concentrates that time into much larger blocks, making it possible to pick up some momentum.

That time, I should note, is just for what I'd call proper writing--writing for professional publication. No blogging gets done during that time. Blogging gets fitted in during the day (preferably the morning). Usually it's when Abigail's napping and Paul is playing in his room or watching Dora the Explorer. It's not that I have a particularly easy time writing posts while I have to keep at least half an eye on a small child, it's that the blogging just can't be so important as to take away from the proper writing.

Though I do wonder if that's the reason why I still feel like I have to grind out these blog posts. NaBloPoMo, forcing daily writing, was supposed to get me back into the groove. To get the creative juices flowing again. That hasn't happened yet. These posts are still a chore. I wonder if shifting them to the actual dedicated writing time, when Lisa has the kids and I'm off somewhere quiet and undisturbed, would make writing them easier and more beneficial.

Mommy Melee also makes a great point this morning about our imaginations needing some decent input before it can give us a quality output. For far too long Odalisque has sat there on this blog's sidebar at the left of your screen under "What I'm reading"--far too long, considering I haven't even picked the book up since, I think, Abby's birth.

It's time to start greasing the wheels with some good input again. I'm working on the thriller at the moment, I tend to read thrillers. I'm still only halfway through the collection of the complete Ian Fleming short stories that was released to coincide with Quantum of Solace. Then I have an Alan Furst waiting to be read. Movies, too--seeing The Third Man for the first time gave me a pretty intense rush of I want to write something just like that, though I failed to capitalise on it.

And I guess that means now, I also have to carve out some reading time.

I'm very interested in how everyone else fits their writing in around their kids and their jobs. How do you guys find time to write?

I

Eaters of the Dead

2009-11-14T11:08:00.002-05:00

The year is A.D. 922. A refined Arab courtier, representative of the powerful Caliph of Bagdad, encounters a party of Viking warriors who are journeying to the barbaric North. He is appalled by their Viking customs — the wanton sexuality of their pale, angular women, their disregard for cleanliness . . .

their cold-blooded human sacrifices. But it is not until they reach the depths of the Northland that the courtier learns the horrifying and inescapable truth: He has been enlisted by these savage, inscrutable warriors to help combat a terror that plagues them — a monstrosity that emerges under cover of night to slaughter the Vikings and devour their flesh . . .

It's the very idea behind Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton that reserves it a spot as my 44th favourite book, even before the idea's compulsively readable execution.

Eaters of the Dead (you might also find it as The Thirteenth Warrior, the title of its rather good film adaptation starring Antonio Banderas and Omar Sharif) is an intellectual exercise: it takes as its starting point the premise that the mediaeval English epic poem Beowulf is a retelling of actual historical events, albeit one that has been embroidered and heavily mythologised over the centuries during which it has been passed down through aural tradition, much the same way that the Iliad is a retelling of a historical episode from Mycenaean Greece. The novel presents itself as an account of the actual events that gave rise to the Beowulf legend, in the form of the journal of an Arab functionary caught up in them.

It's something that catches my imagination instantly--stripping down a myth to its origins, so that we can appreciate both its truth and its fiction. I have a dark fantasy cycle whose central character is built around just that. It's one of the chief things I love about my second-favourite-ever books, Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy.

Also, Eaters of the Dead is what first introduced me to ibn Fadlan, the mediaeval Arab writer who travelled throughout Russia. I now own his account of his travels--his actual account, in addition to the account where he travels to Denmark with Beowulf to fight that blight that has afflicted Heorot.

I

Bloke Response Friday

2009-11-13T08:27:00.004-05:00

Today I'm partaking of the response this week's Girl Talk Thursday. Our topic for the day, therefore, is a List of Five, but this time, it's ~~five~~ ~~six~~ seven fictional characters.

Though, this turned out to be a much wordier post than I anticipated. If anybody would rather just see pictures of gorgeous women, going back to that original List of Five post would probably do you better.

(Though there's no reason you can't do both.)

Lady Marion of Leaford (Judi Trott), Robin of Sherwood

For four-year-old Ian and for present-day Ian, Judi Trott's Maid Marion is a huge part of what makes ITV's Robin of Sherwood one of my favourite ever TV shows (and, for my money, the best TV or film Robin Hood retelling ever--the Washington Post says so, too). Some of you have had the opportunity to read stuff I've written about the character Corinne--Corinne is Judi Trott, at least physically. (Well, except that Corinne has green eyes, because I can't resist green eyes.)

Emily and Katie Fitch (Kathryn and Megan Prescott), Skins

Redhead identical twins. Don't think I really need to say anything more.

Chiana (Gigi Edgely), Farscape

It was the way she moved--so alien, and so sensual. Well, also the smoking hot body and painstaking grey makeup. But Gigi Edgely deserves such credit for the job she does portraying Chiana every single second she's on the screen, in a way most actors don't have to. Well, either that, or it's Gigi Edgely who has a way of moving and walking that can only be described by combining the terms reptilian and incredibly sexy.

Toda Mariko, Shogun

Just beats out Lady Jessica Atreides as the book character on the list. With Mariko existing on the page rather than the screen, her sexiness lies more in the idea of her than in any actuality (though Yôko Shimada makes a plenty attractive Mariko in the miniseries). Mariko is samurai; she is a woman who lives in a society where infidelity on the part of a married woman is punishable by instant death. And yet she falls in love with an Englishman and has a secret affair with him. Having a beautiful woman show you the wild sexual side she always keeps hidden, while the rest of the world has no idea and sees only someone serene and demure? Very hot.

Zoe Heriot (Wendy Padbury), Doctor Who

(Zoe is someone who I really feel should be appreciated from all angles.)

It was a close-run thing between which Doctor Who companion made it onto my list--Zoe or Nyssa. Zoe wins on cuteness, but Nyssa totally wins on girls-I-had-a-crush-on-when-I-was-four. You know what? Doctor Who is a time travel show. What is the point of a time machine if not to create awesome threesome pairings? No reason we can't also have

Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), Doctor Who

They've got a lot in common, thinking about it. They're both from advanced societies--Nyssa from the distant planet Traken, Zoe from a human space colony in a distant time known as "the year 2000". They're both innocent and sheltered from the ways of the world--a huge turn-on for me. And they're both precocious, brilliant geniuses--mathematical in Zoe's case, scientific in Nyssa's. Women who are smarter than me? Very very hot. Super-smart girls who are into maths & science? Very very hot.

Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi), From Russia With Love

Well I guess I do have a second book character here, though I've never read From Russia With Love, only seen the movie. The ~~Italian~~ Russian accent. The choker and stockings. (Dude. The choker and stockings.) The scene where she seduces Bond in his hotel room that is still the scene being used to audition Bond girls. What about any of that is it possible to resist? And then there's the fact that she presents herself as an eminently competent Soviet intelligence official, but when events sweep her up, she ends up in over her head, needing to be rescued. A woman who looks confident and independent to the rest of the world, but still needs you to protect her? That gets some primal urges going, right there.

Don't forget to head over to the main site to do your own list.

A surreal moment

2009-11-12T11:23:00.007-05:00

I always like to know where I've seen an actor before. I've got no qualms about using IMDB, but it bugs me if I can't ultimately identify them.

I don't watch Heroes. I think I've seen about two episodes total, prior to our trip to Florida last month. But we stayed with my Lisa's sister and brother-in-law, and they do watch Heroes. So that was what Lisa and I watched, too.

There was a character. A young woman. I knew her from somewhere, but unusually for me, I had no idea whatsoever where I'd seen her before. So I headed to IMDB.

As I was waiting for the page to load, though, a thought occurred to me. Instantly I dismissed it. No. It couldn't be.

But it was. Where had I seen her before?

High school English class. Well, and math, and history, and science.

It was a pretty cool moment.

Good morning! What, afternoon?

2009-11-11T12:48:00.002-05:00

Before I get into the body of the post, right at the top here I'm going to wish Lisa a happy birthday. Happy birthday, Lisa. Love you.

I was all set today to talk about the new schedule Lisa and I have worked out for me to write, but then a little bit of parenting life took over.

Lisa leaves for work around five, so at four she gets Abby up to nurse. She then passes her off to me to get her back to sleep while Lisa herself goes off to work.

Only this morning, Abby didn't go back to sleep.

Well, she did go back to sleep, for five minutes. And then she was awake again. Fifteen minutes later she was back to sleep. And ten minutes after that, she was once more up.

You see how this is going to go. Rinse, repeat. Till eight AM.

It was at eight that i noticed her pants were soaking wet. Could it really have been as simple as that? Had I just not checked to see if she needed a change, and she'd soaked through?

Well, not exactly.

I removed her pants to find ... a diaper that hadn't been wet at all, so far as I could tell. But, you know, gone to the trouble of getting pants off and all, so I went ahead and changed her anyway. And found the problem.

The outside of the back of her diaper was covered in poop. I don't know what had happened--I guess maybe it somehow got folded round under her proverbially smooth baby bottom when she last had a diaper change. But she'd pooped, and that poop (apart from the segment that had spilled out into her pants) had been deposited onto the thoroughly non-absorbent outside of the diaper and held against her bottom. No wonder she was cranky.

So I changed her and got a bottle out for her, and by nine o'clock she was out cold.

And I was, predictably, exhausted.

So I took a nap. It's not a problem to leave Paul alone with his toys and the TV for a while; most mornings he gets up about an hour before I do and occupies himself in the living room. I figured my best case scenario would be that I'd get about 45 minutes to an hour's kip before Abby or Paul came up with some reason I had to get up again.

Friends. Friends. I slept from nine AM until NOON. I slept THREE HOURS. It was glorious. I remember, vaguely, Paul coming in at one point to ask if he could have his bath now (he was itching to play with the squirt bottle and exceptionally pink Dora bubble bath he got at the shop last night) and me telling him that's not one of the reasons he gets to wake people up for. And then going right back to sleep.

I remember waking up and seeing Lisa's bedside clock reading 11.45, and thinking for one moment, Oh God, I've slept till noon, and then remember Lisa still hasn't reset her clock since the end of Daylight Savings Time, so that meant it was actually still only 10.45. Oh that's good. I can get up now and I've only slept two hours.

And then I went back to sleep again. And when I woke up again, and Lisa's clock read 12.52.

Three hours.

Now, please don't think this was one of those fabled Consequence-Free naps we all think we remember from our pre-parenting days but aren't positive ever really happened. There were consequences, I assure you. Three hours is way too long to leave a three-year-old to his own devices, and it's not something I would have ever done intentionally.

But the damage was fairly minimal, compared to the havoc he'd be capable of wreaking if he set his mind to it. He'd got out our game of Memory and strewn the cards randomly throughout the house (you know what doesn't make for a good game of Memory? A game of Memory with half the cards missing.), and my computer had been rebooted, which necessitated a timeout.*

Set next to three hours? A price worth paying.

I

*Paul has recently started playing the games at the PBS Kids Sprout website, but a resultant lesson that's proving really hard to learn is that he can only press the buttons that are relevant to that game, and can only press buttons on the computer when it's on one of his games (or turned off).

No fooling HIM

2009-11-10T07:42:00.003-05:00

This is just a quick story, so I was going to save it for a day when I really didn't feel like posting. But I feel like it becomes less and less relevant the further we get from Hallowe'en.

Last year we filled a bowl with candy, and Lisa took Paul out trick or treating while I stayed behind to answer the door. Only no one came to the door. Even Lisa and Paul didn't stick around in our apartment complex; she took him to the housing subdivision just through the trees at the back of the car park.

So this year we were all four going to go, and just leave the full candy bowl outside our front door. But when it approached time to leave, Abby had just fallen asleep after having been awake for rather a while, so I stayed behind with her.

After Lisa and Paul had been gone a while, there came--a knock at the door. I answered, and found a tiny fireman standing there, poised to say something to whomever opened the door. But when he saw me, he faltered, and his eyes shifted to someone out of view round the doorframe.

"No," Paul said, "it is Dad!"

"Say it anyway," Lisa said quietly.

"But it's Dad," Paul repeated.

"See if you still get candy if you say it," Lisa said.

