The Morning Lasts All Day

The Lovely Elizabeth is singing the chorus to Life in a Northern Town these days. A lot. It makes the Qweenbean happy.

She admitted that it makes her hurry home from work now. The soft inference is she previously did not come home as quickly as she could. Whereas I, the good parent, can't wait to get around our little spawn's filled diapers, inarticulate articulation of wants, demand to be held, need to be constantly watched, and all that fun stuff.

...

A student asked if I enjoyed parenting and I said I do not. I love The Lovely Elizabeth. I want to do everything I can to take care of her, think of her when I'm away from her, like the little person I see developing, want to treat that responsibly, am excited about being with her in the future, and who knows what all else. I like that I am her parent as far as that goes, but I don't think I could say I like parenting. Other, better people, may like parenting as a concept and try somehow to develop that dynamic with people whose parents they are not (was there a better way to write that?). I am not one of them. I can't imagine myself waking up 5 times a night for... well you, dear reader as an example. I don't see myself doing the things I do as a parent as enjoyable in themselves.

Do I?

No. I think I stand by that. And I think I can say that the joy I find in knowing The Lovely Elizabeth, the strange feeling of elation that wells up in my chest when she smiles, when I hear her little voice, when she lunges toward me to give what seems like a hug, the fondness I feel for her, the concern, interest etc... is all carried by our knowing and getting to know each other rather than through being part of some preformed template for a relationship that we may call "parent" or doing "parenting".

There's a difference?

This may seem a silly difference to point out, but the silliness has broader implications.

As we hold out certain concepts as good: parenthood, dating, marriage, what have you- we obscure its reality that includes awfulness, ugliness, sadness, suffering, etc... I don't mean that we don't perhaps know that any set of relations will have difficulties, I mean our putting the relations forward as an ideal, especially as an ideal to which we say folks ought to aspire can lead to despair or guilt for feeling things that are a part of living with and knowing someone, let alone raising someone.

Whatever, it's not like the confusion someone may feel at being sad when everyone tells them them they are experiencing the greatest joy ever is a big deal.


The Lovely Elizabeth is the one with the goatee.

Do You Say This On Your Own, Or Do Others Say This About Me?

I, as I have learned any good parent should do, presumptuously think everyone wants to see pictures of my baby. As such I sent out a birth announcement (of sorts) to my department. Of course I attached a photo. Following that, more than one person has said she is the cutest baby they have ever seen. So cute, in fact, that she couldn't possibly be my child.

Two things about that:
1.) Most everyone says that about most people's babies without realizing that only one baby in the world could actually be the cutest baby they have ever seen. That's just the way the superlative form of an adjective works. So I understand that other people's comments about the cuteness of a baby, even my baby, must be understood in light of our general misuse of language.
2.) I think she is the cutest baby I have ever seen but also realize that personal commitment and passion color truth.

That said, a coworker of mine, apropos only to my sending out the email birth announcement, told me he thought of my baby while on his way to work one morning because of mention of a Beautiful Baby Contest on the radio. Well actually, it's on the internets but conducted by a radio station so he heard about it on the radio.

How's that for an unsolicited compliment, or better, window into THE TRUTH?

So I entered The Lovely Elizabeth into a baby contest. This is the picture I used.

It really is the greatest use of photographic technology ever.

Anybody that wanted to vote for her could. You would see she is contestant 46 in the D-F category. You would also see that Dylan is the new David.*

What could be more true than the results of a series of tubes contest judged by Tori Spelling and people who listen to Soft Adult Contemporary pop or respond to email forwards from family members telling them to vote for their baby?**

* That's just for the Ds. Overall, Jacob is actually the new Michael.
** That's just begging for a Venn diagram.

That's A Lot To Load on a Baby

I once showed up at a Yearly Meeting meeting in a sport coat. I don't remember why. I wouldn't generally do that so there must have been some reason I was already wearing a sport coat or was going to need one later. I probably would not even remember that I wore a sport coat on that occasion except that someone older and more ministerially invested than I am said I was alienating people by wearing a sport coat. His take was that anyone interested in getting people into churches should notice and follow the cue that nobody in our culture wore sport coats or suits anymore.

