bye, bye penny... i'll miss you

everyone knows i'm not much of a pet person. although it seems i should be from the way i attract every animal within a five mile radius. but, i think it's pretty much due to the fact that i'm lazy. i don't' really want to keep up with a pet. there's this whole responsibility aspect that i have no desire to be a part of. hell, every plant i've owned has died within about a week and i would really hate to see what i might do with an animal. i'm still floored every morning i wake up and realize i have a kid. it's that whole half-asleep-what's-kicking-me-in-the-head-holy-shit-i-have-a-kid thing. as of right now, things seem to have worked out fine and that in itself amazes me. i thought for sure she would be ruined by now.

get back to me when she's a teen.

anyway, i'm feeling a little sad today because my mom is having to put one of our family cats down this afternoon.

from what i can remember, we have always had cats around the house. for some reason my folks loved to rescue cats from workplace parking lots, the grocery store or some random location where a cat should not have been in the first place. penny happened to be an offspring of one of these particular finds.

she was born when i was in high school so she's been around some 15 years. her health is pretty horrible right now and it's been falling for quite a while. we all know this is the right thing to do but that doesn't make it any easier. i may have bitched about her over the years --pretty much because i had to shovel her shit on a daily basis-- but i'm realizing today she meant something to me.

this has made me step back and think of her which made me think about how i did enjoy having her around. you see, i spent a lot of time grounded in high school and she made me feel not so alone while i got to know the inside of our house. really well.

i truly will miss her.

on a side note
it seems that with kids come pets and i won't be "that" parent who denies their children pets if they really want them. but i can assure you the type of pets i'm willing to own (and take care of because that's how it works) are not many. right now, it's fish. i don't see that changing any time soon.

sorry calli.

baby bunch halloween 2.0

we have this great group of friends who all have kids around the same age and we call it the baby bunch. we hang and let the kids run all over each other, swap illnesses and you know, bound on that the rug-rat level. well, this year marked the 2nd halloween that we all spent together. and i think it's becoming a tradition. pizza, beer, cookies and all other things halloween. the host of the event tried to extend the invite to a hand full of other couples with kids but they all bagged on us and we ended up with the same group as last year. but i have to tell you, we seemed better for it. the only other non-baby bunch attendees were my folks, my sister and her better half. but the four of them are at everything anyway. i have a very young family so my friends always love having them around.

i'm not quite sure i can honestly say "another successful halloween down". i will say however, we made a giant leap in the right direction compared to the constant crying from the moment calli donned her costume that we experienced last year. but to claim victory would only be a lie. she did enjoy herself --for the most part-- and we were able to contain the crying to small isolated moments. the moments between the wagon and the front door. the most important moments.

she hopped out of the wagon and made her way up the driveway and as soon as she saw the generous person handing over the treats she turned running back to the wagon adamantly exclaiming--

"no! no! no! no! no!"
"calli... why are you saying no?"
"no! no! no! no! no!"
"whatever."

so much for the candy i would enjoy for the next month and a half. as a parent, this is one of the best times of the year. i can indulge in all the candy i would never normally buy without any of the guilt. i think we managed about 6 pieces in all. pretty much a bust if you ask me.

the rest of the baby bunch seemed to have a solid grasp on the door to door concept. my daughter, not so much. she happily sat in the wagon while her paypaw pulled her up and down the streets. i will say she looked damn cute doing it.

over all, the event went well. but next year we are not going out like this. there will be blood, sweat and tears lost between now and then to get this down. i will not have these other dads reaping the rewards of pimping their kids out for the sweet-tooth satisfaction more than me. again.

baby bunch halloween 3.0... here we come!

two jobs are better than one... right?

about a year ago i decided to step away from the night time work force, join the rest of america and put my college degree to use. i got a day job. at a desk. on my ass. and as i suspected... it sucks. i will say that being home at night has been nice. i love having the extra time with calli and hillary. but, unfortunately, i made more money bar tending and worked a hell of lot less. plus, we had to put calli in daycare as a result. so financially, this move really hit the wallet pretty hard.

