On Man Showers...

I’m now in that age group where most of my friends and associates…my posse if you will, are married and embarking on that next major life stage…parenthood. A little over a year ago, the first Great Baby Infestation was imminent and baby showers started to spring onto the calendar with alarming regularity. I believe my wife was somehow associated with no less than 15 females in some stage of swollen belly syndrome. There was one month I didn’t even see my wife if it was a Saturday.

I felt sorry for my wife. Not only did she have to attend a bunch of showers during a time where our own “practicing” was not making perfect, but during my debriefings of her experience, I learned the truth about baby showers. They are horrid events. Don’t get me wrong, my wife enjoyed them very much…a thought that still amazes me. Apparently, the highlights of such events are finger foods, party games, coffee, pleasant conversations and watching the swollen lady in the corner open all her loot. In other words, it’s an elementary school birthday party for women, complete with frilly decorations.

During this time period, I did a lot of thanking of God that these were not co-ed events. However, the inequality of the situation was not lost on me. I don’t mean that I thought that I should have to go to some insanely boring event. I mean that all these women were getting together almost weekly to have what for them passes as a good time, while the guys stayed home. It’s not that staying home with actual free time was a bad thing, it just seemed that with that free time I could be doing something constructive…like playing poker, or attending a LAN party.

I wasn’t the only one who noted the disparity, other husbands were also rumbling about how we should have some event, especially because it would be so much better. I certainly wasn’t one of the prime architects, but somehow the Man Shower came into fruition…and there was much rejoicing.

Let me outline for you the parameters of a Man Shower. There are no finger foods. The Man Shower features the two most important food groups: meat and starch. I suppose you could eat with your fingers however, which would be sufficiently manly enough to not be called on it. To be sure, we do have coffee, but that is to keep us awake after we’ve eaten ourselves into a stupor, washed down with some fine wine. Usually that coffee is something very black that burns on the way down. And then come the cigars. No Man Shower is complete without the resident cigar expert passing out his wares. Usually we partake of these cigars around a fire pit, fire of course being another symbol of manliness. But most importantly, we are efficient. All the prospective fathers are invited at the same time so we don’t have to keep planning another event every week. And there are no gifts. The prospect of one man giving the other a boppy…well…frankly it freaks me out.

The best part though, is that my turn is coming in a couple of weeks…and I can’t wait.

On Music...

I have a mental list of my favorite things in life. It get's updated on a somewhat less frequent interval than my Netflix list, but I do pay it some attention. For instance, I just added Zhang Ziyi to my list yesterday. I don't really keep an exact account but music, while on the list, probably comes in around 62… To be fair, I do have a rather large list since I’m a generally happy person and have many favorite things.

There was a time that music ranked higher. I distinctly remember receiving my first “boom box” for Christmas when I was in 6th grade. It had dual tape decks…and thus began my fledgling career as a mix tape engineer. At first, since I didn’t own many tapes, I perfected my ability to tape songs from the radio without getting much of the DJ’s voice or commercials in the recording. I remember Bon Jovi and Genesis “Land of Confusion” being pretty prevalent on those tapes. I remember listening for hours thinking that every song on the radio was speaking to me.

Of course, I graduated to a higher level of mixed tape engineering with my first real stereo system. That baby had dual cassettes and a CD player. My first CD was R.E.M “Green”…I was cutting edge. My tapes had meaning in those days…possibly even some angst…usually highly influenced by whatever girl I was obsessing over at the time. It is possibly during this time period that I even started to name my albums with esoteric meaninglessness like “Month of Mead” and “Flaccid Angst Muffin”.

Somewhere along the line I lost the bubble. I can name one protagonist in my musical decline: high school band. Specifically, the marching band. That was the first time I associated music with physical pain rather than just emotional. It’s not that I can’t take pain; it’s just that I prefer it not to have a soundtrack and specifically not one that I have to produce. It also required practice. Instead of me appreciating the rigors that artists go through to make music, it just made me tired.

