This past October my family came to visit and see my newborn daughter who was about three months at the time. While we did spend a lot of time around Zelda, my daughter, they needed some time outside of the house. My wife and I were, and still are, quite house bound as we navigate the difficulties of everyday life with a new little person to care for. Only just recently have we started going out to eat, something my wife really enjoys. In fact, the first time we took the baby to a restaurant was when we met my family at a local Mediterranean spot. All this to say is they needed to do their own things while here as we were/are boring.
My obvious game collection in the living room held a part of family history though, that being the Splinter Cell series on the Original Xbox. What makes this so important is that my father who’s avidly a non-gamer of any kind (board games, card games, etc…) seemed to gravitate to it and beat the first three in a couple of days each. For such a thing to happen, was for my young mind, something to boast. To this day these games are heralded as classic stealth games, requiring patience, awareness, and effective planning. If you don’t have any familiarity with stealth games, they often provide several approaches, violent vs. non-violent, seen vs. unseen. The hardest way to beat them is usually what’s called a ‘ghost’ run where you proceed all the way with zero enemy casualties and always unseen. My father beat all three almost entirely as a ‘ghost’. Not because the game asked him to but because that’s how he wanted to play the game. I don’t think I’d be able to do that personally even with years of gaming experience, and yet he comes in and does because that’s what was fun to him. Obviously, this made a strong impression when I was younger, so when I started collecting, I made sure they made it into my collection. I did so not only because of their status as stealth classics but because they were artifacts symbolizing a shared appreciation with my father.
Long segue aside while here he eventually decided to pop the first one in. Even though my setup to play original Xbox games on a modern HDTV hadn’t yet been tested I got it up and running with him five feet away from the screen due to short controller chord lengths. He knew he wasn’t going to beat it, but he wanted to experience it again. The game, Splinter Cell, is still impressive visually but shows its age in the more stilted control schemes of yore. Him being able to pop it in and experience that nostalgia is one of the reasons I have a collection. It’s a window into my past, his past, and gaming’s past. It’s certainly not a cornerstone of our relationship but to be able to bond over it then and now is a magical thing. This is what games have always been about for me. Experiencing something with others, sharing in that experience, and holding onto those memories formed through it. He played for maybe 90 minutes before he had his fill and that’s ok, it felt gratifying to me. As though my collection was finally fulfilling its purpose of sharing those memories.
Time seems to have lurched into hyperspeed overnight when I wasn’t paying attention. Every day blazes by. I wake between 5-8 AM and usually when I take my first deep breath for the day it’s 3 PM. My wife and I simultaneously wonder where indeed the time has flown to. This isn’t meant to be a complaint but rather a noting of how quickly a life shifts. This is all relevant because in what seems to be a blink my daughter is now three months old. It’s been a wonder watching her grow but I’m so close I don’t realize how much (physically) until the wife and I share pictures and see older ones. Recently I’ve been encouraging her to use her and hands and seeing her discover how to use them is not something that can be transcribed effectively. That’s how everything is with them (babies). It seems like magic or a miracle that they can develop so quickly. Yet how some things seem so beyond them despite it’s simplicity i.e. sleeping. I try to carry conversation with her while avoiding “baby talk” or pitching my voice higher to help her learn language and hearing her respond with her own onomatopoeic vocabulary shows how much she tries. Once while talking to her I looked at her face expecting fully formed english to come forth until I remembered “she can’t talk, she’s a baby”. You could say “wow this guy seems (out-of-it, dumb, etc… pick one)”, but you don’t witness their magical development first-hand. One day she struggles to lift her head, the next she’s pushing her whole body away from my chest so she can look around the room. And I swear when I say “hi” to her she already responds with a high pitched “ai” sound.
All this to say that despite feeling like time had been compressed it’s been a wondrous three months of fatherhood. As I write she’s screaming, cooing, and shrieking in her bouncer while listening to music, stopping to stare at me while I sing the parts I know. If you just got some incomprehensible warm feeling reading any of this know that parenthood is that feeling nearly all the time but also sleep-deprived, busy, and likely covered in spit-up formula all the time too.