--insert second job--

in order to fix this "problem" i took on a second job. bleh.

i started last night and the job itself, i like --it's really easy and the money's great-- and it's in line with the "new path" i've chosen to pursue. (more on that at a later date) but the time i have to put in sucks. i leave the house at 630 am and get home around 1030pm. obviously it makes for a long day. but the two job thing is only temporary. once we get on our feet again and through the holiday season, i plan on going to nights only. this will not only pad the pockets a little better, it will also allow me days with calli again --which i miss terribly-- and give me my sanity back. at least in regards to jobs.

so for now, i'll just bite down and grin n' bare it. that's life, right?

it totally sucks but this time the cliche is true

6. an aspiration; goal; aim: A trip to Europe is his dream.

according to dictionary.com, a "life" dream comes defined as the above example.

i mention this because i had an interesting conversation with a friend --note: he's not a parent-- about "life" dreams and the path someone takes once they have children. basically, he told me about a high school reunion his sister went to in their hometown and the interactions she had with old friends. at the time she was about to finish her phd and held a faculty position at depaul university in chicago. no doubt a respectable position to be in life. i'm not at all slighting that in any way. i just want to get that out there. i know someone will undoubtedly think i'm an asshole by the end of this post. so she went home, went to this reunion and exchanged pleasantries. the typical "how are you ? what are you doing these days?" blah, blah boring shit none of us care about anyway so why do we even bother, conversations. getting to the point, she told them what she was doing and where she worked and apparently the small town friends pretty much disregarded this as oh nice but here are the 75 photos of my children. i'm sure there was a bit of exaggeration thrown in for emphasis on his part. but he couldn't believe how having children can trump a phd and a faculty position at depaul university.

i'm not sure that one out shines the other but when i said it's hard to understand till you have children i got the whole yeah but you can't just live through you kids- there's more to life than children response.

there are certainly things we all admit we would never do or say when we have kids and i cringe every time i say or do these things. truth is, we all do them and the stuff about how you don't understand till you have kids is so fucking true it makes me ill. having a child not only changes everything, it changes everything. i get the whole notion of how we shouldn't lose sight of who we are as individuals but truth be known, once you have a child, your dreams become their dreams and all you want is to see them grow and learn and smile through accomplishment.

i have been acting for about five years. my wife and i moved out to lost angeles and then back to austin and i pursued it pretty heavily for those five years. in the middle of all this i had a child. this didn't stop me from doing what i loved. it did however magnify the fact that acting is definitely a single person's life style. and of course i knew i would be the one to break that. but once i started missing time with calli because i was rehearsing or shooting something i quickly realized i did want to be the exception to the rule any longer. so i made the decision to set acting aside and find a way to have more time with my family.

from the outside it does seem that a child drives many away from their dreams but i can assure you the parents are choosing the paths they take and as crappy as it sounds, you can not and will not understand till you have a child.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm not living some boring life now because i have a kid, i'm just choosing to pursue a different path. acting turned out not be what i am going to do with my life and that's fine. i'm perfectly okay with that. just know that i will die knowing i made that decision on my own. not because i had a kid.

toddler without sleep = crapy demeanor the next morning for dad

i leave for work at a ridiculously early time. the moon this morning --that's what i'm saying, it's so early the moon was still out-- almost made it worth while.

each morning before calli and i get in the car to leave we step out onto the driveway and look at the stars. this morning the moon sat just above the trees, full and lit the entire sky. she couldn't stop pointing exclaiming, "moon, moon, moon". then, when we turned to head for my car, she extended the proper salutation --"bye, bye stars. bye, bye moon." very cute. still, it doesn't make up for the middle-of-the-night-interruptions we have been the lucky beneficiaries of.

i got to work and immediately took note of how swollen my eyes felt. the computer screen seemed to be fueled by some sort of radio-active matter it was so blinding and i could feel the onset of new additions to my lovely flock of crows feet forming. after combing my mush of a brain, it hit me like a month supply of nodoz. the past two nights calli has been in and out of our bed a couple of times each night. that's why i've been draggin' ass. however, i'm not sure what's going on. according to my mother, she slept both nights straight through when she stayed with her.

how does this happen?

why does our house & her bed make the difference?

is one full night of sleep too much to ask for?

if it's teeth, why didn't the try to come through when she stayed in houston?

i can ask no more question.

there are never going to be answers.

she will forever make my brain hurt.

it doesn't make sense.

nothing makes sense.

i can't think this early without a proper nights sleep.

even with coffee.

it's too much.

sleep is very important.

very.

very important.