He might be right. I hear someone in our Yearly Meeting/Annual Conference is doing some kind of Glamis or Dirt Bike church. On Sundays, he's going to meet with people who have opted to go dirt-biking for the weekend and then read the Bible and sing with them for a couple of hours.

I guess.

I suppose, it might look weird to show up to a place like that in a sport coat. The kind of weird monks probably seemed wearing habits, or the weird Quakers seemed wearing gray and dressed without ruffles. M'eh.

I suppose you can't argue with results. Here I am showing up to places in a sport coat, and there my accuser is, well-suited for ministry in our Yearly Meeting.

Nobody wears sport coats indeed.

Every now and then... well actually more often than "now and then" suggests...

So...

Quite frequently I hear about the need for THE CHURCH to be authentic and relevant. I mostly see that is meant in a Church Growth© way and not necessarily in a so the Kingdom of God is seen kind of way. How it manifests itself is in goatees, Hawaiian shirts as dressy, saying dude, kids who look and act like most everybody else but have NOTW branded somewhere on their person... I think it also makes us think we need to incorporate more images, the word "dude", faux-hawks, and flat screens... lots and lots of flat screens into our weekly concerts/affirmations. What's more relevant than that stuff?

The Lovely Elizabeth, like all babies, is as smart as they come. I don't mean she knows how to use a toilet or can make her hands do what she wants them to do. I don't even think she knows she can know it's possible to want at this point. So when I say smart I mean her world is infinite human possibility. She has the capacity to absorb and integrate herself into any mode of human existence that we know or can imagine. That's smart.

It's my job to narrow that. I will teach her that X is in a set with Y but not a part of the set that includes 1 and 2, and that's different from the set of µ and ∆. I'll help set for her the frames of reference and categorization through which she will understand the world. My narrow world. It's my duty to shrink the horizon of her concerns and interests so that she may be well adjusted to one manner of being. It's my job to pass on my pettiness and sinful tendencies. My idols will become her idols so that for her- much of sin will merely be the way "it" is. If I do my job, I will have passed on the ability to overlook the worst of sins- that which justifies our way of being as the way of being.

When we talk about relevance or authenticity I don't think we want to mean we need to get at that but I suspect that's the very think we need to address if a church is really going to be relevant and authentic. I don't think we want to get at that because the very best idols are those to which we are the most loyal, those that offer the most security and comfort, those that let us skirt around the despair that blankets human existence.*

I'm sure at some point she'll lie. She'll steal. At some point she'll feel the pangs of guilt at hurting someone. We've got a world that understands sin as such and have great ways to alleviate that guilt. But there will be no need to feel guilty for participating in the world as it is- no need to recognize any of that as sin.

Unless the Holy Spirit does its** job. I'm looking forward to that. If it wasn't for that anticipation and action I don't know how that despair could be overcome... Well other than by embracing blissful ignorance or remaining in happy denial I wouldn't know how to do it. But it is there, and as I look at my daughter, the person that I call my daughter but know must be her own person, I am filled with a word I don't know in English. I have that waiting, expectant hope that is esperar.

Thank God.

* I'm really much more fun than this suggests.
** The Holy Spirit is an "it". Deal with it.

A Millstone About My Neck

Our baby came with a bunch of free stuff. Free in that, I didn't have to pull out a wallet and pay for anything with paper or plastic at a specific point though there were costs associated.

One of the costly freebies was Parenting Magazine. Costly because it forces me to confront some of the assumptions I had about parenting. It's called Parenting but it's clearly not for me. It's not for me because I am a dad, and if this magazine is to be believed, mom's are parents and dad's are only some sort of secondary relation to a child. Dad's are conspicuously absent.

Mostly.

There is, along with the Letters to Parenting, a section called Hot Dads wherein photos of nominees are posted along with the details that explain why they're hot.