I think the last mixed tape I made was in college. I may have even given one for Valentines Day. I think the shame of that also hastened my movement away from music.

That’s not to say that I don’t still purchase a CD from time to time. I even have a rather large MP3 collection on my home computer. I enjoy going to the occasional concert. Oh, and movies (which are significantly higher on my list of favorite things…I’m not sure if you were aware) would be nothing without a good soundtrack.

However, music is primarily a car activity now. Sometimes I’ll put some music on while surfing the web or even on the rare occasion that I work from home. I'm just no longer one of those people that plays music while I'm going about my business around the house. I certainly don't sit in the dark contemplating life while listening to the Garden State soundtrack. There is no closing of eyes to let a message seep in... I prefer to stay firmly in the land of the shallow thank you, and that land doesn't have background music.

It is with all that background that I finally get to the point of this post. Through a forum I visit I found out about Pandora.com. Specifically, this website was put together by music lovers…the kind of people that would generally tire me out…who put together the Music Genome Project. Basically, the bottom line is that you can type in a musician or song and the website will create your own “radio station” of music that is like what you originally input. I’m listening to it at this very second in fact. I typed in Oingo Boingo…what?…and all sorts of musical nirvana started to come to me. You can even create multiple “radio stations”.

I guess if you hear something you like you can download the song direct from Itunes, or even Amazon. Sure, that means this sight has a corporate angle, but whatever. The only downside I found is that you have to register. You can do the free version, which will have advertisements from time to time (on the website I believe) or you can pay a monthly fee to not have those. Regardless, any website that does the work for me is primo in my opinion.

So see, don’t say I never gave you anything…

On Tree Addendums...

As an addendum to yesterdays post about real vs. fake, it should be noted that I am officially back among the land of the pure. A real tree of some kind of fir variety currently resides in it's Christmasy spot in my house. Crisis is averted...for this year at least.

I'd also like to answer the unasked question on your mind: Yes, I do prefer real vs. fake in other areas too *wink, wink*

On Fake vs Real...

While I did state in my Very First Post Ever (VFPE) that I would not use this blog as some sort of catharsis, I do feel the need from time to time to use this as a forum for confession. You see, since I didn’t grow up Catholic I always felt like I was missing something…perhaps something that involved a booth. Protestantism just doesn’t offer that, which is why we all go around nosing into each other’s business, or worse, confessing things to everyone. Since two of you read this, I feel like you don’t really qualify as everyone. Luckily, since I don’t find confession cathartic in the least, I figure I’m upholding my own standards for this blog…such as they are.

Let me set up my sin, you know, provide a little foreshadowing if you will. From time immemorial (e.g. birth) I was part of a family that purchased and decorated live trees for Christmas. It was never stated explicitly, but I got the feeling that bringing home a girl from the fake tree tribe might be, well…not done. Which is why, in a fit of post college rebellion (I was a late bloomer) I went over to the fake tree tribe and courted one of their choice females. To be sure, she did have other assets (and how!), but I was always keenly aware of her holiday idiosyncrasies. This is not my sin, however… Once I married my Princess of the Fake Trees we made an agreement. We would always buy live trees in exchange for setting up for Christmas at the exact moment after the end of Thanksgiving, as was also custom in her tribe. I won’t say it was prenuptial or anything, but we did spit into our palms and shake on it.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t like people that do the fake tree thing for Christmas. I guess that’s just your thing. It’s just that I feel superior to you. Like, God blessed me with attributes you don’t have…like a soul, for one. You know, like if this was an election, I’d come from the Green (alive) States and you’d come from the…whatever color represents fake (and soulless). In fact, I feel good about saving my wife from eternal…well, from something bad that happens for a really long time.