Paul turned back to me. "Hi, Dad. We're home. We got candy!"

And he brushed past me into our home.

I

And now on NaBloPoMo, NaNoWriMo

2009-11-09T09:04:00.003-05:00

I would like very much to hear your ramblings on what it is like to see all us NaNos running around now that you are on the other side. Because this is my first time and I'd like to know that I won't have gone mad by the end or totally failed.

That was from the responses to my solicitation for post ideas (the call for ideas is still open, by the way), from Sabrina. I'm answering now because we're early in the second week of NaNoWriMo. Right around this point, pretty much everybody (or at least, pretty much all the first-timers) will have dropped out. Many will find a reason to return, of which most will finish their half-novel successfully; but most will just give up.

I did NaNoWriMo once, in 2006. I'm really glad I did it. It was an interesting little exercise, which gave me the first half of Masks and Shadows; and I did, indeed, flag for a day or two around the beginning of the second week. I toyed last year with the idea of doing it again, but in the end I don't really think I found enough challenge in it the first time that I'd get much benefit from a second go-round.

I think you can divide NaNos into two groups. There's the people who want to be proper, published novelists, who are Serious About Their Craft (or think they are), and there's the people who don't, who just do it for a lark. And I think both groups can take something different from the experience.

For the casual writers? Well, I love anything that gets people writing. Anyone who doesn't write regularly, who can bang out seventeen hundred words a day for an entire month? That's awesome. That's really something to be proud of. And maybe they'll find they have a real love it, or a real talent (hopefully both, but you know how it is. There are plenty of people who have only one.), and our community will gain a new member.

For the ones who want to be novelists, it's a bit more complicated. If you write for publication, or if you write to have an actual novel that you have written (which NaNo won't give you--fifty thousand words? Not a novel.), NaNoWriMo can be a useful tool. But it's important to remember that just like any other tool, it's just a tool, something to help you get to your real goal--a novel. Like pre-writing research, or a crit group, or fifty pages of character bios, it's not an end in itself.

It's great proving to yourself that you can finish, and it's a wonderful creative exercise. But I think it's counterproductive to lose sight of the fact that fifty thousand words is only slightly greater a milestone than forty thousand, and slightly less a milestone than sixty thousand.

As long as we can keep sight of that? I think it's a great thing to do, and I'm so happy to see you doing it, Sabrina. I wish you, and the Olivers, happy words.

I

Remembrance Sunday

2009-11-08T11:46:00.005-05:00

Today is Remembrance Sunday.

I'm fortunate enough not to have anyone who's a big part of my life who's ever had to give their life for their country. For either of my countries. So on this Remembrance Sunday, I'd like to mention by name three men I knew--one of whom I still know, for he's still with us--who didn't have to make that sacrifice, but who took the risk of having to do so, who served in uniform in time of war.

Reg Racey, Royal Navy. Received campaign decorations for virtually every theatre in which British forces were engaged in combat from 1939 to 1945.

Alf Massey, RAF. Enlisted in 1940 and served as a flight engineer aboard a Halifax bomber in six hundred hours of missions over Occupied Europe.

Reg Scott, British Army. Fought against the Japanese in Southeast Asia.

I have other relatives who fought for Britain, principally in the Second World War--my mum's Uncle Edward served in the Indian Army, I believe--but these are the ones whom I can remember, who were a part of my childhood.

The men whom I thank on a day like today.

I

If Paul's happy, I guess that should make me happy

2009-11-07T10:43:00.003-05:00

When Paul gets angry at you for disciplining him, or just when he's in a bad mood, he tells you he doesn't love you.

It doesn't bother me when my three-year-old says he doesn't love me. He's three. He doesn't understand that you can be angry at someone and still love them at the same time.

I don't remember why he was so cranky--I think it was in the first day or two of his recent cold--but from his carseat he declared, "Dad, I don't love you!"

My normal response to that is to say, "Well, I still love you," which I say in part because it infuriates him no end, but before I could, Lisa broke in with, "And how does that make you feel, Dad?"

So dutifully I responded with, "That makes me sad."

"Oh," Paul said. "Well that makes me happy."

I

Good morning

2009-11-06T07:25:00.002-05:00

It's 8AM, and already I feel like it's time for my afternoon nap. And I don't take afternoon naps.

Lisa leaves for work by 5.15 every morning. Shortly before then, she brings Abby in to me, having got up at four to nurse her. I then get the little one down in her bassinet and go right back to bed till she wakes up again, sometime between seven and eight.

This morning Lisa brought her in at 4.30, which, you'll note, is around a half hour earlier than usual. Abby hadn't eaten; she'd just gone right back to sleep. She didn't even wake as I swaddled her, so I just popped her straight back in her bassinet and went back to sleep.

Till 5.45, when she woke up screaming. With hunger, of course. So she and I have been up ever since then. I've just managed to deposit her back in her bassinet, though the little coos emanating from the baby monitor fill me with dread that she won't be staying there long. I'd really like to get her down, so that I can go back to bed for a little while myself.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things this is hardly a bad morning for an infant. And there's much, much worse to come. But if this was going to happen my first week home, I'm glad it happened on Friday.

I

Remember, remember

2009-11-05T08:45:00.002-05:00

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Today we begin what will probably be a NaBloPoMo theme. I've got an inkling for a post, but don't really think there's enough to it to give it some meat. But it's November and I need a post for today (and 25 more posts for the next 25 days), so instead of doing what I normally do--filing it away in the back of mind for "future use" (forgetting), I'm going to see if I can't get a paragraph or two out of it before inevitably meandering off into an unsatisfying (or perhaps even baffling) conclusion.

I've been to Bonfire Night bonfires. I'd imagine I've been to six, or maybe just five, though the most recent would have been in 1986. My memories of them are, at best, the haziest and briefest of snapshots. I remember the bonfires--I remember how they crackled, and how quickly it got hotter as I approached them in the crisp English November air. I remember the homemade effigies. I remember the sparklers--I really liked the sparklers. I might remember proper fireworks, beyond the sparklers, but I'm not sure.

