“Over a dog! Over an ugly dog!”

I know how Melvin Udell felt. My dog wasn’t ugly, but he was damn stupid. He has been gone for almost three months now and I still find myself sucked into occasional and inconvenient bouts of grief. It’s largely spurred by my son who, in his innocence and lack of understanding, will just not let it go.

For a couple of days after, he was quiet about the dog. I thought maybe his little brain had sorted it out. The dog bit him, so the dog had to go. But after that honeymoon period he started asking for the dog.

“Where’s Timmins?”

Dr. O’C and I had talked about how to deal with that question and we went with the standard :”gone-to-live-on-a-farm-with-other-dogs-he’s-very-happy” line. Seemed to be tailor made for two year old consumption.

“Can he come back for a visit? Just for a minute?”

And every time he said that – daily for I don’t now how long – it broke my heart. Because Boy Z had forgiven him for his indiscretion. Because I constantly asked myself whether I had done the right thing. Because I would have loved for him to come back – just for a minute. Would have loved to feel him leaning against my legs, begging for a moment of attention.

As the days turned into weeks turned into months, it got better. That visceral grief, the sadness that you can feel in a physical sense, started to abate leaving a dull ache that slowly got better. And Boy Z stopped asking every day. But there were still days. Days that he would talk about “his dog”. Days that he would see a dog and say “that bites”. Days like one at the museum last week when, confronted with a stuffed wolf that looks strikingly like Timmins, he said “That’s my wolf. Where’s Timmins?”

Three months later and I felt my heart clench.

When is it going to stop? I don’t know the right thing to do. Initially, I tried to get rid of all reminders of the dog – his bed, his toys, his hair that littered the house. But reminders pop up everywhere – a tangle of dog hair in an ignored corner of the house, dog treats shoved into the back of a cupboard, an old collar in amongst our winter coats. The scar under Boy Z’s right eye is a vicious reminder. One of the reasons I recently changed the look of this site was because most of the header images featured the dog. I don’t want to erase him from my memory, I hold no animosity in my heart for him, I just want it to stop hurting whenever I’m reminded of him.

I want my son to stop reminding me of him.

Last night when I was reading him a story – “Aliens Love Underpants” – we got to a page that featured a dog chasing the aliens. The dog looked nothing like Timmins, but had his mouth open and teeth bared. As a good dog would when confronted with underwear nicking extraterrestrials.

“That dog bit me. Last night. On the beach.”

When is it going to stop?

I’ve been thinking about it these last few days. I’ve thought of getting a new dog, but the time just isn’t right. A puppy and a six month old baby? In the same house? Not a good idea. An older pound dog comes with all sorts of unknown baggage. I’ve been watching “Six Feet Under” over the last several months (thank you Courtney, Headbang8 and Kerry). David, Nate and Rico often talk about how a funeral helps with the grieving process. I’ve never been a fan of the traditional Judeo-Christian funeral and we certainly didn’t have one for the dog. Hell, we didn’t have a body. But maybe I need to do something like that – bury the bits and pieces of Timmins that we have left. Maybe I need to say a proper goodbye. I don’t know.

Over a dog. A stupid dog.

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What is arguably Steve Earle’s finest album, “Train A Comin’”, is available from . This track featured in the season finale of “Friday Night Lights“, which was just fantastic. I was worried, watching Season 4, that FNL had ‘jumped the shark’. But not after the finale. I don’t understand why this show is not one of the top rated dramas on TV rather than having been shoveled off on some satellite network. What are you guys watching in the U.S.? Fox News? Seriously?

I’ve got to tell you – it was awesome. I’m not a violent guy at all. The last time I was in a fight I was 11 and I’m pretty sure I lost. I’ve got no interest in boxing or martial arts or any of that palaver. But strapping on the gloves and going a couple of rounds with the heavy bag and punch pads just brought out an energy in me that I didn’t know was there. Not agression, it had nothing to do with anger or violence, just some primal male impulse to punch things.