I think you see where this is going; what I need to confess. Let’s just say that this weekend I ended up in a Hecht’s staring at a lady who just told me that the 7’6” Oregon Spruce was out of stock…and was disappointed! For those of you who can’t read between the lines, Hecht’s is not a purveyor of live trees!! Never have I fallen so far so fast. I’m still a Redskins fan for goodness sake, I don’t regularly have commitment issues. Oh, I had some great excuses like: “It’s cheaper in the long run”, “It’s easier to setup and clean” and “I don’t have to vacuum my car or the hallway with a fake tree”. I guess that’s what passes for fake tree excuses anyway. Still, I knew what I was doing was wrong, and was prepared to do it anyway.

I think it is important to note, however, that somewhere along the way I did pull back from the precipice. I came to my senses and realized who I was. The fake tree may have lifted its skirt a little, shown me a little lace, but I did not, in the end, partake of that poison fruit. So I’ll see you tonight in some strip mall lot holding up each tree and saying “How about this one?” to the Fake Tree Princess who came ever so close to converting me…

On Last Rites...

There are few things that are able to raise my stress level like planning. It's not that I hate the word, it's more that I hate the thought of the word. There are certainly other words I hate worse like plague, genocide and Blue Badgers. The use of the word planning implies that you have something pending, or even impending, that has to be done...and usually during a time period you wanted to do something else. Thus, the most stressful time for me each year is when my wife takes down the calendar and proceeds to inform me of our engagements each weekend for then next few months. Usually the process is made worse when coupled with another word that I loathe...travel. This event happens twice yearly, once around the beginning of summer and once before the holiday season.

This holiday season is a special kind of trauma. Poor family planning has conspired to make this holiday season epic. The first example: My in-laws, for some unknown reason, thought it would be a good idea to have my wife be born around and sometimes even on Thanksgiving Day. Obviously, this is an annual stress inducer for me, but one I agreed to during the binding marriage contract. I also happen to like my wife's existence, but it's timing I am not thankful for...which is ironic really. Jumping on my stress dog-pile is the fact that this birthday is a milestone event....30 years on planet earth, and my wife recently reminded me that she's "really into birthdays". This is true, she has elaborately and creatively planned my birthdays. I'd like to point out though that my parents were courteous enough to have me born in April, a month of no distinction.

Example two is the red circle currently around January 9 (and subject to change) heralding the birth of our first born. Not surprising, although admittedly a little unnerving, is the white wasteland of nothingness on the calendar after that date. It's the days preceding then that have me tightening the sphincter. There are so many things crammed into each day, particularly the weekends, that it looks like someone has copied entire books of the Bible onto our calendar. So, in other words, I've followed my in-laws example...

Thank goodness that after our child comes things should start to calm down....right?

On Section C...

I apologize in advance because this post will be my second consecutive post that features non-shallow material. I promise you that I’m not ordinarily this deep or full of substance. I rarely find myself staying awake at night because I have something on my mind. On those rare occasions that I do, it is more along the lines of “Is that burrito I ate right before coming to bed going to haunt me”? I’ll let you figure out what I mean by “haunt”…

It’s just this whole baby thing has me thinking of…things. One of those things is delivery. Until two weeks ago, my wife and I were under the blissful impression that there was only one way to deliver, unless some sort of emergency required a c-section. So when I went to my wife’s OB-GYN appointment, I was pretty sure I knew where our conversation was headed.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I have recently read newspaper articles about the growing trend of women scheduling their deliveries via c-section rather than having to undergo the pain and the uncertainty of vaginal delivery. Yes, I did just say vaginal and totally didn’t giggle….*giggle*. My wife’s doctor is an older Romanian man who has been pretty conservative about some of the things has told my wife during her pregnancy, even more conservative that I think is warranted considering she is not high risk. So we were a little shocked when he appeared to come out strongly in favor of having a c-section. Some of his pro c-section arguments included:

1) Keeps your baby from having “banana head”…by which I think he meant “cone head”.
2) Eliminates the possibility of some major rippage “down there” during delivery, which could lead to major problems down the line.
3) Recovery is actually easier from a c-section in the long run (in the short term recovery would be tougher)
4) 80% of the women in Brazil do it.
5) It will save our sex life afterwards. You know, because the hole will be so big after delivery you can stick a fist in there (Yes, he said this complete with hand gesture).