I intuitively find this repugnant and want to set the magazine on fire, but I should be careful. My parenting can be bad for The Lovely Elizabeth. According to other literature, if I encourage her to participate in athletics or to outperform The Boys in various efforts, it will cause gender identity confusion for her and force The Qweenbean to reject her, thereby encouraging The Lovely Elizabeth to seek the approval and affection of other women in the form of homosexual relationships. I thought encouraging her in athletics and outperforming boys were things I would want to do. Idiot dad that I am.

In that sense, Parenting may be just what the doctor ordered. I ought to remove myself from her life in such a way that she will be more concerned with replacing an absent father and seeking affection and approval with men that are only too happy to prey on the self-hating persona I helped create.

Cool, thanks, Parenting Magazine.

Talk Baby Girl Baby Thinking Baby Walk

Here she is. I'm not going to put her real name into the series of tubes but I will say we have a winner in my Baby Naming Contest. You will be announced and notified shortly.

What Are You Kidding? We Got a Family Here!

Longtime readers of my intertubes journal may be willfully bringing harm to their souls but may also note that I have been uncharacteristically silent of late. It's because finally, the Qweenbean can be saved.

After planning and throwing a 4th of July Picnic/Chili Cook-off, The Qweenbean gave birth to our baby. That ought to go on a resúmé. It's pretty impressive. I mean, after just helping to pull that stuff together, all I wanted to do was sit around with friends and watch a movie. In fact, that's what we were doing before our baby was born. So she's here, and while I'd hate to seem obsessed or overly doting, I should say she's pretty much the greatest thing ever. I know everyone says that about their kids, but I would bet that when I say it, it's really true. She's the best there is. Of course knowing me, I'm just writing that as a demonstration of the nature of things that we say are true. Or maybe I really do mean it. Or maybe it's both.

In any case, we are only just adjusting to this new world into which it seems three (at least) rather than one was born, hence a dearth of blog posts or other contact with the outside world. Even this one will have to be quick, so on to what's important: The Qweenbean being saved.

Of course, you know what I'm talking about- well if you're a Christian that doesn't just pretend to believe the Bible you know what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about Paul's inerrant declaration that women will be saved through childbirth.

I know, I know, it's possible to read that 1 Timothy passage other ways, as saying women will be saved through childbirth, as in women need not be overcome by the process, but in fact will endure safely through it, as an example. But that would be willfully ignoring the broader testimony of scripture that sees the pain of childbirth as a curse and the presence of children as evidence of God's favor. I guess it's also possible to say we really don't know what that bit o' Bible is talking about or that it doesn't relate to our present experience, even as people of faith, but any of that may lead us down roads that we've not already travelled. And if it's a road we've not already travelled how would we know it's a road we can travel?

Name My Baby

Long time readers of my worldwide weblog are spending the best years of their lives in front of a computer but may also remember that The Qweenbean and I are having a baby. Any day now, the creature inside will make her way out.

Our waiting to be born baby's first name is Elizabeth. That's been decided for a while, but we are unable to settle on a middle name. We thought we'd picked Cristina but recently realized neither of us are as committed to it as we initially thought. So now we're back to not having a middle name for her. There are plenty of names we each like, names that have good meanings associated with them, but we are missing names we both like. It's not necessary that she have a middle name, though we both want her to have one. But more importantly, we want it to be a name that we both really enjoy, if the baby doesnlike it, big deal. What's she going to do, cry about it?

So as it is with so many other areas of life, I will turn to the internets for resolution.

It's come to this: a baby naming contest.

You dear reader will have the opportunity to middle name my baby. Of course, like the very act of reading this blog, in naming my baby there is the possibility of a great reward for those who participate well.

There are two ways to play and three ways to win! I don't know how to write that with the inflection it deserves.

First, you can attach yourself to one of the names that is already in the running. If we pick that name, you win. The deal with that is, you can only tie yourself to one name, though any number of people can choose the same name.

The second way to play is by recommending a name. If I like it, you win. This doesn't mean we have to give the baby that name. This only requires that I like the name.

The third way to win is by suggesting a name that I not only like, but we pick as the baby's middle name.

I suppose you should know:
Name meanings are important to me. We both like the name Natalie but I refuse to give in to naming a July baby Natalie. Maybe that says, name meanings are important and I'm a jerk.
Tougher for you to discern, people and history attached to names also matter. We both like the name Sarah but I dated too many girls named Sarah.
But don't let any of that discourage you, I give fantastic prizes and you really have nothing to lose... well maybe dignity, if you suggest a really stupid name.

