Up late, kitchen table, listening to Magnetic Fields (programmed and burned a greatest hits mix), drinking a beer, wondering when and if I’ll fall asleep. Long story short…we found out Wednesday M had a miscarriage. Now, I don’t think I mentioned here that M was pregnant, so let me back up some. We thought we’d have one more kid, although, honestly, initially I was kind of freaked out by the idea. However, I really grew to like the prospect of another child. We thought we were past the miscarriage danger point, so all the neighborhood knew, our friends at work knew, and most importantly, the boys knew. M and I, along with N, went to the doctor’s office on Wednesday to hear the heartbeat. The doctor couldn’t hear anything when she was running the Star Trek speaker over M’s womb. She also said M’s ab muscles weren’t as tight as they should be were she pregnant. We both were stunned. We’ve never had a miscarriage before, so I guess we assumed everything would be fine. The clinic’s ultrasound machine was broken, so we had to drive to another clinic for an ultrasound. The woman showed us the ultrasound and told us the baby stopped growing at eight weeks. We looked at the ultrasound and say the tiny form and all the black space around the baby. N played on the chair. Still stunned we drove home. M was her usual strong self, too strong, really. We decided to tell the boys after school. T, as expected, cried a lot. N, even at four, seemed to understand. He cried and said, “I want a human baby.” S was interesting. He listened, looked sad, then went back upstairs to play video games. Yesterday he said, “I didn’t want the baby anyway, I didn’t even want N, T and I were fine without him.” There you go. Today M went through the D and C (not sure for what that stands), the post-miscarriage operation. She was wavering as to whether or not she wanted the operation, but I’m glad she went through the procedure. She cried in the waiting room, the first time I’ve really seen her emotional over the last few days, and I’m glad she found some release. I stayed in the waiting room during the operation and read Newsweek and listened to Sparklehorse on my Mp3 player. Later I picked the kids up from school, got a pizza, and played a lot of computer pinball. I also worked yesterday. The action research students were presenting, and I pretty much run that show, so I went. I found myself very angry, or even angrier than usual, with people at work. My dean, one of the coolest people I know, has a lot of patience with me, and she let me talk through it. I’m not sure where I’ll end up with this. However, I did lose it on a colleague on the phone today, and I almost never lose it on anyone. She was kind of freaked, and she didn’t deserve the treatment, but she’s very kind, and I hope she forgives me.
I get emotional about the miscarriage at weird times. I’ll be sitting on the chair in the home office and visualize holding a baby, and I’ll come close to losing control. I haven’t cried much either, actually. I could probably use some release as well. I got very drunk Wednesday night. Does that count? Tonight after the kids went to sleep I made a Magnetic Fields greatest hits mix and started answering email. I should probably get to sleep soon. I don’t want to decimate my relationships, both professional and personal, but something isn’t working now. Good night.

Rough night. I’m feeling pretty despondent right now. I should go read and get to sleep. I’m so sick of work. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know if something is pathologically wrong with me or if I’m being called to something else. Prophets hear voices, but so do insane people. I have three, almost four kids to take care of, too. I don’t have much margin for error. I want to look back on my life with dignity. I hope the answer is within reach, either in the heavens or in my heart.

