A Free Man

Just a wee break in the 90’s flashbacks this week, stay tuned for more…

It rained yesterday - Australian drought my ass. It rained on A Free Man and Boy Party Day, which meant that we were house bound for the bulk of the day. Boy Z has risen to toddlerhood proper and I just want to say that I now have sympathy for all you stay-at-home-parents. The boy is an insubordinate destructicon (he gets it from his Mother). Here’s hoping that this mythological Australian summer kicks in soon or I may go back to working five days a week.

My sanity was preserved by  the arrival of two overseas packages yesterda. First, in the morning mail, was a box of Georgia schwag from Just Jessie containing more paraphenalia to make Boy Z the best dressed Little Dawg in the Southern Hemisphere. Even better, though, was DVDs of the first four games of the year - back when we still thought we were good. Watching the Bulldogs run all over Georgia Southern kept Boy Z quiet for a good two minutes.

With the afternoon post, my sanity was at a breaking point - the terrorist was on the verge of winning.  Then my hardworking postman rang the bell again, this time with a box full of Obama paraphernalia kindly shipped my way by Alice of 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera - her campaign leftovers. It was a veritable treasure trove of all things Obama, including some t-shirts, stickers, buttons, posters (one of which is my favorite campaign image) and even Democratic mints. There was a notable shortage of Obama gear in Oz, so Alice’s package was a great treat for a fervent supporter of the president-elect. Plus, the stickers and pins distracted Boy Z for a fair few minutes. Although, I suspect that I’ll be finding Obama-Biden stickers stuck about the place for a few days.

My most heartfelt thanks to both Jessie and Alice!

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In lieu of an accompanying track, I’d like to point you to the Aquarium Drunkard who has a whole album of a show played by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash in 1969. Two of my favorite artists of all time - magical. Check it out here.

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Deep South Smack Talk continues this week as the hated Tennessee Volunteers roll out of the hills of east Tennessee and into an almost certain ass kicking at the hands of my beloved Georgia Bulldogs. Those of you who have been reading A Free Man for a while may remember the humiliation visited upon my entire clan last October by The Vol Abroad. This picture will certainly jog your memory. What started off as a bit of harmless expat trash talking, escalated to a wager and then to a full on feud. You can take the SEC football fans out of the South, etc. It all ended quite badly for Boy Z, Timmins and I.

Well, for the last 370 days I have been plotting my vengeance. But alas, it is not to be. The Vol Abroad, despite being a graduate of the University of Tennessee, is not a fool. She’s demurred on my challenge to repeat last year’s bet, so the world will have to wait to see Buddy in glorious red and black. She has agreed to write up a guest post, attempting to sing the praises of the hapless Tennessee Volunteers who have a date for destruction in Athens this weekend. 

Visitors get the first shot here, so let’s see what The Vol Abroad has to say in defense of her hillbilly orangemen:

My grandfather was one of the finest men I ever met.  He believed in temperance and civic duty and going to church on Sunday (and Wednesday) and looking a man in the eye.  And he believed in the Tennessee Volunteers.  I’m not so much on the church going or the temperance, but I managed to absorb the love of the Vols. And this is something I’m passing on to my sixteen month old son.

As a third generation graduate of the University of Tennessee on both sides of my family and with both my degrees coming from that hallowed institution, there was never any other place for me to put my fan love.  Cut me, and I do bleed orange.

But my British husband, who’s described on my blog as the Vol-in-Law, is merely a Volunteer by marriage.  He also has a family tradition in higher education.  He’s a third generation graduate of Oxford University.

So Buddy has inherited rival traditions.  Oxford on the one hand, and Tennessee on the other.  But what kind of love can a boy have for Oxford? As far as I know, their only major sporting event is the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. Go Dark Blues? Beat the Light Blues?   Sure, I guess it’s ok to dress up and stroll around the Thames with a Pimms in hand.  But that hardly compares to joining almost 100,000 fellow fans dressed in orange and singing Rocky Top, over and over and over again in a manner guaranteed to raise a migraine in the skull of any opposing fan.