These are the names in the running:
Ann
Cristina
Frances
James
Joy
Julianne
Lorena
Mae
Margaret

So make your offering to Nike, pick a name, leave your selection or recommendation in a comment, and don't suck. Winners will be notified when the baby is named and recieve their prizes in the mail.

Good Grief

The day of my and The Qweenbean's wedding, a lot of people asked if I was nervous. Even leading up to the wedding, people kept asking if I was having second thoughts. I wasn't. I didn't. I could say without exaggeration that it was the happiest day of my life. Up to this point anyway- I'm still holding out for a beer truck to crash in front of our house. I was nervous when asking if she would marry me. I'll spare you the details, but The Qweenbean and I weren't even speaking to each other the night I showed up at her house and asked if she wanted to be married to me. Crazy, right? I mean, why should I have been nervous- who wouldn't want to marry me- deal with my nonsense, pursue some nebulous life of ministry, poverty, my skinny legs? Big deal that she and I weren't speaking. I could probably walk up to any number of women I presently do not speak with and ask them to marry me. I'd bet I'd get at least one "yes".

Still, I was nervous about asking but not nervous once that hurdle was overcome.

Long time readers of my globowebjournal are misspending their few days on earth but my also remember that The Qweenbean will be having a baby... in exactly a month according to the professionals. I am not nervous about that. There is some anxiety about our present "jobs" situation, I have a greater sense of urgency about finishing school and more intention about making our life of service more structured- perhaps even traditional, concerned about making time to complete the things that must be completed to make room for a baby, afraid I might forget important details from our baby-having class. But I'm not really nervous about any of that.

I am, however, completely, irrationally, horribly gripped by a paralyzing sense of terror.

When I was a kid I was terrified of sheer drops. I wasn't afraid of heights. I was afraid of precipices: cliffs, roof ledges, the front row of a stadium tier above the first, the extreme back row of a stadium level facing out- any extreme drop.

As I stand here (I am in fact standing at this moment) I do not feel as if I will fall one way or another. I am not worried that a gust of wind will blow me off balance or that some involuntary reflex will make me leap forward. I cannot recall ever in my life being possessed by the desire to simply hurl myself to the ground. But if I were standing at the edge of a 100 ft. drop, I would, when I was a kid, have had those fears. In the world of possibility, I suppose that anything can happen while standing at a ledge, so even now, as I am supposed to know better, I still tremble at ledges. It's not heights. I do all kinds of things that require I be high above the ground. It is drops.When I am at one level of stability, overlooking an extreme change to another- I am terrified.

This is perhaps like that terror. I am overwhelmed by the quantum change that is coming. I have these images of doing incredibly stupid and irrational things. Not like getting her Bratz Dolls, I mean really inexplicable and horrible things like not feeding her, forgetting her someplace, dropping her down the stairs. I worry about doing things that make no sense because I have no knowledge of what the world that is coming will be like. I have no choice but to proceed, but I have no way of knowing how to proceed because that world is completely foreign to me. I should be clearer. I move on, but the coming world is not a matter of choice. It doesn't matter that countless other human beings have done this- I haven't.

The way I know to be now is fine for this world in which the baby is safely (safely enough) out of sight. The way I know to be now may have nothing to do with how I will need to be once she is breathing my air... Our air.

I've never had to breathe our air. I wonder how it will compare to breathing my air.

I'm going to vomit.

Just Keep Swimming
Positively 4th Street- Bob Dylan
Without God I Could Do Nothing- Mahalia Jackson
We're Not Gonna Take It- The Who
Since I've Been Loving You- Led Zeppelin
New Feeling- Talking Heads

You Say "Mommy" Like It's a Bad Thing

Longtime readers of my blog likely suffer eyestrain and numbness and tingling of the fingers due to poor workstation set up but may also remember that the Qweenbean was what they call RIF'd. That means she was laid-off by her school district because California state funding is besieged by the tyranny of tax-dodging whiners who want to destroy the state's public infrastructure and curse our future to ruin. Plus, they got theirs so screw everyone else, right? It's an ownership society.