I had recently suffered some muscle problems, likely from carrying the baby one-handed, rendering me ineffective at almost anything but lying prone groaning in pain. My wife picked up my slack but after a week put her foot down claiming things were untenable in their current state. Fortunately after several chiropractor visits and acupuncture I was able to start using my arm again. Then shortly after that my parents and younger sister came to visit us. We had about a week with them which also included my 30th birthday. It was a great time to work on spouse-parent relationships which can be difficult but are important especially when there’s grand-kids to consider. Roughly a week removed from their departure and the home is settling into a routine.
There’s so much that could be said. I could elaborate on my family’s visit, my favorite things about Zelda (my daughter), or how I confront the ever impending end of my life made ever-real by my changing of decades but there’s so much to say and too little time to ponder it.
My daughter is almost a month old now and there are times where it still doesn’t feel real. Like I’m not actually a father and there’s just this baby I’m taking care of for the moment. Even saying her name is weird. Just calling her Baby feels more normal as calling her by name makes it her real name, she’d never know what we’d named her if we just called her Baby. The bizarre feeling when I first said her name was like I was speaking her into existence, announcing her presence for all the gods and humanity to witness. But it felt heavy and came out soft and low. Good for a baby, better to soothe but if you’re exercising primordial magic it’s best to be more confident I think. My wife convinced me we needed a doula, one who speaks her native Mandarin, and so I’ve largely been unneeded. I’ve still got my nine-to-five as well so it all makes me feel so disconnected from being a father. When I have moments that I can steal with Zelda I do, keeping her tiny frame warm and engaging her with talk and the occasional reading (The Princess Bride). In the first three days I slept no more than a few hours while doing everything for Zelda and my wife but after the doula arrived the sudden separation of duties left me anxious and restless. I had left the safe and comfortable boundaries of youth and was creeping evermore into the responsibility of raising another person. Some memories of my youth still seem fresh and yet I’m expected to provide for her for the rest of (hopefully) my life. Daunting yes but I’m not scared of that. Before I can step into the full role of a parent I feel I should be more involved with Zelda day-to-day, moment-to-moment. My wife says I worry too much and it’s fine. She’s probably right though. The doula does create a real and obvious de-escalation of need as she’s able to do most everything herself. I think this causes two problems for me:
1. She’s spending time with Zelda that I don’t want to give up and performing responsibilities I think are mine
2. By not being able to fully step into my expected responsibilities as a parent I cannot fully become one.
This renders me stuck between the past and what’s next. The liminal space between being an adult and being a parent.
If any of this has you worried, it’s fine I’m past the point where this has pervaded my ponderings. So much so I wondered against writing about it at all, but no pain no gain. Logically though this all really shouldn’t matter:
1. The doula is only here for two months max, I have the rest of Zelda’s life to be a father.
2. I just have to get over it because I don’t really have a choice one way or the other. Plus I still have a job to do.
Any day now I’m going to come home from the hospital with a baby girl as a new father. I feel anxious, excited, afraid, curious, and more. For the moment I’m just double checking everything, trying to keep the house clean, and my wife happy. My wife is ready to no longer carry a watermelon-sized person around her belly also. This has been the largest reason I’ve not found the time or motivation to write much of anything. Even now the words come only with much focus and thought to wring out something. Anticipation has always had a way of staying under my skin, making me overwhelmingly anxious. For relief I always end up going over all the details, even the only mildly related ones. The nursery is setup, I’ve re-organized the garage, re-evaluated and sold off part of my video game collection, re-organized and cleaned the kitchen, and put some finishing touches into my gardens. I think I’m feeling the end of this chapter of my life and I’m trying to finish what I can so I can start the next as unburdened as possible.