But of course, as an expat, I don’t have the societal reinforcement of SEC football fandom, but I’m doing my best to raise him right. Dressing him in orange, teaching him to say ‘Go Vols’, trying to lull him to sleep with Rocky Top (bad idea), giving him little Smokey toys to play with and ensuring that he gets sufficient doses of Vol Network internet radio coverage.  He may be the only boy in the world whose baby album features a picture of the baby of a Georgia fan dressed in Tennessee Orange because his daddy lost a bet.  Before he attends his first football game at Neyland Stadium, he’ll know every word of Rocky Top, he’ll know about running through the T, and he’ll understand the Volunteer grumble in a bad season.  And he’ll hate, hate, hate Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

Yep, I’m raising my boy right.

-0-

Maybe this isn’t the best year to be laying down the smack talk about football.  My beloved Tennessee Volunteers don’t seem to be having their finest season.   But as our fearless leader said only last week, we’re still a work in progress and I’m sure all the fine recruiting and two-a-days in the Tennessee heat will come to fruition this Saturday when Tennessee thumps Georgia. Again.

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And in reply, speaking for the home team, your underwhelming correspondent:

Like John McCain and the economy, you’ll note that The Vol Abroad doesn’t want to talk much about football this year. Taking her cues from the G.O.P. playbook, she’s trying to turn the discussion to family values. Well that’s just fine, I think we all know what’s going to happen on the football field this Saturday, so let’s talk about family.

My family is a wandering one. I always felt a kinship with gypsies growing up and held on to the dream of dropping out of mainstream society and running away with the gypsies until about the 274th time that some wild-eyed gypsy woman tried to bully me into buying a sickly geranium on the streets of Oxford.

My point is that my family hasn’t spent three generations in the same country, never mind manning the same moonshine still on some mountain side.  So for me, the University of Georgia was a choice that I made with clear eyes and a clear head. I wanted to attend the finest educational institution that the South had to offer, so there was no real decision to be made when I received an acceptance letter with an Athens postmark*.

Now, we’re half a world away from Old Georgia and chances are that Boy Z may not follow in his father’s educational footsteps in the same way that I didn’t follow in hos grandfather’s.  Boy Z may never walk under the Arches as a student, may never study in the shade of the oaks on North Campus, may never sit with his classmates in Sanford Stadium sweating in polyester gowns under the brutal June sun.

But I will guaran-damn-tee you two things. First, he will be the biggest Georgia Bulldogs fan in Australia, at least until he gets old enough to rebel. Even then as long as he doesn’t cheer for Tennessee or Florida, it’ll be OK**. Second, one day he will walk into Sanford Stadium with his Dad and watch the glory of the Georgia Bulldogs between the hedges. He’ll hear the roar of the crowd, the sound of 90,000 plus voices barking a kick-off, he’ll hear the Red Coat Band play “Glory, Glory”.

And on Sunday morning he’ll sit with me as we listen to the Georgia Bulldogs dismantle the Tennessee Volunteers.

Now, let’s talk just a little about the real issue: the game. It’s personal after the beat down that The Vols put on us last year and the humiliation that was visited upon myself, my son and my dog. Fortunately for A Free Man’s honor, it looks like a good year for revenge. Tennessee is 2 - 3 on the year with losses to a hapless UCLA team, a sub-par Auburn team and an overrated Florida team. Their wins have come against UAB and, in a squeaker, Northern Illinois. The Vols offense is ranked 107th out of 119 Division 1 teams. Now, admittedly, Georgia was not impressive against Alabama two weeks ago, but the boys in red and black have had two weeks to stew in their embarassment. Tennessee has taken us apart for the last two years and it’s time for revenge. If the Dawgs can’t get up for this game, then they just can’t get up full stop.

We’re doing all we can for the Dawgs from half a world away. As you can see in that photo above, Boy Z and I went out and made a sacrifice to Nemesis, the Greek goddess of revenge. That kangaroo was the closest thing we could find to a fleabitten, mangy coon hound. And if you listen carefully on Saturday afternoon, you’ll hear us singing:

Glory, glory to old Georgia!
Glory, glory to old Georgia!
Glory, glory to old Georgia!
G-E-O-R-G-I-A.