Anyway, she's... we've been a little stressed out because the bacon I bring home is made up of those chewy fat pieces that don't seem to cook or chew easily and you can hardly raise a kid on that. Plus, she really enjoyed her job, and she was good at it. That is a whole other source and type of stress. Something she enjoyed, something that was good, something that was fulfilling was taken from her. Drag.

I've spent enough time in a classroom to know who is and isn't a good teacher. The Qweenbean is a good teacher. I was recently speaking with an acquaintance who told me how difficult it was to be a teacher because "kids these days"* are so disrespectful and don't want to learn. He had seen classrooms- or at least one classroom- wherein kids were jumping around, yelling at the teacher, not listening, and generally doing the sorts of things that might discourage one from being a teacher because it plants the idea that kids these days are disrespectful and don't want to learn. He was telling that story to prove how horrible public schools are and thank God for the gift of private and home-schooling, but that may only be slightly here or there. In any case I've seen classrooms like that too. I've known kids who are instigators in classrooms like that. I was a kid who was an instigator in classrooms like that. I realize that there are worse and better environments but what a kid will try to get away with is largely dependent on the kind of environment the teacher creates, whether the classroom is public, private or "home". Whether a kid will act disrespectfully or act as if they want to learn largely depends on what a teacher will let a kid do.

The key is not whether students are allowed to pray in class, or whether their pledge to a piece of cloth includes the phrase "under God", or whether science as a discipline concerned with the natural world makes reference to a super-natural world. The key is teachers who care about student's learning and see teaching as a profession or vocation rather than a job. The Qweenbean is one of those teachers. She is a person who sees the art of teaching as transforming kid into students. Anyone... most anything could transfer data from one location to another, from one brain to another; that is not teaching. Imparting the range of data in a field (a range of data that changes over time) creates little more than well-trained animals. Good teaching, whatever the subject, involves discipline. I don't mean beating children, at least not in this instance. I mean the training involved in developing in someone the skills necessary to learn. I mean the art of turning someone into a student, a learner. Of course her subject area does involve the transfer of data, and these days, the data she transfers are seen as worth less.

I know that to many, the value of Home Economics, or Family and Consumer Science as it is called in districts with some sense of self-preservation, is less than that of Algebra or Physics, or, closer to the truth, curricula specifically designed to prepare students to vomit answers onto a standardized test, but there is no convincing argument for eliminating those programs unless one is committed to the destruction of any sense of a future common weal.

So that's what was taken from The Qweenbean, and with the best or most condescending of intentions people have been telling her that it's okay because with the baby coming she'd rather be "a mommy" anyway. It's good to have lost this because now she can focus on being a good momma. To that, she has been less and less inclined to be patient.

It's not such a strange thing that the idea of a mother is abstracted in a way to keep women in "their place," abstracted in a way that serves dominating interests, abstracted in a way that fosters the destruction of public education. That's what we tend to do with abstractions: steal, kill, and destroy. Oh, maybe that's too much.

At the very least, we ought not think that being a mother- or rather "a mommy"- requires The Qweenbean accept this disappointment and the conditions that led to it. Or maybe, being a mommy does while being a mother doesn't. Maybe mommy and momma are the words children use to refer to their parents, and though I only write out of my butt on the matter at this time, it seems what a child thinks a parent is and what a parent must be are two different, too different ways of being. Actually, only one is a way of being, the other is an idea that a child has and in this case, in the wrong hands, is used to impugn The Qweenbean's desire that she be a teacher and have a child. It makes sense for a child to think of a mommy, it does not for an adult. "When I was a child" and all that.

That said, she has an interview next week with a new school district. Depending on whether you think she ought to be a mother or a mommy, you may or may not want her to get that job.

*Is there another expression that reveals better than this that what the speaker means is "Stuff I don't get is weird and probably wrong"?

First-Half Highlights

Tommy Smith- Deh buhl droops doon like it fell oof deh etch oofuh table!
The Qweenbean- Nice voice, dude. Learn to talk.