I’m up early, just after three, for the first time in a while. I can’t say that I’m exhausted, or that I’m surprised, as I had a hard time falling asleep last night and had slept well, probably too well, the night before. This weekend was more or less fine. On Friday I worked at home until the early afternoon before driving into work for an Italy meeting. The gathering was incredibly painful. First, I couldn’t hear, still, and second, my stomach was somersaulting, and I had no idea if anyone could hear it, etc., and I became quite tense and self-conscious. Plus, well, if I’m going to be honest, I don’t travel well, and I don’t do well with a ton of people in social scenarios, and what the hell is this trip but ten days around people I don’t know very well? Why on earth did I sign up? I’m hoping I can find one or two allies and leech on them for the duration of the trip. I’m reminded of my semester at Illinois State where, in retrospect, I latched onto a Math major named Brian out of pure loneliness and depression. He let me sit with him at lunch, introduced me to his friends, and actually took me to a party. Thanks for your patience, wherever you are, Brian. You were good to me.
After cutting out of the meeting, tearing the hell out of the door, really, I stopped at UCN to see M and the kids. They were attending an earth day celebration consisting mostly of babysitting, from what I can tell, of the younger kids while their parents watched the Al Gore movie upstairs. When I arrived T was on his own, making thank you cards for teachers, so he and I hung out while S and N painted bowls or something. I’m glad I stopped by the event. I hadn’t been at UCN for a long time, and at least they didn’t run me out of the door. After I reached home I inhaled some pizza and tried to figure out who was standing on the corner of our block. A slew of neighbors were out, socializing, and I’m sure I could have hung out, but I wasn’t in the mood. I helped the boys get to sleep, once they reached home, while M went over to the neighbors’.
We hit the zoo Saturday morning. The weather was gorgeous, the first warm, bright Saturday, so the space grew crowded early. Still, we had fun. We did the circuit backwards, starting with the big cats and working through to the birds. This crazy zoo worker yelled at the kids for getting too close to some of the plants in the bird house. I was ready to retaliate, but you know, that sort of thing isn’t worth it. We took Lake Shore Drive home, so N could nap, and I was exhausted by the time we hit the front door. T whacked me in the ass, and I had to lean on him in front of a neighbor. I could feel my ire rise. I eventually decompressed and napped badly on the couch. Later I read Murakami and fell asleep early.
Yesterday my mom visited. She was less offensive than usual, anyway, and I put together the mini-greenhouse where T and I can grow herbs for the summer. He and I also drove to the hardware store for sage and catnip seeds. Nothing too complicated, thank you very much. I suppose I could have worked in the yard, but I decided against it. Spring is still young. Later I met the boys over on the bike path where they were engaged in pulling garlic mustard as part of an earth day activity. I didn’t hang around long. I was feeling physically out of sorts, discombobulated, so I decided to go for a run upon my return. The run was a disaster. I couldn’t get fifty yards without stopping. I ran directly into the wind, though, a strong southern wind, which I’m sure didn’t help, and afternoon isn’t a good time for me to run, anyway. I’ll try again this morning. Later Alec, one of the neighbors, and the boys cruised youtube for skateboarding videos while I watched television and occasionally checked on them to make sure they weren’t downloading anything obscene.
Ok, I’ve been somewhat obsessively reading Murakami’s “Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”. You know how I’ve said that the right books will find you at the right time? Well, I’m not sure if I’m totally full of shit when I say that, but it’s fun to say, and I can assert that this book has found me at the right time of my life. I’ll hit stretches while reading where I find myself marking every other page as brilliant. The entire idea of sitting at the bottom of a well so you can think is stunning. I understand the sentiment. I also connect well to the idea of realities connected to realities connected to dreams and the path to one’s true self. I’m loving this book, and I’m only halfway finished.
I say this book found me at the right time because of identity issues that I’m addressing, no, living, at the moment. These are not dire straits, if you will, but I believe the transformation will be important. I am starting to separate, socially and personally, from work. I don’t trust many people with whom I work, I’m getting to the point where I just want to make my money and get out, and I think I’m making a healthy decision. The mire will not pull me down. I am almost violently dedicated to completing my dissertation; I just want the project finished so I can go onto other, more important projects such as reading Homer and working in my garden. Some of my colleagues may be confused and/or offended by this pattern, but I don’t care that much. I always worry about money, of course, but I’m hoping that my mutual funds hold up and my two masters and a doctorate mean I can get a job somewhere, you know what I mean? I am so tired after the last few years, and I’m looking forward to rebirth. For some reason fear always emerges, fear of not being able to take care of my family, fear of retirement (twenty plus years away!), fear of my kids getting hurt. I’m not sure why, physically and mentally, I work on that level of stress. I think my body has grown accustomed to the pattern and perhaps creates stress on its own. I also think that, when I’m content, I want to hold onto it so tightly that I grow terrified of the state disappearing. I don’t know. I’m getting better, though. Meditation helps. Reading helps. I find myself looking forward to two weeks at Chautauqua, a real vacation, in August. I find myself working at home more often. I’ve done my time (maybe I’m just trying to convince myself). I find myself more healthy, mentally, habitually, although I still need to lose about thirty pounds (at least). More later. I hope I’m on the cusp of something good, although I doubt many people on the outside would understand I’m going through one of the most important transformative periods of my life.