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Tennessee at Georgia kicks off at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (6:00 a.m. Sunday Adelaide or 8:30 p.m. London). It’s televised on CBS in the States. CBS offers the game for free online but ONLY IN THE U.S. Damn you, CBS! The Vol Abroad was working on a hack, perhaps she’ll let us know if she sorted it out. Otherwise, it’s internet radio for the expat fans.

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Ryan Adams’ “Demolition” is available from .

Vol fan in horror borrowed from Hey Jenny Slater (excellent Dawg site).

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* For sticklers for the truth, this is actually a longer story and thus not strictly true. The whole, longwinded tale can be found here.

** If he ever cheers for Tennessee or Florida or becomes a vegan, I’m kicking his ass out.

 

 Ryan Adams - "Tennessee Sucks" [2:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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One of the stated purposes of making this site ‘anonymous’ was so that I could air thoughts, feelings and neuroses that I may not want Google to permanently attach to my name.  I’ve always found writing to be great therapy and blogging extends the therapeutic possibilities by giving the potential for feedback in the form of comments. Problem is that I’m still reluctant to get to far outside of my everything is sunshine/check out this band/Go Dawgs! comfort zone. I’ve written more than one post that never saw the light of day because despite being ‘anonymous’, I’m not really anonymous.

All this is just a long winded preface to say that some of you aren’t going to like this post.

With the arrival of Baby Z, I’ve had a whole new set of neuroses to deal with - what’s my son going to grow into? What will he be like when he’s a teenager, a young adult? What can I do to insure that he has a chance of being a happy, healthy and well adjusted boy, teenager and man? Mostly I’m able to stifle these fears and just get on with the business of being a father - enjoying each day for what it is - but sometimes I find myself completely tangled in knots of confusion regarding some aspect of the boy’s rearing. These little bundles of obsession can keep me up nights, can be sources of heated arguments with Dr. O’C and can result in epic inconsistencies in parenting style on my part.

One of these little tenacious balls of anxiety is childhood obesity. It’s a problem that is reaching epidemic proportions in a lot of the wealthy Western societies. One of the side effects of a half century or so of unabated economic success is an excess of pretty much everything and one of the side effects of that excess is that our children are getting fatter and fatter.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 16% of American children were overweight or obese in 2007, triple the rate in 1980. In Australia, which recently surpassed the USA as the world’s fattest nation (Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!), over 20% of children are overweight or obese. Some experts have predicted that the obesity rate in children could skyrocket to 60% within 30 years.  There’s a lot of hand wringing about the causes, but for most people they’re blindingly obvious - our kids eat too much crappy “convenience” food and spend far too much time in front of the television.

I am desperately worried that Z is going to be one of that growing minority - that he’ll be a fat kid.  Now, I know that this sounds flippant and not that important in the grand scheme of things. There are far worse things that he could suffer from and, if I’m being honest, a bit of my concern is aesthetic. But, the majority of my worry not around some Hollywood/Madison Avenue dictated body image but health.  According to the Mayo Clinic, overweight children are at a significantly higher risk of Type 2 (’Adult’ onset) diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and other respiratory problems, sleep disorders, liver disease, early puberty or menarche, eating disorders, skin infections and many more health problems in childhood. In my experience, they’re also at a much higher risk of being bullied as children. At a certain age, kids stop being cute and start being scary little fascists who pick out the weakest member of a group for vicious teasing and bullying. Any deviation from the “norm” can be used as a target - glasses, red hair, funny clothes, being fat.

Now, I’ve read a fair bit about childhood obesity and I know at an academic level that Zach is an unlikely candidate. Genetics and socioeconomic class are a significant factors in whether a child is obese and Z has no family history and comes from an over-educated middle class family. The major issues, however are diet and exercise, and here’s where things get confusing for your underwhelming narrator.  I really don’t know how much the boy is meant to eat. I’m averse to reading parenting books because I think that each one will give you a different opinion leading you to confusion, frustration and a tendency to buy more parenting books to clarify things. But, I did break down and consult the one book that we have in the household. It says that a boy of Z’s age should eat three healthy meals a day topped up with formula or breast milk with a minimum of snacking throughout the day.

I don’t want to be one of those Nazi parents that doesn’t let their child touch sugar or other junk food. I’m a pragmatist, I know that the boy’s probably going to have a Happy Meal now and again. Already, things are creeping into his diet that aren’t great - sugary soda, pancakes, french fries, tea and coffee - some of which I’ve given him myself. He gets good meals and hell, a little won’t hurt him, right?