...

Skybalon-I hate that Cristiano Ronaldo, he so rich, young, athletic, and good looking-
The Qweenbean-I know right? Riding in on that scooter likes he's so cool. And the way he combs his hair
Skybalon- Or like doesn't, it's like ex-squeeze me have you ever heard of styling gel?


We're pathetic and we're going to be parents.

Still of all the pathos there is to pass, I'd rather instill this than... say a love for Thomas Kinkade or Carlos Mencia.

Their Father's Hell Did Slowly Go By

I know I am afraid. I am afraid of writing this post because it will make reference to my yet unborn kid and I do not want this to become a self-indulgent paean to masturbatory parenting. But here we are. She's not yet born and she comes up in three posts already.

Don't get me wrong- I know this is self-indulgent, I mean I don't want my child-rearing to be self-indulgent- or at least where and when it is I want to be able to deny it and it will be difficult if I degenerate into...

Little Gigi learned how to stare at fruit today. Oh her name is Gioi, pronounced Joy, but we call her Little Gigi. LOL.

So yesterday Little Gigi learned how to stare at a basket of fruit. It was just so beautiful. She's just such an amazing creature. Wow she just smiled, it's like she's just praying and thanking God for the fruit that He just gave her that she can't eat yet. I just watched her the whole time and it was just so beautiful.

Bible verse this, the Ezzos that.

Oh we just finished painting her nursery mural. The Ron DiCianni angel theme was just so beautiful.

Here's the full three hour video of her prayerfully staring at a basket of fruit. Watch it and leave a comment about how wonderful it is to watch it and leave a comment...

Prayer Requests: Please keep her future husband in prayer that he would just be such a Godly Man.

So kill me when it becomes that...

But on to the post I do want to write. I've already told you that I don't use toilet paper the way you probably do. It's worth repeating that I think my use of baby wipes to clean poop is better than using toilet paper but that the world we live in is not ready... Or perhaps it isn't that it's not ready- that suggests it may be simply a matter of time before we all have cleaner, baby-wiped (only not just for babies anymore) anuses, and it is not simply a matter of time. If we want a better, cleaner anus world, we have to work for it.

And that's the rub. [snickering offstage]

The point is, I already told you that I use baby wipes to clean my butt.

I am having a child. I know my world of clean anuses is better, but look around: itchy anuses, tissue paper, laxatives, standardized overeating, seat level toilet decks, blah blah blah... All is oriented toward this particular world of poo. I tell her, X is right but Y is what we do? Do I raise her to be clean or do I raise her to be normal? She won't believe in Santa Claus, a six-day creation, or heaven as a place, but there's enough openness in our world for difference on those points. We're talking about our poop life- something that clearly matters. There will be no accommodations [that's too inside] for her if she is not playing the dry wood pulp scraping the anus game.

Which is better for her- raising her to be well-adjusted to a world I know is wrong, or raising her according to what is true but has no place in the world beyond her?

It's one thing for me to be committed to what I know must be true. I have already struggled with the concerns and commitments about a clean butt. I am willing and able to come to terms with the difference I am to the world of dirty anuses. But can I ask that of a child? Should I set her up to be the freak who uses baby wipes? Is it right and good for her to be about her father's business?
___________

Hat tip to the Blonde Buddha for turning me on to Ron DiCianni. As I said before, I wondered what is born when a Footprints mug and Psalm 23 were incubated in Thomas Kinkade's colon. Before I knew only in part, now I understand fully.

This is called Praying for Peace by Ron DiCianni.

And one more thing- her name is not Gioi.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

About five in the morning in mid-November, the Qweenbean woke me up shaking a positive pregnancy test in my face. I couldn't say how other people would respond to that. I know that there is probably a popular conception of what that moment should be like- a young couple, eager, hopeful, white, in a silk-lit bathroom, the chorus of We've only Just Begun swelling in the background...

That sounds nice.

This was not that. It was dark, cold, and my wife was waving a peed-on stick in my face. She was reluctant to buy a pregnancy test at all because they had become reminders of what wasn't, or the first step down a path we didn't want to walk: guarded optimism followed by nostalgia for things that would never be.