Most of my memories of living in England are like that. 1987 is the great dividing line of my memories of childhood, the year we moved to America. The times before then are--distant. Not quite real. There are plenty of memories from that time that I don't feel quite certain actually happened.

The England of back then isn't the England I know today. It's dreamlike and surreal. It's Rolf Harris at his drawing board; it's weekends with Katie and Adam on the grounds of the cricket club; it's Peter Davison as Doctor Who; it's my grandparents' ottoman and endtable; it's a glimpse of the jagged rocks of my school's playground wall right before i gashed my forehead open on them; it's getting picked out of the audience to go up on stage with Sooty.

The word I used above says it best, I think--snapshots. A collection of images, snatches of motion, the occasional scent or sound. All jumbled together, in no right order, like a box of photographs you find in the attic. And the emotions that go with them all.

Those can be the best memories to have, I think.

I

Pinellas County: toddler petri dish

2009-11-04T09:39:00.005-05:00

I guess it's appropriate that the day of my post about everyone but me getting sick finds me dealing with a mild stomach bug. Trust me, I much rather would have had the cough everyone's been dealing with than a bad stomach.

Since our last Monday in Florida was also the Monday before Hallowe'en, we figured it would be a nice thing to get all the two- and three-year-olds together for some Hallowe'en themed activities that evening. There was pumpkin painting, baking cookies and making candy corn out of construction paper. Paul, his cousin Justin and Diane's older girl Vio all had a great time.

We'd been supposed to be joined by one other--Chipmunk, Diane's friend Maria's older boy. But he'd had a fever a few days before and had a runny nose, so Maria didn't come, in case he passed something on to Abby--she still hadn't had her two month shots at that point. I guess the joke ended up being on Maria, though, because it's far more likely that what she actually avoided was having her boys pick something up from us, instead.*

Because the next morning, Paul woke up with a fever and a cough.

His uncle and grandma--Lisa's mother and brother--had had the same symptoms a day or two earlier, though none of us had really had any contact with them since then. I know Diane has a theory that it all came from her younger girl, Roo, who'd had a fever the prior Monday--that she either spread it through me, when I visited that Monday, or the day before at Abigail's christening.

But wherever it came from, it then spread to all the kids, and most of the adults. Lisa had it very shortly after Paul, and Abby made continual soft groaning noises for a few days and became a much lighter sleeper, both of which I suspect came from a sore throat.

We had to swing quickly by Diane's that day, to drop something off, but of course with Paul sick, we weren't going to let the kids have any contact with each other. Only, as we were pulling out of her driveway, Paul--who'd been blissfully asleep--suddenly piped up, "I have to go pee!" So I had to knock on Diane's door and very apologetically ask if Paul could run in and use her toilet. And sure enough, when we got back home there was a message from Diane waiting for me that she and Vio were sick too; soon enough it spread to Roo and Matt. (This, of course, meant that Vio and Roo couldn't go trick or treating, but I think Matt and Diane gave them a really cool substitute, instead.)

In the end, I seemed to be the only one who escaped this thing. It was even Lisa's second (and, frankly, far more minor) affliction of the trip, after an infection earlier in the week that had produced fever, chills, a lot of pain nursing Abby, and a rather farcical episode as it took our insurance company three attempts to figure out how to get us a prescription for antibiotics in Florida.

So, you know. The usual sort of magical Florida holiday.

I

*I was really looking forward to meeting Maria in person, but also far too worried that I was going to accidentally address her as Mommy Melee.

Pinellas (trailer) Park

2009-11-03T10:54:00.004-05:00

The week before Hallowe'en, we took Paul, Abby and their cousin Justin to the Hallowe'en fair at Largo Central Park. Paul and Justin had a lot of fun in the mini bounce houses, though Paul was a bit too small to go on the inflatable he most wanted to try. And everyone loved looking at the costumes; Lisa's favourite was Dora, Swiper and Boots.

As we were standing in line for one of the bounce houses, Lisa nudged me. "Is that pregnant woman smoking? Oh, please tell me it's just a costume."

Smoothly and coolly (I am nothing if not sneaky), I moved a few steps away and surveyed the woman out the corner of my eye. And she was, indeed, smoking. And she was heavily pregnant--I'd guess around seven months. And neither was a costume.

So I did exactly what you'd expect in such a situtation. I whipped out my cellphone and tweeted the event:

Except my first draft didn't say Central Florida. It said Pinellas County. Only, when I showed it to Lisa (Lisa approves all my tweets), she said, "Why is that a Pinellas County thing? I see no reason why it particularly applies to Pinellas County."

Well, I only lived in Pinellas County for four years, and Lisa lived there for fifteen or sixteen, so I deferred to her, even though I totally thought it was quintessential Pinellas County.* We compromised on the wording you now see above.

Not five minutes later, a middle-aged man approached us to coo over Abby, whom I was holding while she slept in my arms.

"I remember when mine were that little," he said. "Of course, now they're in the garage, firing up the power tools."

He paused, then continued, "I make my own ammunition, so when my boy came up to me and said, 'Hey, dad, look at this bullet I made,' I knew it was time to put a lock on the garage door."

And he walked away. There was silence for a moment, then Lisa said, "I withdraw my previous objection."

I

*Not exclusively Pinellas County, by any means. It would certainly also be Alachua County, where I lived for the six years following my time in Pinellas. But it would not be Montgomery County, where I spent the four years after that.

NaBloPoMo

2009-11-02T08:18:00.002-05:00

So I've decided to give National Blog Posting Month a shot. Thirty posts in thirty days. (This is the second post, after yesterday's "new music purchased last month" post.)

I complained shortly after Abby's birth about being worried about finding the time to write once I'm at home alone with two kids--and today, incidentally, is my first day home alone with them. Anyone who cares to scroll a little further down the page can see how well I did with that in the month of October. It won't take long.

So hopefully the next 29 days will get me into the habit of writing even while handling a pair of kids, beyond just the little private doodles I've been doing in my spare time the past week or so. So get ready for four weeks of ramblings, lists, and armchair discussion of Manchester United or the Florida Gators. Diane and I agreed that we're going to motivate each other to keep going, so if you notice me flagging, you should probably head over there and complain.