I have so much going on and so much to say this will probably be quite long, especially with some pictures. So it’s been broken up into pieces, mostly for my benefit. If you’re asking why I didn’t release smaller posts over time, that’s a good question.
Going forward I may talk about Zelda, my daughter, but only after confirming it’s ok with my partner. We’re almost at 41 weeks and my wife is ready to be done. Fortunately Zelda is for all intents and purposes in good health despite her late stay. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait for our local hospital to deliver a few other Summer babies before we can schedule an induction and a definitive end. One way or the other within a week I’ll be able to hold my newborn. My wife is abuzz with the possibilities for Zelda, whether she’ll be good at math, a natural swimmer or anti-social like her dad. How quickly will she learn to crawl and speak? Will she be noisy or quiet? Active or still? All I can hope to do is comfort her against all the possibilities and assure her Zelda will be fine.
Ironically by the time this post goes live, my daughter will have been born already. On July 4th close to midnight Zelda was born with no complications, and all the struggles my wife suffered for the past 40+ weeks melted into one of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen her wear when they handed her this tiny, quiet, little girl. Two days later and we’ve taken the baby home for the first time. Here’s to a healthy baby and wife *drinks more caffeine*.
The Wife
Wild salmon, fingerling potatoes, and green salad.
My wife has found the dwindling end of our non-parent life together pre-occupying her mind. As a balm I suggested a long list of ideas for “Dates”, with extra attention to her limitations in pregnancy. While we were unable to do all of them we did knock off quite a few and having this list to work through made planning a fun day quicker.
Dinner for two by candlelight
Bake desserts and make ice cream sundaes
Picnic
Work on some artwork together
Day trip to an interesting nearby city
Try a board game, card game, or video game
Faux camping in the backyard with smores and grilled food
Watch a movie at the Drive-in
Food crawl through a town
Dinner at a nice restaraunt
“Movie Theatre” at home
Pictured below we were able to complete a “Paint-by-numbers” on canvas that we are now deciding where to hang. Most likely in the nursery.
The final product of our collaboration.
The next we were able to do was try Anti-monopoly, a variation on the classic board game. It was the first time in a few years we had played a board game or anything like that together. On occasion she’s willing to play the video game Overcooked with me and it’s a bit of chaotic fun. We were also able to catch Everything Everywhere All at Once at a nearby Drive-in Theatre. We grabbed some mexican take-out and had a great time gorging and watching. Earlier in the year we had driven north to Napa, CA (the city not the county) where we roamed around taking in the sights and eating at a few places, this is the closest we got to a true food crawl. When I first moved out to California my wife and I were not married yet and were actually taking a break from each other. We eventually met for dinner at a nice local italian place and re-kindled our relationship that night. I was hoping we could go one last time before parenthood and we may still but it seems we won’t. Lastly my wife had received a small projector as a gift from work and with some tinkering I was able to setup our spare bedroom into a “home movie theatre”. The projection’s image is rather grainy but sharp enough for subtitles, a must for my wife. For our movie night I suggested The Grand Budapest Hotel, something we had meant to watch together for some time. This was my second viewing and her first. It’s a pretty fascinating movie with lots of stuff bubbling beneath the surface, she enjoyed it quite a bit so I’ve moved onto my next recommendation for her, Catch Me If You Can also a hit. Even though we worked through half the list we hit a point where we knew even amongst those limited options, our choices were fewer each day.
Just a funny aside, we have a local pizzeria that serves a “Prego” pizza. One that is claimed to help start labor, and my wife anxious to get things going advocated for it’s consumption. So I pickup what is essentially a combo pizza with extra onions, pepper, and linguisa added. She wasn’t a fan, she doesn’t like such “american” style pizzas so I’ve had pizza for lunch for almost a week now.