But that snacking thing, that’s a horse of a different color.  Sometimes I think that Z looks to the dog for behavioral cues as much (or more than) he looks to people. Our dog can hear food being prepared from miles away and as soon as he gets the scent of people food, he’s under foot just praying for a bit of food to fall on the floor.  Since Z’s started crawling, as soon as someone in the house gets something to eat, there’s a race between dog and boy to see who can get the prime begging position. This was cute for a while and it’s hard to deny the boy a bit of whatever it is you’re eating. A little bit won’t hurt him, right?  As with the inappropriate foods, I’m guilty here too - sometimes it’s easier to give both kid and dog a bit of what your eating.  Sometimes it’s too cute - when Z gets his little fingers working - to resist.

However, with three adults in the same house working different hours and keeping different schedules, meal times can get muddied. Z has his dinner between 5 and 5:30. Myself, his Mum and his Nana eat at varying times between 6 and 7. Z goes to bed, with a bottle around 7 or 7:30. What this means is that between his dinner and bedtime he could be snacking pretty much constantly. I really fear that we’re setting up a bad precedent and one that is going to be increasingly difficult to break. Is this how these things get started? Are there habits that get established now that are impossible to break later in life? I don’t know.

Whenever I give voice to my concerns, particularly around Z’s female relatives, I get barracked with derisive statements like, “Jesus Christ, the child’s only X months old!” But at some point, the child’s going to be 5 years old or 10 years old or 15 years old or 35 years old, at what point do you have to start thinking about these things. At what age is it no longer cute? At what age does it start becoming dangerous? If not now, when? I’ve tried to establish a regular dinner time, where everyone sits at the table at once, an idea which has been met with a notable lack of enthusiasm.

So now, I stay quiet and stew and fret. And now, blog. I don’t know if I’m being neurotic and obsessive. I don’t know if I’m being silly. But I see these kids every day, these kids that are far too young to be as fat as they are. I see their parents and I wonder, did they know what they were doing or did they say, “Oh, a little bit won’t hurt, he’s only X years old.” And did they keep saying that and keep saying that and one day Augustus Gloop came home from school in place of their little baby? I don’t know. Do you?

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Jarvis Cocker’s self-titled solo debut is available from .

 

 Jarvis Cocker - "Fat Children" [3:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Things didn’t get any immediately easier for Dr. O’C after Baby Z was born. On this weeks episode, bringing home baby…

So, I am a parent - a mum.  I spend the first couple days at home wondering when I will be relieved of my babysitting duties.  But apart from that it is happy family.  Timmins, our Siberian Husky is behaving himself.  Z sleeps 4-5 hours at a time and I start to think that the next 4 months of maternity leave are going to be a piece of cake.  I am already planning my days of leisure.

Apart from the pain I am in, which the drugs are keeping under control, life is good.  Then the jaundice that has been causing Z to sleep so much wears off and the 2 hourly feeds 24/7 start and pretty rapidly sleep deprivation hits.  Now I know why it is such an effective form of torture.  I have always loved to sleep.  I love being in bed.  I get panicky if I know I am going to get less than 8 hours sleep.  Unfortunately it will be another 9 months before Z graces me with a full nights sleep.  That, my friends, is a very long time.

Apart from the sleep deprivation, which leaves me exhausted, I am in a lot of pain and can barely move. A simple shopping expedition to the local Mothercare makes me realize that my body is going to take more than a couple of days to recover.  Getting into and out of a car takes my breath away. I walk like I have just spent a year on a horse.  I wasn’t prepared for the pain.  I mean I knew that I wasn’t about to hop straight back on a bike after giving birth, but I never thought that a simple thing like getting your baby out of a cot would inflict pain.   The combination of constant pain and sleep deprivation make me realize that the whole motherhood thing isn’t that much fun. I feel no real attachment to Z.  I feed him, dress him, change his nappies, hold him, but he doesn’t feel like mine.  All I keep thinking is “What the hell have I done?  What was I thinking? I am not cut out for this motherhood thing.”  Now don’t get me wrong, I love kids.  I have two nephews, whom I adore. I just don’t know if I want to be a mum.  I haven’t felt this gushing ‘oh I love my baby soooo much’ rush of emotions that I think I should be feeling.Because I have chosen to breastfeed, the exhaustion is never relieved.  Z takes close to an hour to get back to sleep when I feed him in the middle of the night.  Chris offers to get up with him, but he has gone back to work and is teaching to earn extra money. Honestly I feel trapped in my situation and I know I am.  When Z wakes up 3-4 times a night for a feed, I find myself crying.  I remember one night crying so violently that I wake Chris up.  I just keep saying to him ‘I can’t do this’.  He tries to comfort me, but I think that he is disappointed in me.  What I am too afraid to vocalize is that I don’t want to do this.  I want my old life back.  What new mum thinks and says this stuff?