Speaking of Diane, I'm going to steal an idea from her. I've been stockpiling ideas for posts for a few days (there'd have been another post or two at the end of October if I hadn't known I was doing NaBloPoMo), but I still have only around ten. So what do you want me to talk about? Questions you want me to answer, topics to discuss?

See you tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

I

New music in October

2009-11-01T07:51:00.004-05:00

ABBA: "Tiger" (1976)
Alicia Bridges: "I Love the Nightlife (Disco 'Round)" (1978)
Chic: "Le Freak" (1978)
The Commodores: "Three Times a Lady" (1978)
Duffy: Rockferry (2008)
Monkey Swallows the Universe: The Bright Carvings (2006)
Monkey Swallows the Universe: The Casket Letters (2007)
Gerry Rafferty: "Baker Street" (1978)
The Rolling Stones: "Miss You" (1978)
Texas: "Thrill Has Gone" (1989)
Texas: "Why Believe in You" (1991)
Texas: "In My Heart" (1991)
Texas: "Alone With You" (1991)
Texas: "Mothers Heaven" (1991)
Texas: "You Owe It All to Me" (1993)
Texas: "Winter's End" (1993)
Texas: "Ticket to Lie" (1996)
Texas: The Hush (1999)
Texas: Greatest Hits (2001)
Texas: Careful What You Wish For (2003)

I

Virginia Vice

2009-10-22T21:35:00.002-04:00

As seems to be the prelude to these things, it started with Diane saying, "I think you should write a vices post." So here we go with my vices:

Women. I'm an aspiring writer, and I always said--mostly in jest--that I couldn't be a writer without a good, solid vice. I'd throw out cigarettes or drugs or alcohol as suggestions, but Lisa never seemed terribly enamored of any of these.

Then one day at a shopping mall in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, as I was waxing poetic about the appeal of tobacco or hard liquor, Lisa said, "Women, honey. Women are your vice." And Nikki was totally there to see it.

So I have taken her decision to heart. I do love the company of a beautiful woman, and I'm an incorrigible flirt. Thank goodness I have a British accent, and two small children (protip: nothing attracts the attention of a beautiful woman like a small child). And a wife who rolls her eyes and laughs at me making a fool of myself.

Video games. I've talked before about how, as soon as I pick up a video game, it consumes my life. There are three types of games I really love: strategy games, American football games and soccer management games (where you manage the team, buy and sell players, but don't actually play the matches). Every time I get over one, I completely swear off video games, because I do nothing else when I'm really into one. I abandon this blog and Twitter and everything else online, and worst of all, my writing comes to a screeching halt.

Books. I love books. I've always loved books. I daydream about getting lost in the long, winding stacks of books in an endless library. My own library has around sixteen hundred volumes right now. I'm a compulsive collector of books, with an especial weakness for history and biography; if I come across a biography of someone I don't already have a life of, I'll usually buy it.

Sprite. It's what I drink. Almost never on its own, though; it gets mixed with other stuff. That might be Crystal Lite, apple juice, red wine, or pretty much any liquor. If it's not carbonated, not milk and doesn't require dilution, obviously it's meant to be mixed with Sprite before consumption. I tried to give up soda a while back. Why did that not work? Because it meant giving up Sprite.

Blackcurrant. Okay, there's one thing I drink besides Sprite. In Britain, blackcurrant is exceptionally common; in America, it's almost unheard of, with the common flavour "purple" being grape rather than blackcurrant. I found out recently that's because the American timber industry had blackcurrant cultivation outlawed in most states in the 1930s, because blackcurrant is a huge predator of timber.

But anyway. For years I was able to keep my blackcurrant addiction under control, with just the occasional bottle of Ribena from the British section of the supermarket. But during our trip to England this summer, with Ribena cheap and plentiful, I drank the stuff like water, and now I can't go back. It's been a part of my life for a long time, but since this summer it's become a constant presence. Even though it's $8 for a single one-litre bottle. Now I don't think I could give up the Ribena if I wanted to, but why would I want to? It fills my life with such joy.

And so there we have it. Five bad habits--five instances of me surrendering to my senses. Anyone else care to share a vice?

I

New music in September

2009-10-01T11:24:00.002-04:00

The Apples in Stereo: "The Bird That You Can't See" (2000)
The Lovemakers: "Love Is Dead" (2009)
Dolores O'Riordan: "The Journey" (2009)
Cliff Richard: Established 1958 (1968)
Cliff Richard: Tracks 'n' Grooves (1970)
Cliff Richard: Green Light (1978)
Jill Sobule: "I Kissed a Girl" (1995)

I

"It was like living in a foreign country."

2009-09-26T00:01:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking more about the Premier League's new home grown player quota.

And the more I think about it, the more I think the problem isn't the influx of foreign players into the English game. That's just a fact of life in modern football, and honestly, European Union regulations will prevent anything from ever really getting done about it--EU law prevents any regulation that would favour English (or British) players over players of any other EU nationality, be they Italian, French, Czech or Estonian.

If we're ever to really do something about the continued claims that foreign players squeeze young English players out of first-team opportunities, what I think we need to do is address the problem in the opposite direction. Just as European players are able to move freely into English football, there's nothing stopping English footballers from moving abroad.

And yet they don't. English players stay in England. This is understandable if we were only talking about the Premier League's Czech or Croatian or Russian players--Eastern European players move to Western Europe for the higher wages and the higher quality of life, the same way Brazil and Argentina's best players have done for decades. But we're not just talking about them. We're talking about the Frenchmen and Spaniards and Germans and Dutchmen and Italians who pepper our league. And why can't we, in return, pepper theirs?

It's not like we're only talking about the superstars of European football--I don't think anyone would ever think it a bad thing for English football that our league can claim Michael Ballack or Cesc Fabregas or Fernando Torres. But the overwhelming majority of the Premier League's foreign players are journeymen at mid-table clubs. Frank Queudrue; John Heitinga; Carlo Cudicini. If they can all carve out solid careers over here, why can't our boys go over there? Why are there no Englishmen at mid-table clubs in the giant European leagues, or at the giant clubs of the second-tier leagues, like Rangers and Celtic, Porto and Benfica and Sporting Lisbon, Ajax and Feyenoord and PSV?