After a half an hour or so, with wrists and shoulders throbbing, I made the decision to take up boxing as a hobby. Or karate. Or ultimate fighting. Anything that involved punching, really.

Later at the gym whilst running on the treadmilly I watched a news (i.e. factually inspired entertainment television) report on the Sea Shepherd ship ‘Steve Irwin’ that had docked in Western Australia. Sea Shepherd is a fringe environmental group that confronts whaling vessels and seeks to stop them from killing whales using whatever means necessary. They’ve rammed whaling ships, used lasers to blind sailors, scuttled ships in harbour, and destroyed nets. The group self-identifies as pirates and has been labeled as terrorists by Japanese whalers and Glenn Beck alike. They’ve been in the news down here recently because one of their boats was sunk off the southern coast of Australia by a Japanese whaling vessel.

I didn’t really have strong opinions about Sea Shepherd when I first heard about this latest incident. I don’t like whaling. I think it’s unconscionable in the 21st century. But I’m not a big fan of extremist tactics either and Sea Shepherd, with a vigour reminiscent of anti-abortion extremists, often put sailors and fisherman at risk of harm or death for the sake of saving a whale.

Maybe it was all the testosterone released by my boxing session, but I got a little hitch in my giddyup when they showed a still photo of the hull of the ‘Steve Irwin’ with flags documenting the ships that they had rammed or sunk I thought – good on them. Fight the whaling bastards. Governments around the world have been unable to stop the Japanese, Norwegians and Icelanders from whaling, so why not a group of environmental pirates. They even fly the skull and crossbones, who doesn’t love a dashing pirate?

I think I’ll even sign up for their next expedition. Maybe I’ll have a chance to use my newly obtained boxing skills on some Japanese whale slayer.

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A few hours later now, fully crashed from my endorphin high, I’m not so keen on Sea Shepherd. The anti-abortion extremist comparison is a good one, actually. Both groups think their cause is just. Both groups think their governments have failed them and thus they are justified in taking illegal and extreme action. Just because I like whales more than fetuses doesn’t make one group better than the other.

So, maybe I won’t be setting sail on the ‘Steve Irwin’.

And something I hadn’t considered about the whole boxing/karate/ultimate fighting idea is that I not only hit but get hit. This doesn’t sound nearly as much fun. So, maybe scratch the mortal combat as well.

But I’ll definitely be back at that heavy bag next time I go to the gym.

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The Shins’ “Chutes Too Narrow” is available from . If you’re not yet a Shins fan, your really should be. Check them out.

Image credits:

Heavy bag

Sea Shepherd

Sea Shepherd 2

“And when the boys are teenagers, I’m just going to send them to Florida for the school holidays. Let their grandparents deal with their hormonal butts”, I ribbed.

“That’s OK”, my Dad replied with disturbing solemnity, “I’ll be dead by then.”

Stunned silence. My Dad has a sense of humour so dry that it borders on Saharan, so I coughed a hesitant chuckle.

“No, seriously. I’m 63. My father died in his early 70’s, so did his brother. We [surname redacted] men don’t live very long. I’ll be gone before they’re teens.”

My Dad, always the life of the party.

That being said, it wasn’t a month earlier at a dinner party that I announced to my guests:

“Did y’all know that as of my birthday, I’ll be statistically halfway through my life? Truly middle aged?”

Stunned silence, followed by nervous laughter.

“That’s assuming that we’re talking about the American average life expectancy of 75.6 for men rather than the Australian average of 78.9. If I get the Australian bump then I’m another year away from half way.”

Apparently, a cavalier fatalism is an inherited trait.

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I’m not really a fan of Echo and the Bunnymen, nor any music of the 80’s. It’s all just too…synthetic. But, this is a perfect accompanying track. Their 1980 debut, “Crocodiles” is available from .

I had hoped that they would recognize my state of emotional distress, but that was too optimistic.

I usually don’t respond to these trolls. I generally delete their comments and trash their e-mails. But seriously, what kind of person leaves me an anonymous comment telling me I “suck” for making what was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve made in my life? What kind of person sends me an anonymous e-mail calling me a murderer? Go to hell, you cowards.