I have time for a rare mid-day entry. This morning I decided to stay away from the office and knock out a few work-related projects on the front porch. I put my feet up, answered emails, took a couple phone calls from students and faculty, and organized a couple of conference proposals. I also worked my ass off Monday through Wednesday, in the office, so tomorrow will be pretty laid back. I have an Italy thing at 5PM, but nothing pressing in the morning, so I may not leave home until after lunch. My job is weird, and I sometimes feel guilty about the position’s inherent flexibility. I’m sure I could adjust to normal hours again, but I like times like these, when I’m sitting at the table, mid-day, so I hope whatever I’d exchange for returning to a more structured lifestyle would be worthwhile.
Anyway, the last three days have been decent. I worked all day Monday then drove to the airport to pick up M and the boys. Their plane was late, so I hung around the airport, read Murakami, and tried to get close enough to the television to hear what the hell was going on in Virginia. The boys were exhausted by the time we reached home, the house was spotless, and we had a decent night. The boys’ hair was hilarious…strawlike and all over the place after Florida weather. Rain began early Tuesday morning and fell two days straight. The floor at work seemed more or less deserted, so I closed my door, played music (Sparklehorse, Air, new Wilco) , and caught up on a ton of paperwork. The next month doesn’t look too bad, especially if my dissertation feedback is positive. Oh, I take that back. Next week will be busy. After next week my existence should slow down some. Still, all the work I finished this week should make next week at least tolerable. Do normal people work as hard as I do in the office? Are they more efficient? Less efficient? I fear they’re more efficient. I don’t know.
Today was a bit weird in that, after lunch, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I suppose I could revise my dissertation in some way, look through tenses, structure, whatever, but I’m really just waiting on feedback before I proceed. I have two projects, one medium, one easy, to finish at work, but I’d need to be in the office to finish them both. I have about an hour of unscheduled time in front of me. What should I do? I think I’ll hit the coffee shop and read Murakami. More later.

Well, I haven’t written in the journal for the past five days, but I have been writing. I completed my first complete dissertation draft yesterday. Now, as far as dissertations go, I’ve seen shorter and I’ve seen longer. My draft runs about 170 pages. I’m happy with the work, but I’m especially happy to put down the work. I didn’t work much on the paper Wednesday after dropping off M and the kids off at the airport. As I was leaving the airport the first flakes of a freak snowstorm started falling. I stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way home, picking up tofu and some interesting Indian veggie burgers, then locked myself in the house and watched the storm. I was pretty depressed; the combination of isolation and a complete lack of sunlight left me useless. I managed a walk to the library into a bitter wind to pick up a couple books and started “Children of Men”. I finished the movie Thursday morning before starting on the dissertation. Most of my Thursday and Friday work revolved around revision and modification. I had to fix this, change that, etc. Now, you’d think that would be pretty easy, but I can free flow write much easier than I can revise. Revision, especially the type of revision when you’re modifying tenses and changing the form of numbers to match APA guidelines, is a motherfucker. By Friday night I was pretty angry and frustrated. I knocked off after dinner, had a couple beers, watched “The Curse of the Golden Flower” (Gong Li was fabulous), and fell asleep with a head stuffed with overwork. I woke Saturday morning on a mission. My revisions were more or less complete, so I free-wrote over twenty pages of chapter five at the kitchen table in about seven hours. I’d work a CD worth of time (mostly Tom Waits), get up, walk around, take a shower, whatever, then get back to work. I wanted that bitch finished so I didn’t have to worry about it today. Once I finished the draft I drove to work, printed it out, stuck a copy in my advisor’s mailbox, and just about collapsed. Last night I got drunk (six beers, drunk for me) and watched “For Your Consideration” and “Sin City”. Both were good, although I’m not finished with “Sin City” yet. I hadn’t seen the film in a few years…I had forgotten its strengths. The neighbors called and asked if I wanted to hang out, but I blew them off. I’m not good with people after a couple days of isolation. I almost have to relearn conversation.