Even our superstars don't really go abroad. Since Paul Ince returned from Italy ten years ago, the only excursion abroad that the top English talent has made was the group that gathered at Real Madrid in the middle of this decade. And the only one who didn't return home within two or three seasons was David Beckham.

Partly, of course, it's the language barrier. So many of the players arriving in England show up with a decent knowledge of English. But many don't--Cristiano Ronaldo, for instance, used an interpreter for the first several years of his time at Manchester United.

But that's not really enough of an excuse anyway. First of all, just because there's an obvious reason why so many foreigners already know some English, we mustn't forget they often have plenty of other second languages. I remember when Manu Petit transferred from Arsenal to Barcelona; when journalists met him at the Barcelona airport, he was able to field questions in French, English and Spanish effortlessly. Just because foreigners have a cultural incentive to know English nowadays doesn't really excuse English players from putting the effort in to learn Italian or Spanish or German.

So there really isn't a reason. Other than England's traditional insularity. And that's just not good enough anymore.

I

Useless reform for the sake of looking tough

2009-09-25T18:59:00.000-04:00

Last week the Premier League announced that from next season they will be instituting a quota of eight home grown players in each member club's squad of 25.

I'm not going to go into the argument of whether or not English football should seek to preserve the Englishness of Premiership playing squads at the possible expense of preventing top flight clubs from pursuing the best possible players they can find because those players are foreign. I can see both sides of the argument.

I'd love to see more British surnames on the backs of Premier League (and, for that matter, Championship) shirts, and something feels deeply wrong to me about the fact that Arsenal and Chelsea have both managed in recent seasons to field starting XIs without a single Englishman amongst their number. I find it ridiculous that England can be home to the world's most popular league and the world's most entertaining football and can provide three out of four Champions League semi-finalists three years running, and yet for years the national team was unable to find a single English left-winger of sufficient competence to represent his country on the international stage.

But at the same time--I've been following football for fifteen years now, ever since USA 94. And let's not lose sight of the fact that in 1994, the Premier League was a definite level below the top European leagues of the period, like Serie A and the Bundesliga. English clubs, still not having recovered from five years in the Heysel wilderness, were routinely being embarrassed in the Champions League by foreign opposition, and the national team had failed to qualify for the World Cup for the third time in six attempts. Now we have the most watched sports league in the world, because Premier League footballers play the most entertaining, exciting, passionate football in the world, and, as I just mentioned above, English teams are so dominant in Europe right now that nine of the last twelve Champions League semifinalists have come from our shores. English names have been critical in that amazing transformation, to be sure (Alan Shearer, David Beckham), but far more foreign names have been central--Eric Cantona, and Gianfranco Zola, and Juninho, and Thierry Henry, and Cristiano Ronaldo.

But neither side of that debate is really relevant to the Premier League's new rule, because here's what is relevant: if we're going to decide in favour of protecting the Englishness of Premiership clubs, as the new quota system is clearly designed to do--well, the quota system won't help that at all.

The quota rule, let's remember, requires eight players out of a squad of 25 be "home grown". And it defines a home grown player as a player who spent three seasons at any club in the English and Welsh football pyramid before he reached the age of 21, regardless of the player's actual nationality.

First of all, we should note that all twenty Premier League clubs already have eight home grown players in their squads. This is followed in all the reports with the portentous-sounding caveat that Chelsea and Liverpool have only the minimum eight home grown players, but it is definitely not followed by an acknowledgement that UEFA already require clubs participating in the Champions League or the Europa League to meet the same quota of eight home grown players that the Premier League is now imposing.

Maybe the Premier League have deliberately chosen a quota that presents no hardship to their clubs because all their clubs already meet it. Or maybe they have deliberately chosen a quota that presents no hardship to their clubs because any with ambitions of European competition must already abide by it. Either way, they have deliberately chosen a quota that present no hardships to their clubs.

And any attempt to use the Liverpool and Chelsea squads to argue that at least the new rule demands those clubs maintain their current level of home grown content falls flat in the face of UEFA's already existing rule. (Indeed, UEFA's rule is harsher, since it demands that four of the eight home grown players be products of the youth programme at the club in question.)

So a whole lot of smoke and bluster for ... nothing.

I

A worthy successor to Phil Fulmer, at least in terms of blithering idiocy

2009-09-19T09:57:00.004-04:00

Honestly, it's very rare that I take pleasure in Florida beating a specific team. For me, an outlook dominated by rivalries is a sign that the rivalries are all you have to play for, that you're a smalltime team.* But we are Florida. We play for bigger things. We play for SEC championships and national championships, and every win is important to us. Beating Charleston Southern is just as important as beating Florida State, because losing either game has an equal chance of keeping us out of the national championship game.

But I confess, I'm going to enjoy the shellacking the Gators will give Lane Kiffin and his Tennessee Volunteers in Gainesville this afternoon.

I'm really looking forward to embracing some of the great traditions at the University of Tennessee, for instance the Vol Walk, running through the T, singing Rocky Top all night long after we beat Florida next year. It will be a blast.
--Lane Kiffin, at the press conference introducing him as the new Tennessee head coach last winter

Let's remember the context of that remark. As Vols head coach, Kiffin succeeds Phil Fulmer, the single greatest head coach in Tennessee history. A coach who gave Tennessee their only perfect season, 13-0 in 1998, when they won one of the school's only two national championships. A coach who finished his Tennessee career on a four-game losing streak to the University of Florida--a streak that's still active for Tennessee, and should extend to five games this afternoon. A coach who lost to Florida again, and again, and again, for two decades. But Lane Kiffin's gonna change all that. Sure.

He'd already look pretty stupid just for saying that. But then came National Signing Day, when Kiffin decided he was going to "turn Florida in right now right here in front of" an assembled group of Tennessee boosters. Urban Meyer was cheating, Kiffin said--in violation of the rule prohibiting contact with a recruit while that recruit was visiting another school's campus, Meyer had spent Nu'Keese Richardson's visit to Knoxville ringing him constantly on his cellphone.