There is a dog shaped hole in my heart that doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller. But I still don’t question my decision. If there was one thing I admired about the last American president it was his seeming ability to make a decision and stand by it. Maybe in the dead of night, he struggled to sleep while going over and over his choice to invade a random Middle Eastern country, but he certainly didn’t show any evidence of uncertainty. “The Decider” often came off pugnacious and unreasonable, but no matter what you thought of him, you’ve got to give him credit for his decisiveness.

I do the same thing, or try to do so. When I make a decision, the decision is made and I don’t lose any sleep thinking about it. Second guessing does no good, just leaves one mired in “what ifs”. When Timmins bit Boy Z, there was only one course of action. Perhaps the most important job I’ve got as a father is to protect my sons and when Timmins attacked, Timmins had to go.

That doesn’t mean I enjoyed it. It’s not that I’m callous or that I reacted in anger. I was never angry at the dog. Even right after he bit Boy Z, my response wasn’t out of anger it was instinct. There were a lot of emotions rattling around – sadness, guilt, regret, relief – but none of them were anger. I loved that dog. He was a part of my family. He was so much a part of the last eight and a half years, so much a part of my life. Omnipresent, often stiflingly so – always making travel and housing more of a challenge. But his presence, was a grounding influence in what had been a volatile time in my life. I dragged Timmins over three different continents to give me some sense of constancy. Wherever in the world I was, if Timmins was there, I was home. ‘Constant as a Northern star.’

Those of you who aren’t dog owners may not understand all this wringing of hands and rending of garments and that’s fair enough. If I see a blog post in which one of the main characters is a cat, I usually move on. But those of you who are dog owners and those of you who have lost a dog know what I’m going through. Now that my extended family has gone back to Florida and we’re back home and back into the regularity of normal life, everything evokes the dog. The house still smells of him. Every time I walk out on the porch, I expect to hear the scrabbling noise of Timmins galloping up the stairs to greet me. And a little part of me dies when I don’t hear it. I listen expectantly for his whining howl to be fed when we’re making the popcorn at night. I miss the required walks – morning and evening, rain or shine. I tear up when I see clots of white hair in the nooks and crannies of our life.

I was going to use this post to eulogize my dog, but then I realized that I’ve already done it. More than once:

• A New Parade of Faith and Sparks
• Into the Valley of Death
• About A Dog
• Don’t You Know What They Put In It?
• Timmins vs British Fauna

I’ve said it all before and I don’t have the heart to say it all again. I miss him. I miss him like I lost a member of my family. And I did. No matter how many times I wake up, stumble into the kitchen to make my coffee and listen I’m never going to hear him whining and howling excitedly for his morning walk again. I know the dog shaped hole will eventually close up, but until then maybe you horrible little trolls could stay away from my site.

Rest in peace, you damn good dog.

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R.E.M.’s “Reckoning” is available from .

Reminds me of Junior High School dances.

I’m not being coy. I’m not being melodramatic. Or at least I don’t think so. I’ve never been very sensitive to my own melodramatics, which is why I’ve been tagged as a ‘drama queen’ more than once in my days. I am probably being a little bit paranoid. But, as one of my musical idols used to howl,  just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not after you.

Actually, as the ever wise esthetician and blogger Formerly Fun points out, they probably aren’t. I’m not going to get into the events that transpired to freak me out . But they were independent events, not a pattern. Most likely one of them, whaddayacallem, statistical aberrations.

I still don’t know if I’m comfortable. I’ve gone over a dozen permutations in my head. Make the blog private. Start a new private blog and keep this one public. Start a ‘family blog’ and then a new private one. And on. And on. I don’t know. But I am a lazy man and, thus, innately resistant to change. And I do know that I like blogging. I like writing and I like the feedback. I like a lot of the connections I’ve made.

I don’t know what I’m going to do for the long run. But I’ve got a post about crystal meth just itching to get written and I guess we’ll go from there.