Ok, five bullet points:

Shadow and I walked through the woods both today and Friday. The walks were gorgeous…all of Tuesday’s snow has disappeared, the sun has been out, and I feel more alive. Shadow struggles with the longer walks now, I can tell. We can do about ¾ of our old four mile walks without too much damage, though.

Today was the last day of the Bacon show at MAM. I only saw the show once, but I might actually get another chance to check it out in Buffalo in August. Apparently the show will be at the Knox when we’re visiting M’s mom.


I’ve been reading both Murakami’s “The Wind Up Bird Chronicles” and Nietsche’s“Thus Spake Zarathustra”. I had picked up a shitty translation of the latter at the library Saturday, absolutely unreadable, so, as a post-draft reward, I bought the Oxford Classics translation on Saturday. Of course, my brain was too fried to read the book. Last night I read some of the Murakami, though. I almost wished I had saved the book for Italy, though. Murakami provides good plane reading.

Speaking of Italy, I finally turned in all of my passport application materials. Apparently they need ten weeks of processing time. No hurry. I don’t leave until October.

The sun still isn’t down. Tonight almost feels like a summer night. More later.

Man, I’m tired…I’m just waiting for the day to end so I can go to sleep. Last night I returned from Kenosha teaching at 9:30PM or so (decent class) and discovered I couldn’t fall asleep. I stayed up until close to two, reading and watching television. Unfortunately I had meetings scheduled for 9, 9:30, and 11, so I actually had to get off my ass and drive to work pretty early. Five hours of sleep? No problem. I sleepwalked through my first two meetings, actually paid attention during the third (dissertation defense date, June 15th, thank you very much), then drove home. I’ve spent most of the afternoon on the couch watching Ned’s Declassified or whatever show on VH1 allows vacuous magazine employees airtime to discuss Matt Damon’s ab muscles. M and the boys leave in the morning. I have a lot of writing time scheduled into the mix. More later.

Easter is my favorite holiday in theory, even though Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday in practice. Easter and New Year’s Eve reminded me of each other, actually. Both hold the promise of rebirth. Hm. I never thought about that connection before. Anyway, although I’m sick, I can’t complain about Easter. Last night M got all of the Easter supplies ready and distributed throughout the house. I helped by filling eggs with M and Ms while watching a Van Wilder movie about a guy from India who moves to England and more or less replays “Revenge of the Nerds”. I fell asleep by eleven and woke by six-thirty. M, T, and S were all up, waiting for N and myself to wake. The boys had fun, finding all the candy and the like. M came up with the idea of announcing the upcoming baby to the boys by adding an extra basket. The boys seem into the idea of a brother/sister.
I feel totally drained, exhausted, but the rest of the day has been fine. I drove down to work, watered plants, and cleaned my office. I’m saving the bulk of the email and grading for the morning. Still, I always like the feel of the office when no one else is around. I played Vic Chesnutt and Kraftwerk really loudly. M and the boys were at church while I worked, but they were home by the time I arrived back at the house. The boys had a friend over for a while. I played on the computer, read the paper, and now I’m writing while M sleeps and the boys play video games. Not a bad Easter. More later.

I noticed yesterday that I rarely feel really great about anything. I’m reminded of that Daniel Johnston lyric:

“How can I help but be restless
When everything is so helpless
And all of the colors seem to have
Faded away.”

I don’t know how this happened, but as a result, I would like to list ten things that make me happy. Now, I’m going to leave off my wife and kids, since that’s a given, although my family leaves me very happy. Ok, here goes:

1) The newspaper's sports page.