Now, let’s get one thing clear right off the bat. I don’t for one second give two @#&% what women in Brazil did, are doing, or will ever do about anything. I also don’t think having a c-section to eliminate the “possibility” of problems from vaginal birth is warranted. Is it seriously your contention that a surgical procedure could not bring up more unsavory possibilities? And thanks for thinking about my sex life, but stop…

In reality, I think the two other points he didn’t state were 6) I get more insurance money for performing surgeries and 7) I want the convenience of knowing when we are going to deliver your baby. I guess there could be an 8) I don’t want to get sued if something goes wrong.

Here is the real issue though. As we are leaving the doctor pulls me aside and reminds me that my wife does have a diaphragmatic hernia that could limit her ability to push during pregnancy. He didn’t even tell my wife that, which made me question how worried about that he is. But still, therein lies the dilemma. My wife had another appointment yesterday where he talked more about the hernia limiting here ability (as well as reiterating all of the above arguments). If there were not a medical condition, my wife and I would tell him to stick it. Yet there is one and now it is up to us to decide how worried the doctor is about it in reality and how much he just wants to make things convenient for him.

Of course, the real issue to me is that this should not be an issue. We should not be going into the delivery with resentment towards the doctor. That seems a bit counterproductive to me. Plus, if there was a possible medical problem, that should have been brought up months ago. Thanks a bunch doc…

On Alone Time...

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon around the Beeley household lately. My wife and I are expecting our first child this January. For most of this pregnancy, it didn’t seem all that real…I mean, other than her yacking all the time (and by yacking I don’t mean talking). If there were any bodily changes at first, it came from the loss of weight rather than gaining. Nine months seemed so far away.

Here is the interesting thing though. Now that my wife is starting to show, and you can actually see that there is something in there, and nine months has shortened into 9 weeks, I find myself wanting to be alone with my wife more and more. No, not in that way (although, it should be made clear I’m not opposed to that), but in just savoring all the stupid little things we do together and maximizing our time around each other. Like lazing around one the couch, or running our errands.

I think part of this is that Kaleigh Madison will be our first child, so neither my wife nor I has any concept of the massive life change we are about to undergo. The other part is that there will never be a time that we exist just the two of us again. Sure, we’ll have time alone together and such, but we’ll never be alone. Is everything we talk about going to be related to our daughter, or other responsibilities? Will our personalities change because of this? Am I going to have to stop being lazy? How about walking naked from the bedroom to the bathroom in the morning? I’m just saying…changes will have to be made.

I suppose there are all normal thoughts for those expecting. I suppose I also have to turn in my man card for this post. In my defense, I am a little emotional about the shellacking I took at the hands of the Blue Badgers last night. Losing at fantasy football does things to a man…

On Hatred...

It doesn’t look good. Not at all. The Pentagon Five Sides are down by just under 20 points going into tonight’s game. The good news: Five Side QB McNabb plays tonight. The okay news: McNabb has twice this season produced over 25 points by himself. The bad news: Those Blue Badgers have Westbrook playing RB tonight which could eat into some of McNabb’s points.

Are you still awake out there? Does this fantasy football conversation bore you? Well, I’d certainly hate to bore you as my life hangs on the precipice of fantasy doom. Maybe you weren’t paying attention to my earlier post where I detailed the myriad of offenses that I’ve suffered at the hands of Coach Tilley. The Blue Badgers are just the latest tool he uses to terrorize me. You certainly weren’t there for our marathon sessions of NHL ’95 on that GPA killer called the Sega Genesis. You never saw him use Mike Modano in ways…well, indescribable ways. He once hit one of my players with Eric Lindros and made him bleed. BLEED!!

I can’t talk about it anymore. I’m liable to go into a fit of writing in all caps and exclamation points….

On Netflix...