So here I am, peeking around the doorway. Saying nothing. Blogging about blogging.

What then, really, was the point?

But here are some photos from the Meadows Country Fair, where we spent part of the weekend. I became obsessed with the yard dog trials – now my second favorite Australian sport. I’m thinking of buying a sheep. And maybe a new dog. I’m pretty sure yard dogs don’t tolerate hugs.

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I’ve had this Del McCoury, Doc Watson and Mac Wiseman cover of the Bill Monroe song rattling aroun my head for the last couple of days. I picked up their 1998 collaboration, “Del, Doc and Mac”, several years ago now but I’ve only recently come to really love it. Three bluegrass giants, playing off one another. As good as it gets.

“Del, Doc and Mac” is available from . A must for bluegrass fans.

Actually, that is all kind of crap. I am busy, that’s true. But I’ve always been able to find time at the end of my day to whip up a blog post. The bigger reason it is going to be quiet around here is that I’ve suddenly developed some paranoia about security, anonymity and privacy. Three independent events in the last month or so have given me pause to think about this whole blogging thing. I’ve begun to worry about how much of myself and, more importantly, my family I’m putting out there for any random stranger to see. The irony of me as  a blogger is that I’m actually an incredibly private person. I think that that therapeutic value of blogging for me has always been that it forces me to be more open, even if I use a pseudonym.

But right now I’m wondering if I’m too open.

Don’t know. But I’m going to have to think about things for a little while.

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I can’t remember where I got this live version of Ryan Adams’ “I See Monsters”. I suspect the Aquarium Drunkard. It’s from a live set of Adams with his Cardinals called the “Loft Sessions”. The original comes from “Love Is Hell”, an incredible pair of EPs that are available from

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My Spring Break thus far has been a battle. A battle with Not Max over sleep. A battle with Boy Z over appropriate and inappropriate targets for hurled objects. A battle with Dr. O’C to keep from biting off each other’s head. I’m pretty sure I’m losing most of these battles right now.

Not Max and I continue circling one another like the wary combatants we are. He’s still not sure about me and I’m still not sure about him. Every now and again we get close to a breakthrough – I feel my heart melting a bit, a little half smile crosses his face. Then he starts screaming at me again.

But I’m not that easily deterred. We’ll get there.

One of the battles I may have won was over Boy Z’s sleeping arrangements. One mission for the break was to get Boy Z out of his cot (crib) and into his bed. On Monday, I decided to force the issue. I disassembled his cot and put it into the garage. I had him ‘help’ and we talked it over while we took it apart. All good. That night, we went through the bedtime routine and he went into the bed willingly for the first time since we bought the damn thing a month ago.

I shut the door, held my breath and waited.

Silence.

Feeling a bit chuffed, I headed downstairs to brag and watch an episode of The Wire with Dr. O’C. But 20 minutes later, I heard the sound of a doorknob rattling and a soft, but urgent, ‘Bubba?’

I went in to him and it was clear he had been crying, his face wet and eyes swollen. I sat down with him on the bed.

“What’s the matter, Boy Z, are you scared?”

“Scad. Yeah.”

“Why? What’s scary?”

But that question is far beyond the scope of a two year old. Lots of things are scary, that’s the nature of childhood. Life is big and loud and full of surprises – many of them unpleasant. But Boy Z is such a burly little tough guy that I don’t think of him ever being scared. He’s shy around people, to be sure, but when faced with most of life’s challenges he marches right up to them and delivers a cricket bat to their skull.

Sometimes life sends a dragon your way that isn’t slain so easily. Whatever it was about that bed was too much for Boy Z. He had tried. He stayed up there, crying silently for twenty minutes before he leapt from the bed and sought help.

I did  what I could – sang a song, turned on a light for him, brought him every stuffed animal he owns and a couple of diggers.

As I walked out of the room, I turned back and that image – my very small boy in a very big bed, eyes wide and darting, with tears drying on his cheeks – well, it cracked my heart a little. But I turned, shut the door and exhaled*. Because that’s what I had to do.