2) Walking on the basketball court at six in the morning.

3) Bookstores. Well, bookstores don’t leave me giddy happy, but more like calm.

4) Looking at betta fish in their tanks.

5) Gardening, although I suppose I get frustrated when gardening as well when I try to create the perfect gardening. Bad gardening habits!

6) Walking.

7) Reading late at night in bed.

8)Drinking tea and/or burning sage.

9) Watching movies.

10) Writing in the journal.

Now, I noticed that at least eight of these calm me down rather than make me very happy. I’m not sure what that means. More later.

Today has been a good day despite an aligning of events that did not work in our favor. These events were, as follows:

1) The kids off from school for Good Friday.
2) Cold temperatures and blustery winds.
3) The neighbors mostly out of town.

Now, you combine the above three on a bad day, and you’ve got the kids fighting all
day long. However, today went pretty well. I skipped basketball, having downed some melatonin last night, late, and falling asleep near eleven. This morning I let the “Live At Town Hall” DVD run in the player while I cleaned the first floor. I also loaded a ton of music onto my Mp3 player. The boys played video games through most of the morning. At about noon we turned off the video games. T, S, and I played football in the backyard, but we didn’t last long with the cold weather and potential for conflict. I read some Murakami on the couch and watched yesterday’s Thursday night lineup. The boys played upstairs with their action figures for a solid two hours. Amazing. The only downside…the first floor toilet clogged and I lost a very frustrating hour working on that fucker. My stomach, also, is killing me. I don’t know what I ate, but it’s burning a hole in my stomach.
I guess that I’m feeling my way through different moods today. This is a good thing. Easter. Rebirth. More later.

M and the boys are asleep, and I’m hoping I can sleep soon, but I’m not especially hopeful. This weekend looks large and dangerous. Tomorrow’s high temperature is only twenty-eight, a scenario more conducive to Christmas vacation than spring break. We talked about driving down to Chicago, but we did the waterpark last week, and the kids and I barely survived, so we should probably take this weekend a bit easier. However, if we only hang around the house, the kids will either play video games for seventeen hours in a row or inflict bodily harm on each other approximately every twenty minutes. We can’t win. Maybe we can take them to a film or whatever, but I’ll feel guilty about dropping all the cash. Hm. I suppose there are worse scenarios, of course, but I hate when weekends are a drag.
Hope emerged today. I skipped basketball and hit the coffee shop by 8:15AM or so. I revised chapters one and three of the dissertation. Both look like they’re in decent shape, and I’ll hand them back to my advisor at a Tuesday meeting. Chapter two is a bit trickier. I have to read through her notes again if I want to make progress this weekend. I’m torn on how to spend my time the next three days. On one hand, if I haul ass on the writing I could probably hand in a draft of chapter two as well on Tuesday. On the other hand M and the kids leave for Florida Wednesday, so I’ll have Thursday to work through chapter two’s revisions. I don’t know. I don’t think I want to work on the paper at home, though. The kids become too confused by my working at the dining room table when they want to hang out. If I can sneak out for an hour or two, I’ll think about it. Maybe not. Monday already looks like a motherfucker. I need to grade papers in the morning, hit the office in the afternoon, and teach all night. Tuesday is only a little better. Wednesday morning M and the kids leave. I’m resenting the dissertation today, although I’m happy with my progress. I guess I just don’t see how the dissertation has made me a smarter or wiser person. I would have been better served by reading on my own. You know how it is.

Ten Bullet Post…here we go…

* I feel fat about seventeen hours of every day lately. I need to eat better. My stomach churns a lot. Stupid diet coke.

* I haven’t meditated regularly, either. Tomorrow! I swear! I need it.

* A few minutes ago I finished a re-reading of Klosterman’s “Killing Yourself to Live”. I liked the book better the second time around. I’m skipping around through Ha Jin and Murikami’s short stories. I’m tempted to pick up another of the Murikami novels.