Except, of course, that that isn't cheating, because no such rule exists. Way to go, Lane.

By contrast, let's look at all the ways Kiffin himself has cheated in the few short months he's been Tennessee head coach, even without Tennessee having played a game. At least, all the ways he's cheated and been caught. At least, I think these are all the ways, but honestly at this point there are so many, and no one seems to be keeping a master list, so it's entirely possible I've missed one:

1. Tennessee decided to give their recruits a taste of what it's like to be a Tennessee Volunteer on game day, breaking out the fog machine and have them run onto the field.

2. Then the recruits got to feel what the adulation is like after a game as well, by participating in a mock news conference.

3. In a radio interview Kiffin sang the praises of visiting recruit Bryce Brown by name, something prohibited when speaking of uncommitted players.

4. In May, Kiffin announced via tweet that JC Copeland had committed to the University of Tennessee, before Copeland had in fact signed his National Letter of Intent.

5. And then. And then. AND THEN. This one is my favourite. In June an ESPN crew visited Kiffin in Knoxville to tape a story about his fast-growing track record of continued violations. As part of this story, Kiffin allowed ESPN to tape (and then broadcast) himself meeting with recruits, in flagrant violation of the rule prohibiting a media presence during meetings between recruits and coaching staff. In a news story about how he was trying to overcome his history of recruiting violations, Lane Kiffin committed another recruiting violation.

There's not a 6. on this list, because it turns out "Calling someone with a much more impressive track record than you a cheat when they weren't breaking the rules, when in fact you're the one who's cheating," isn't actually a recruiting violation. Maybe the rule makers thought that one went without saying.

I think what sums Lane Kiffin up best is that he is so dumb, and so unjustifiably impressed with himself, that he makes even the Oakland Raiders look sane and competent:

Lane Kiffin is a flat-out liar. He lied to the team, he lied to the fans, and he lied to the media. He will try to destroy that university like he tried to destroy the Raiders, and will eventually clash with [Pat] Summitt and [Bruce] Pearl. Other than that, the Raiders can say nothing further.

(I really love that last line there. "Other than that, the Raiders can say nothing further.")

Two of my most important rules as a sport fan are that I never let Florida's rivalry games take precedence over the ultimate goals of SEC and national championships, and I never assume a game's been won before it's been played.** Today I'm breaking both those rules--and I'm going to enjoy it.

Go Gators!

I

*This rule crystallised for me in December 2006, when Florida basketball had just begun the first of two seasons as defending national champions. I discovered that one of the new hires at work was a Florida State grad--up here in the DC Metro area, both Gators and Seminoles are rather rare. So I immediately smiled and said, "Ha. I went to UF."

He snorted. "We just beat you in basketball."

"Well," I said, obviously not caring, "we're still the national champions."

He reacted with disbelief, completely mystified that I would find this relevant. "Oh come on, I think we can all agree which is the better position to be in. I know I'd much rather be the one who's just won a game played just now than the one who won something months ago."

I actually laughed at that. "Well yeah," I said, "because you're a Florida State fan. You have nothing but the individual games to play for. We're Florida. We play for bigger things." And that's exactly the terms in which I've described it ever since.

**Actually, I never assume a game's been won till I see how the second half starts. However well one team did in the first half, the other team can always match it in the second.

Girl Talk Thursday: Underwear

2009-09-17T21:19:00.002-04:00

A guest post from Lisa:

Right before I got married, my little sister, Julia, decided that my underwear needed a major wardrobe overhaul. Looking back, she was totally right. I had decent pairs but very few (new) super sexy. As with all clothing, I like comfort over fashion. Julia has always been way more fashionable than me. Her challenge has been outfitting me in stylish clothes that are comfortable enough for me to wear, and then years later removing these super-comfortable, stylish and over-worn clothes from my wardrobe.

At my bridal shower, I received several pairs of boy-cut panties and was a little intimidated by a new cut of underwear. Well, she insisted I try them on after the party (but before the guests had all left), and I was so excited by how I looked, I walked out and showed everyone my see-thru boy-cut panties. Since then they have been my underwear of choice. I like that they are sexy, lacy, and most importantly they stay in place and hold my tummy in a little. I have many pairs in a variety of colors. My favorite pair is the teal pair with the green embroidery. A close second is the ones that appear to tie up with ribbon in the back.

I have a few cotton thongs that I really like. They are super comfortable, but any sexiness is derived from the fact that they are thongs. I have one pair of bikini cut underwear that are see-thru and blue with a double strap on the side that I really like. I recently got a pair that have the British flag on the butt that I have yet to have the opportunity to wear.

Currently, however, I am wearing my biggest, whitest, cottonest panties. You can find them at most discount retailers under brand names such as Fruit of the Loom or Hanes. Now, I did just deliver a baby last week so my sexiness is allowed some time off, but I have been known to wear them other times.

One note: I do not like Spanx. Any undergarment that has a hole in the crotch so you can go to the bathroom without removing it does not meet my comfort level. Congratulations if you can get into them.

L

Roles

2009-09-16T19:53:00.005-04:00

For a week now we've been a family of four. It's great. Really. I can't tell you how overjoyed I am about it.

However.

As a quick perusal of the top of this page will remind you, I play two major roles in this life--I'm a stay at home dad and I'm a writer.

Writing has been pretty hard ever since I became a dad. Of course, most writers have to write only in their spare time, especially amateur writers. And of course we all dream of the day we get to quit our job and write full time, even though for a variety of reasons that's a bad idea for most of us.

So I've never viewed myself as all that different from any other writer, having to fit their writing in around their day job--it's just that my day job is parenting.

But parenting isn't a normal job. Even if we abandon the cliche that I am never not being a parent--though it's true--even just the active part of my job starts when Paul gets up at 7AM and doesn't stop till he goes to bed at nine. And it simply isn't possible to write while he's awake.

This leaves me with his naptime. When he was younger this gave me several hours a day. Nowadays I'm lucky if I get two hours.

Why am I talking about this now? Because of the new arrival, of course. Because if I thought I had little free time now, I'm about to lose what little I've had. Someone put it to me that going from one child to two isn't doubling your workload, it's squaring it--and I've no reason to suppose that's wrong.