So it was positive. She was hardly looking forward to being sad, but it was positive and it had been some time since we'd had a positive pregnancy test. This was difficult.

I think it's supposed to be crazy that a couple wanting to be pregnant would look at a pregnancy with angst but that's how it was. And even now, with the congratulations from others and the excitement I feel, I don't want my happiness to be exclusive or oppressive.

I'm a downer. Don't invite me to any parties.

I know what it is to be on the other end of "When are you going to have kids," "Being a parent is the best thing in the world," "You'll understand when you have a baby" comments, let alone certain Christian claims that women are nothing if they are not mothers or men must fulfill their divinely instituted nature by fathering many babies, sex is for reproduction, humans are not whole unless they are doing it (and all that's attached to that).

I must be clear. I can not put into words the happiness I feel with the looming baby, but it is not for me. I mean, you should punch me in the mouth if I say this is an answer to prayer, that I am blessed, that this is right, that I am what is supposed to be and your difference from me is your mark. However, should I live in a way that demonstrates gratefulness, joy, hope for the future- don't punch me in the mouth.

Again, I'm a total drag, but you could think of it this way: I'm only a total drag because I care about actually existing.

Does that even make sense?

Look What Happened

Long time readers of my online diary are unemployable shut-ins and probably remember me mentioning a few times that the Qweenbean and I had sinny sex. That is, we had sex knowing that it was likely not possible that she would get pregnant, and centuries of Christian doctrine taught that sex that does not lead to a baby is wrong.

Of course there was the Modern rub that allowed for sex if a couple was open to the possibility of conception, regardless of how unlikely it may be. That was sticky because it opened the door to any number of pairings wherein the pair were open to the possibility of conception even if the Authorities were not open to the pair's pairing.

But that was mostly for Catholics. Protestants often lacked the fora for discussing these things with the care or concern of Catholic moral philosophers. Even if Catholic thinkers were wrongheaded and bumbling, they were consistent, thoughtful, and firmly rooted in their horribly bizarre world of original sin transmitted via sex and heterosexual incest being better than masturbation because it was natural and other oriented. Protestants have largely just been wrongheaded and bumbling because we've pretended there is no world in which we are rooted. We pretend there is only The World and it is as it should be for everyone everywhere because the Bible says so. Only, it wasn't... isn't, and so we miss the why we say what we say the Bible says anchor that has us rooted in a world that has no place to anchor for some people called out of the world.

But here I am beating a dead horse. Or perhaps pointing out that we are beating a dead horse- a horse we nevertheless insist on trying to ride out of slavery- but as dead horses are wont to do- it goes nowhere and the rest of the exodus moves right past us. That's okay, as long as we tell ourselves we're the only ones that have the right to ride a horse, and despite appearances, we are getting somewhere. That makes it all okay, right?

Anyway, returning to the point, the Qweenbean and I continued having sex knowing that some someone somewhere may have reason to wag fingers at that, but also knowing that finger wagging was largely irrelevant to who we are together.

Awful, awful people we are.

But now this.

We are well past the point of subtle introduction into the memento that this internets diary is, so there she is, full of creature. I have no more explanation for why she is pregnant than why she wasn't before- I mean in light of our having sex. So that's that.

This being with child has reached a saturation point in our life. There have been other times that I have thought about internets comments stemming from this, but out of sensitivity to the Qweenbean, who has been very superstitious about the whole affair, I have not shared them. But now it's okay to share with you, the globespread mesh, and that which has been background will be more directly present.

The breaking point may have been the incredible dis-ease with which I approached registering for baby gifts. After a brief conversation about how uncomfortable I am with imagining we "need" so much more than other parents throughout history, how insidious it is that babies are introduced immediately to a world of consumption and commodification, the fear on which baby-marketing is parasitic, the compartmentalization I had been negotiating with that was brought to an end. Besides, nobody in Babies Backwards "R" Us wanted to hear any of that, but I knew you would.

There is more that will come, I'm sure. Not that this will become a baby blog, but this is part of the world, and it should be clear it is so.