The Prego pizza
Myself
I’ve spent some time thinking about why I even have a blog and what purpose it serves. One conclusion is that being able to write about whatever I want with no real objective gives me the opportunity to organize my thoughts. Then in the writing of it I ask myself critical questions, which reveals more understanding. If nothing else having a place to speak even an empty room is conducive to my mental health and self-awareness. It’s my hope I’ll continue to think out loud and find more confidence in exposing more of my thoughts as I do so. Aside from my mental health I’ve taken a break from serious excercise to nurse a foot back into shape, but between an acceptable diet and limited activity I’ve lost another ten pounds in the past month. This makes 25+ pounds over two months. Down from 220+ to 195. The end of last month, June, was when I hit two months of no alcohol as well. Things are not perfect but I’m making the changes that I think are meaningful for now.
Video Games
Video game shelves
It’s weird that I feel so compelled to finalize things. Not only that but what I cared about or what mattered shifted quickly as the expected due date neared. This was most apparent with my intentions towards game collecting where I had streamlined my collection selling a good chunk of it. Cutting down on larger items like collectors editions and entire genres I’ve realized I just don’t like. Not only this but I bought plastic shells for all of my Nintendo paper game boxes as that finalized level of protection. In addition after a lot of shuffling around I’ve found a layout for my games that I find functionally effective and aesthetically pleasing. From the hookups for all my handhelds over on the left, to the ready-to-play PSOne between my genesis games, and everything else. I look at these shelves and see an interactive shrine to what gaming is to me. In an effort to make playing any of my consoles even easier I’ve started switching over to all wireless controllers. So far this covers the Genesis, SNES, and PS2 for the consoles that dont have first-party wireless controllers. So far it’s been pretty effective, I just need to document what combination of switches need to be activated for seamless component video out to my Retro-Tink 5x.
Vinyl
My vinyl setup
This push to tie the bow on my collecting also included my vinyl collection which saw two new additions with another three on the way. Most recently was The Black Dahlia Murder’s Ritual. I bought my first TBDM vinyl, Abyssmal a week or so before Trevor’s death and I had posted about not enjoying their recent music as much. I know I don’t have anything to do with what happened but it still left me with some guilt later. I only wish the best for those left behind. Continuing with the Death Metal I also picked up Black Crown Initiate‘s Song of the Crippled Bull and Selves We Cannot Forgive both excellent listens with a lot of variety, though I would like to say the former is more like one 21 minute long track that’s broken into four pieces. The latter goes to a lot of different places and most of the tracks have a clear identity picking only a few styles to blend each. The last Death Metal album is the newest release from Archspire who seem like a joke band because of how ridiculous some of what they do is, but every time I listen to their past two releases what I hear is some pretty great songwriting. Finally I was able to find an affordable copy of one my favorite 90’s east-coast hip-hop albums. It has this theme of a city bracing for a hurricane, the eponymous storm in the form of “Hurricane” Starang Wondah, Louieville Sluggah, and Top Dog.
For anyone curious about my setup, I’m using an AT-LP120XUSB so my audio is actually transmitted via bluetooth as I’m low on space for chords. At the moment I’m only outputting to a pair of decent Bose bookend speakers that’ve lasted me since High School. Given our house is mostly hardwood and vinyl planking the acoustics are exceptional and I can fill the whole house from downstairs at well less than half volume. My turntable accessories and stuff for cleaning are in the drawer just below the turntable, while replacement vinyl sleeves are on a shelf lower. My vinyl shelving was just some second-hand furntiure left by a friend of my wife’s. After having it for some time not knowing why this “book”shelf can’t hold books, it all clicked when I was looking where I could put my vinyl somewhere safe, accessible, and allowed for legible spines. I’m using some cheap metal bookends to keep the vinyl vertical and help with organization. Right now I have them organized into four sections Metal or Hip-Hop my wife doesn’t like on the top left, stuff I don’t listen to or damaged vinyl on the bottom left, video game soundtracks on the bottom right and everything else (jazz, rock, classical) is in the top right. Just for my vanity and because vinyl album covers are an art to themselves I bought a stand to display whatever’s playing.
ooglykraken 