The week before Abigail was born I had a bit of a break--Lisa's parents arrived, and Paul spent most of his time with them. So I actually did get some decent work done on the thriller (the juices for which really got flowing with a healthy dose of film noir). And now I have no idea when I might get to write again. 2014 maybe?

Sorry. Just moaning.

I

She ain't heavy, she's my daughter

2009-09-13T10:07:00.001-04:00

ETA: Her weight remained constant for the latest weigh-in, which satisfied the doctor. Next appointment is Abby's regular two-week appointment.

I'm told that baby boys who are induced are the toughest demographic to get started on breastfeeding, and that would certainly match our experience with Paul. He just never really took to it. That first night Lisa and the recovery nurse proved totally unable to get him to latch on until they eventually resorted to a nipple shield. Within a few days we were having to supplement with formula, and once Paul got the bottle in his mouth he was never really enthusiastic about moving back to the breast.

So with Abigail we're pretty determined to do what it takes to keep her breastfed, unless that's just really not feasible. We started really brightly at the hospital, apart from a really rough night the second night (which we basically put down to the interference of the ~~frustrated lactation consultant~~ night nurse on duty that night).

When we went to the paediatrician's office the day before yesterday, though, her weight loss was just a bit greater than they would have liked. (If she'd lost just an ounce or two less, the paediatrician wouldn't have been concerned.) This wasn't too surprising to me, since Lisa had only commented immediately before we left for the appointment that she was just starting to feel like her milk was coming in.

But the paediatrician asked us if we'd be willing to supplement with formula, and we refused, explaining what had happened with Paul. So she asked us to come back in this morning for a weight check.

At the weight check Abby had lost another two ounces (considerably less, of course, than the nine ounces she'd lost in the 36 hours between her last weighing at the hospital and her weighing at the paediatrician's office the day before). Again, I'm willing to say this isn't all that concerning, since it was just before we left that Lisa declared that she was now certain her milk was in. The paediatrician we saw yesterday morning (a different one from the day before, since it was the weekend) expected us to be supplementing by this point.

When she found out that we weren't supplementing, though, she instantly became really supportive of breastfeeding. Those two ounces would have been a concern if formula were involved; but since it isn't, they weren't cause for worry. We still, nevertheless, have to take Abigail back in this morning for another weight check. Lisa and her mother have just left to do that. (With two carseats in the back seat, we can no longer fit three adults into our car.) She's been nursing ravenously for the past twenty-four hours, so I've got my fingers crossed.

I

The budding Whovian

2009-09-11T11:08:00.003-04:00

When we visited Swanage in England, Paul came across a row of the famous red British telephone boxes (phone booths), ensconced himself inside one and refused to come out, declaring that he was Doctor Who.

So two weeks later, when I was sitting at the terminal in Heathrow waiting for my flight back to the States (alone, as Lisa and Paul had preceded me by a week), I picked him up a toy red phone box at WH Smith's.

(Actually it's a pencil sharpener, but he's not to know that, is he?)

Today for some reason he's become really fascinated with it, taking it with him everywhere he goes. After a little while he started telling us it wasn't magic.

"Why's it not magic?" Lisa asked.

Because it doesn't disappear and reappear, of course.

Then he asked if he could get inside. You know, because it's bigger on the inside.

I

Abigail

2009-09-09T11:32:00.003-04:00

When Paul was induced eleven days late, Lisa had shown no signs of going into labour. It could have taken another two months for all we know.

With Abby, though, once we had an induction scheduled at ten days overdue (how this came to be the fourth date on which Abigail's induction was scheduled is a story for another day), she did indeed start showing signs of coming on her own. Saturday night Lisa had contractions for two or three hours, though they never got closer than seventeen minutes apart. Then Monday night (Labour Day, har har), the night before our induction, the contractions started again. This time they got to about six minutes apart for twenty minutes, though then they started spacing themselves out again.

This continued all night and was still going on--about a half hour apart--when we left at 6.15 the following morning for her induction.

So we got to the hospital and got Lisa situated and ... well, it was a straightforward day of labour, I suppose. Obviously it wasn't particularly pleasant for Lisa, but it was certainly much easier a time than she'd had with Paul.

Last time, when it came time to push, I had stood by Lisa and counted with her while her mum and a nurse held her legs, which was how she'd expressed a preference to do it again. But this time her mother was out the room when it (very suddenly) came time to push, so the nurse and I had to hold her feet while she held onto the underside of her thighs herself.

This, of course, meant I actually saw the birth. It wasn't something I'd planned on seeing, and hopefully I'll never have to see it again. I kept staring at the dome of that head contorting into such disconcerting shapes and thinking, That's my daughter's brain.

And now, a day later, we're in Recovery, expecting hopefully to go home tomorrow. Just like with labour yesterday, it's been so much easier than with Paul, both for Lisa and for me. Lisa's well on her way to recovery, and I'm not nearly as exhausted looking after the two of them as I was last time. And Abby's doing a great job nursing.

And lastly, I can't be effusive enough in my thanks to Diane, who was right there at my (online) side right from the time our problems started (our induction date got postponed so many times because Lisa picked up an infection*, though it's all taken care of now) until ... well, right up through till right now, as I write this.

This was particularly true during Lisa's contractions and throughout labour yesterday. Diane stayed up with us Monday night as we waited to see if Abigail might actually be interested in emerging of her own volition, and both that night and the following day she was an inexhaustible source of encouragement, advice, commiseration and enthusiasm. It's thanks to Diane that the phrases "red raspberry leaf tea" and "nipple stimulation" have taken on a life of their own in Lisa's and my common idiom. She's also the only person who took the time yesterday to ask me, "And how are you doing?" Plain and simple, she was awesome.

Pictures are available at Dropshots. I'm sure in the coming weeks and months there's going to be plenty more for me to say as Lisa, Paul and I get to meet our new daughter and sister. Already I love the way she keeps her little fists halfway up her sleeves, and wonder how she always manages to free her right hand from the swaddle so instantly. A long road ahead.

I

*Okay, so maybe not a story we're saving for another day.