At that moment, it seemed to me that parenting is sometimes just a string of tiny heartbreaks.

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*Actually, I’m curious whether it is a linear or exponential relationship. In other words, where n=the number of kids, would the increased difficulty be (n-1)x4 or 4^(n-1)? Coalminer’s Grandaughter, Formerly Fun, Reinventing Dad – any insight?

**That, of course, wasn’t the end of it. He made it through the night, but only with Dr. O’C in bed with him for an hour and me for about four hours. He did better last night, only needed me for about an hour. He’ll be fine. Tonight? So far, so good.

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I absolutely adore Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards. Her debut LP, 2003’s “Failer” , was an alt-country masterpiece. She’s never really matched the quality of that debut, but she’s put out two more outstanding albums. The lovely “Scared At Night” comes from 2008’s “Asking For Flowers”, which is available from .

I’ve been thinking a lot about accents these days, particularly in terms of my kid(s. It is still weird to use the plural). Every time I get an e-mail from my Strange Scottish friend in Oxford she asks, “does Wee Z have an ozzie accent?” And I always reply to this question in the same way – “He only speaks in three word phrases. You daft c*nt.”

We have that kind of relationship.

Daft or no, she’s not far off. Boy Z and Not Max will most likely develop a South Australian accent as they get older and move further away from the parental sphere of influence. I’m not crazy about this, but I guess it’s better than a Sydney accent in a lesser of two evils way*.

I lay awake for a little while last night wanting to know how accents work. This is how I ended up in science – sleepless nights trying to figure out how things work. I want to know why there are so many regional dialects, even within a fairly small geographical area? There are probably a dozen fairly distinct accents in the British Isles – a land mass about the size of the state of California. Why? Where do all these accents stem from and how are they maintained? Why do children pick up the accent of their peers rather than that of their parents, who teach them to speak? Why does  a person maintain the accent of their childhood even after a lifetime away from their childhood home?

So this morning, I got up and started doing some research. I’m not a linguist, but this article seems pretty thorough to me. Apparently your accent is all about peer pressure and mimicry. According to the article, “children who grow up together are a ‘peer group’. They want to speak the same as each other to express their group identity.” But it isn’t that simple:

People do not have a single fixed accent which is determined by their experiences. We can control the way we speak, and do, both consciously and unconsciously. Most people vary their accent depending on who they are speaking with. We change our accents, often without noticing, as we have new life experiences.

This statement, I can definitely relate to. Both my parents were born and raised in Canada, but haven’t lived there since the early 70’s. If you spoke to my Mom, you would never know that she left. She still speaks with a pretty pronounced Ontario accent. My Dad, on the other hand, is a mimic. These days if you had a conversation with him, you would think he spent most of his childhood in north Florida.

Like father, like son.

My family moved around a lot until I was about 10 and we settled down south. At that point, I would guess that I was speaking with a mixture of the eastern Canadian accent of my parents with a bit of western New York that I picked up in elementary school. When we arrived in the pine hammocks of north Florida, my accent marked me as a foreigner among the slow-talking, twangy natives. I found the easiest way to fit in was to mimic the accent. So, at school I tried to speak like a native Floridian. At home, I spoke like a native Canadian. As I got older and struck out on my own, I kept up with this mimicry – picking up a Carolina lilt while living in the Piedmont, a Nordic hoot during my time in the Pacific Northwest. Down in Georgia, I stuffed my mouth with gravel and honey before flattening out my vowels for a stint in the Midwest. When we crossed the Atlantic to Oxford, I started enunciating crisply and studying the diction of BBC television presenters for cues on how to speak to the locals. Down Under, my R’s are vanishing and I’m drawing out my vowels.