* finished watching the documentary on eastern philosophy. I’m glad I watched the film, but I’m still not sure I could explain Shinto or Confucianism very well.

* Last Monday I stopped at a Barnes on Noble, on my wake to teach, and read the first twenty pages of Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra”. I hadn’t picked up Nietzsche since I was a college student, and everyone knows a college student reading Nietzsche is wasting his time and trying to look cool. On Monday, though, I found the book fascinating. I’d rather read Nietzsche then work on my dissertation.

* Maybe tomorrow I’ll clean something or cook something new. I always feel better when I do one or the other.

* M received an email from a fairly large national magazine expressing some interest in publishing one or more of her scavenger hunts. Wow…good for her.

* Today I bought new headphones for my mp3 player. They felt like a decadent extravagance, but they’re way more comfortable than the tiny ear-headphones, and I’m thinking Italy when I make a purchase of this nature.

* Speaking of Italy, my birth certificate finally arrived. Forty bucks! I can’t believe I paid that much to prove I’m alive. Again, I’m trying to frame this as a very small fee I can pay to facilitate an otherwise free trip to Italy. Thank God we’re not totally broke.

* M is snoring as we speak. I hope I can get some sleep tonight. Melatonin, anyone?

I’m writing later on a Tuesday evening. This is my first April entry. The last four days have been exhausting. On Saturday afternoon we took the boys up to a waterpark in Sheboygan to hook up with my sister and her kids. I don’t know if I was looking forward to more of a mellow weekend, starting spring break, but I was exhausted. Plus, I hadn’t slept well Friday night, and a lack of sleep combined with too much activity inevitably sends me down the path towards exhaustion and depression. Steve (my brother in law) and I managed to sequester ourselves in another room and watch the NCAA tournament for a while. That night I slept on the floor, badly, leading to a second night of questionable sleep. T woke up by 5:30AM or so Sunday morning. He and I hung out in the lobby for an hour before dawn. We had the space to ourselves, and we spent some time on the balcony, despite the cold, watching the sun rise and listening to the waves. Later, after the kids woke, we returned to the waterpark. I nearly had a meltdown, as I wanted to go home, but I waited for a couple hours until we all left more or less together. Later I took Steve and my sister to Cabela’s, returned home, said goodbye, and collapsed. Oh, here’s a video of N running into a guy in the waterpark. Pretty funny:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=81E_ZsD0K-I

On Monday I had to take a stress test/ultrasound related to the emergency room visit. I felt like I was wasting the staffs’ time and running up my insurance. One guy gave my heart an ultrasound, then I ran on a treadmill (fourteen minutes, the last minute or so was a motherfucker), then I jumped off and the guy did another ultrasound. The doctor was interesting. He and the other guys in the room chatted about the Brewers opening day and looked more or less bored. They all knew there was nothing wrong with my heart. Well, apparently there is minor damage to a wall, which indicates I should lose weight, but that’s not serious, I guess. After the doctor’s office I hit work for a few hours. I answered email and planned for next week. I’d like to stay out of the office for the duration of break, but I also want to write next week, so we’ll see how that scenario works itself out. If I can get a lot done on Monday and Tuesday, I should be ok. I taught in Kenosha, more or less successfully, I think, Monday night. This morning I drove down to Inverness to see Dan. I hadn’t eaten much the last few days, and I ran into a mad sugar level meltdown in the car on the way to a used CD store. I had to run into a supermarket and buy some chocolate, or I might have fainted. The chocolate tasted gross, though. I bought some books, probably too many, at a half-priced bookstore near Dan’s house. We exchanged CDs, etc., and I drove home, arriving in the garage by four. Some work drama emerged on the computer, but nothing serious, and I’m practicing avoiding the pattern of getting too caught up in that bullshit over break. The boys and I played football for a while in the backyard. We watched some of the Brewers’ second game on television, I told them a story before bed, and here I am. Tomorrow is wide open. I feel badly that M doesn’t have too many wide open days. Good night.