I do not normally consider myself a corporate shill. I regularly cheat on Coke by drinking Pepsi, or worse, Mountain Dew. I could care less if McDonald’s catches me going in or out of a Burger King with the obvious remnants of a whopper still on my face. If Head & Shoulders finds me in the shower with Pert, I won’t even stop that sweet, sweet lathering for a second….

There are obvious exceptions. Family pressure is such that I’d be better off marrying Tom Cruise and joining the Church of Scientology than being caught driving a Chevy. In other words, I can be a gay scientologist so long as I drive Ford, and only Ford.

Chik-Fil-A is fast becoming a new love, but I consider that an addiction on par with heroin so it doesn’t count…

I am, however, a Netflix shill (shill = fanatic). You may have recognized that by now, and if you know me, you certainly know the truth of it. If I could find a way to finance it, while at the same time quitting my job and all my social responsibilities…I’d bump my membership up to the 8 movies out at a time. Of course, I’d also lose my marriage, my health and any friendships I have left… So it would be a toss-up…I kid, I kid. Speaking of friendships, I have been known to convince a friend or two…dozen…to join, like some sort of bizarre Netflix missionary. I even recently led a friend of mine to the light and sat with him as he filled his queue for the first time with luscious movie goodness.

About that queue, I somehow cannot keep myself from organizing and reorganizing my mine on almost a daily basis. I’m perhaps one of…well, no other persons, who believe that the 500 limit to my queue is way too little…and borderline cruel. There is basically nothing else in my life that I plan that far ahead for, and yes, I realize how pathetic that is. However, I find much satisfaction out of building my army of Netflix Friends. Regrettably I cannot manipulate their lists, and save them from certain…wastes of time, or more importantly, impose my movies tastes onto their queue.

This begs the obvious question: Netflix, is there anything you can’t do?

On Bragging Rights...

The Pentagon Five Sides, my insanely inconsistent fantasy football team, finally put back-to-back wins together for the first time this season. That it happened against the highest scoring offense in the league, the intimidatingly named tilley194 (the intimidation is in the 194 you see…), and on a week that tilley194 running back LeDainian Tomlinson scored a whopping 32.42 points, makes it all the more savory. I think it is due to superior coaching, but many folks consider it just dumb luck. The late game heroics of Five Side kicker Adam Vinatieri secured the win with three PATs to eek out the 1.33 point win.

It is just in time to, because in week 10 the Five Sides face off against our mortal enemies, the Blue Badgers. I don’t want to start a word war, one where Blue Badger players post my comments on a locker room wall to motivate them, but the bad blood between the Five Sides and Blue Badgers is well documented…it’s historical and entirely the fault of the Blue Badgers.

My feud with Coach Tilley (not to be confused with Coach Little Tilley of the aforementioned tilley194’s) began with a shared bathroom in our college apartment and was exacerbated by the repeated playing of U2 and “Brown Eyed Girl” at random intervals for over three years. That Coach Tilley finally won the Great Bathroom Cold War because a girlfriend of mine was coming to visit only made matters worse.

But then, of course, came the ultimate backstab when Coach Tilley dropped the Shakespeare class that we shared. Can someone tell me what kind of a world we live in when a man is allowed to commit Shakespeare adultery on another man? I think you see where I’m coming from…it’s just not done in civilized societies. It took a long time for my heart to mend after that one…

By the time the great No Electricity, Full Fridge/Freezer Debacle occurred, the rift was forever cemented. Five Side QB Donovan McNabb stated that “Despite coach benching me the past two weeks for Mark Brunell, I still want to win this one for him against those Blue Bastards”.

Even the pathetically ineffective RB Warrick Dunn stated “Despite my complete inability to find the end zone most of the season, I’ll be looking to finally do something like score this week rather than rack up useless yardage and then let someone else run it in at the 1 yard line…”.

I don’t want to say that I’ve had this week circled since the season began, but I’ve had this week circled since the season began. Coach Tilley, you need only go down into your basement and look at the sad, defeated eyes of Coach Little Tilley to see your future. I’m coming for you and all Five Sides will be with me you hear…ALL FIVE SIDES!!!