I don’t know what kind of accent I have any more. These days, when people meet me for the first time they rarely guess that I’m American. This is partially out of politeness, it’s a bit risky to misidentify someone as a Yank, but I think my accent has just morphed into something that is difficult to identify. In fact, roughly half of the people that meet me for the first time guess that I’m Irish. I’ve never lived in Ireland and Dr. O’C, despite being born in County Cork, has no trace of an Irish accent. But after five years abroad in the UK and Australia, I definitely don’t sound as American as I did before emigrating.

I also found this site in my internet research. Set up by linguists at George Mason University, it has sound files of hundreds of people from all over the world reading the same passage:

Please call Stella.  Ask her to bring these things with her from the store:  Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob.  We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids.  She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.

I don’t know why they chose these words. Presumably, they have characteristic sounds that differ among different accents. Whatever the reason, it’s a pretty cool resource to compare accents from South Africa to Siberia.

I thought I’d do a little (unscientific**) experiment. If you didn’t know, where would you think I came from based on my accent. Have a listen to my version of “Please call Stella…” and tell me what you think.

Bonus question: what is your favorite and least favorite accent?

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*I find the ‘typical’ Australian accent – the one endemic to New South Wales – to be really grating. It’s the nasal pronounciation, drives me nuts. As does that really nasal northeastern U.S. accent. The South Australian accent is a little softer, more English sounding. Here you are – compare Adelaide with Sydney.

For the record, my three favorite accents are:

1. Glasgow
2. Southern United States (especially the Carolinas)
3. South Africa

And my three least favorite:

1. Texas (thanks W)
2. Eastern Australia
3. New Yawk

**Dr. O’C has pointed out in great detail the many flaws in my experimental design. Damn scientists.

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Johnny Cash’s cover of Tom Petty’s “Southern Accents” is from his 1996 album “Unchained”. It was the second in his ‘American Series’ that catapulted him back to fame after a couple of decades in the Wilderness. Also made him a household name again for Gen X hipsters like your underwhelming correspondent. It’s an outstanding record and if you don’t own it is definitely worth the price of purchase from .

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Image credits:

Mouths

Mimic

Elocution

What?

Oh.

I’m being informed that as a 37 year old father of two, there will be no beach parties or casual anonymous sex or wet t-shirt contests. Well. Fine. Then.

Actually there never was any of that for me. I grew up in Florida and occasionally tagged along to a Spring Break in Daytona or Panama City, but I always felt like more of an observor. An interloper on someone else’s party. A gate crasher. My first (and really only) Spring Break as a college student was a lost week. I’ve recently been in touch with an old friend who was able to fill in some gaps for me, in other words remind me that there was a Spring Break that year and that I was there.

After crashing and burning in my first college experience, I never really felt like I deserved a traditional Spring Break at any of my subsequent attempts at tertiary education. I fell out of the typical 18 – 22 year old demongraphic and feared that I would stand out as a gatecrasher once again. While my fellow students headed for parts sunny and sandy, I usually stayed behind and worked – slinging coffee or folding t-shirts.

These days, I’m a proper grown up. A university lecturer and rather doing so myself, I’m wishing my young charges god speed as they head for Sydney or the Gold Coast or Bali or parts even further afield.

Me? Well, I have big plans for the fortnight. A regular bacchanalia. We’re going to kick things off with an, err, intimate medical procedure that will keep me occupied for much Thursday and Friday. But after that, well watch out. Dr. O’C intends to adopt a ‘controlled crying’ regime for Not Max. You know, now that I’ll be home and be able to help. From what I understand, this means we’re going to put him down and let him scream until he stops. While he shouts, we are to stare at the ceiling until he runs out of breath.

But that’s not all. We’re going to force Boy Z out of his cot to make room for Not Max and into the bed we bought him a month ago. The bed that he refuses to use except as a makeshift trampoline. So, if we get a reprieve from Not Max’s ‘controlled crying’, Boy Z can fill up the silence with protestations of the loss of his cot.

Yep. It’ll be party time in the Free Family house. All nighters, all right. But probably not enough bikini clad co-eds to pique MTV’s interest.

Still and all, we will probably be able to get to the beach…

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London’s Noah and the Whale released their sophomore LP “The First Days of Spring” in the UK. It is due in the U.S. in October. A bit less twee than the debut, but a little bit more musically mature as well. Have a listen to the title track and if you like it, pre-order the album from Amazon or if you’re lucky enough to be in the UK or Australia buy it today from .

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Image credits:

Spring Break Balconies

Spring Break

Spring Break

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*The actual lyric appears to be “For I do believe that everyone has one chance to fuck up their lives…” but I censored. I don’t know the source of this new found puritanism. I don’t mind the f-bomb. But it bothered me a bit up there in bold in the post title. I’m getting old.

I am tired

I realized this afternoon, after I lay down on the floor of my office to attempt a 15 minute power nap, that a week of  disrupted sleep is beginning to induce the physical symptoms of sleep deprivation. My brain is just not firing on all cylinders.  I find myself losing my train of thought. Find, in fact, that the train is hurtling right off the tracks. On Tuesday, I spent a good quarter hour of my lecture on a rambling corollary about robot slaves. Much to my students’ consternation. Then, while introducing a practical yesterday, I was happily lecturing away:

“So, restriction endonucleases don’t have a preference for the source of the DNA. In other words, we can cut DNA from any organism. Prokaryotes, eukaryotes. Yeast, mice, humans, pigs. Thus, could allow us to make pig/human hybrids. If we were so inclined. And robots…”

Long pause.

“Sorry guys, what am I talking about?”

And irritability. When none of my thoroughly confused students were able to explain what it was that I was talking about, I went on an extended rant in which I explained that there was really no point in me standing up here talking to them if none of them were going to pay attention. In fact, that I could think of about 19 things I would rather be doing then talking to them about something that I couldn’t remember. Damn it.

I may also be starting to hallucinate. It is like I’m seeing through a crystalline filter. Everything is hyperreal and increasingly I’m beginning to catch glimpses of motion in my peripheral vision. Which means, that I spend a lot of my day walking around campus, muttering to myself about obtuse students, yawning and occasionally whipping my head in one direction or another and assuming a defensive stance to prepare for the samurai attacking me from my flank. Or the robots.

Sorry guys, what am I talking about?

I had a friend back in Oxford who used to say, whenever I complained to him about something, “it will pass, Chris, it will pass.” It’s a good thing he’s not here right now because I’m pretty sure I would bite his ear off.  He also used to say “nobody ever died from lack of sleep.” I’m pretty sure that isn’t true. I can personally imagine about 27 different ways I could die from lack of sleep:

1. Falling downstairs while getting up for the 37^th time with screaming Not Max.
2. Walking out in front of a bus after failing to notice colour of stop light.
3. Falling asleep whilst driving to the shop for more coffee.
4. Lighting self on fire while lighting fire to keep warm after getting up for the 37^th time with screaming Not Max.
5. Mistaking red back spider for toothbrush.
6. Being stabbed in the throat by your partner after refusing to wake up to deal with crying baby.*
7. Samurai robots.

OK, that’s only seven, but I think I’ve made my point.

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It’s a Frank Turner week here at A Free Man. The track that inspired the title of this post is from Turner’s debut “Sleep is for the Week” (). I’ve had more of a chance to listen to his latest, “Poetry of the Deed” and it really is quite good. Turner comes back with his socially conscious lyrics, a la  Billy Bragg, but with a biting sense of humor. He’s really starting to come into his own as a musician and the new one has a more mature and confident sound. Have a  listen to ‘The Road’ from his new one and if you like it buy ‘Poetry of the Deed’ from . No, seriously, buy it from iTunes or I’m going to keep talking about robots.

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* This is more conceivable than you may think. I don’t think Boy Z slept through the night until we got to Australia when he was about seven months old. His Mum and I were at the frayed ends of our tethers. On the trip over we stayed for a while at her sister’s house in Sweden – with Boy Z in the same room. We nearly came to blows about who was going to deal with him in the middle of the night.

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Image credit:

Sleeping

Dawg gear courtesy of Heather, but more on that later…