Looking back now, I don’t think it was as straight-forward as post-natal depression.  I wasn’t ready to be a mum.  I didn’t want to give up the life I had which was easy and uncomplicated.  Where I didn’t have to think of anyone but myself.  I also realize now (although it has always been glaringly obvious to most people around me) that I am a control freak.  I like to do things well.  I thought I was adaptable and easy going.  Z quickly taught me that I was not adaptable and although I have spent my life as a scientist performing new experiments, I actually would rather do experiments that I know will work, that I have done before.  A health visitor points out that some people like to learn through trying and others like to be shown what to do and then do it.  I disappointingly fell solidly into the last category.   Z doesn’t do the same thing day after day.  I think he is in a routine, only for it to the next day.  I feel a bit paralysed, unable to make plans for fear that Z won’t fit into them.  I am only capable of focusing on what is going wrong, of what I am doing wrong.  Z isn’t an easy baby.  He has a severe case of colic.  He cries for hours every night and some mornings.  Piercing, loud, hysterical crying.  The doctors and health visitors reassure me that nothing is wrong and that hours upon hours of crying can’t physically hurt him.  Mentally though, they take their toll on me.  Chris tries to relieve some of my exhaustion by feeding Z formula from a bottle.  A bottle he promptly rejects and continues to reject for months. We have no family in Oxford, no reprieve.  I become afraid to leave the house to meet up with people for fear that he will be a screaming nightmare.  It takes a while to work out, but when I eliminate dairy from my diet things start to improve.   

Chris, fearful that I am at serious risk of sliding into a depression, goes to great lengths to force me out of the house.  He emails my antenatal group on my behalf arranging meet ups.  He insists I visit him at work during the week.  He searches the internet for things for me to do.  I resisted initially.  I didn’t want to meet up with a bunch of people and just talk about sore tits, baby shit and vomiting.  I have a PhD dammit, I am a career women.  I have nothing else in common with them apart from having the same hippy lady tell us all about birthing.  In the end though, they were saviours.  Sure we talked about tits, shit and vomit, but so what, for the next couple of months (I thought at the time) that would be my life.  I slowly, very slowly, learn that Z is adaptable. 

I take him grocery shopping, and instead of him screaming his way around the supermarket he is fascinated until the rows and rows of tinned goods sent him to sleep.  We take him to our favorite Asian restaurant and he falls asleep in his pram staring out the window.  I think I had become afraid of Z.  Afraid of his tolerance for sitting in a pram, afraid to test him out, to see if he would actually be happy sitting and staring out a window.  I became afraid to let him whinge or cry.  When tested he passes with flying colours.      

What Dr. O’C is too humble to say is that she does as well.

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This week’s accompanying track is the Mates of State’s cover of Phantom Planet’s ”O.C.” theme. I first heard this on “This American Life” and found this version over at Agnes‘ site. I’ve no idea where she found it, but The Mates of State’s new record “Re-arrange Us” is available from .

 

 Mates of State - "California" [2:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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“Smoke dreams
From smoke rings
While a cigarette burns
I keep yearning for you…”

It’s about time that Z and I got around to this particular Canadian chanteuse, because k.d. lang saved my life.

I started smoking in High School and unlike most people’s experience, I didn’t start smoking because of peer pressure. In fact, nobody that I knew smoked. That’s not to say that tobacco use was uncommon, just that most of the people in my school preferred it in the form of snuff, or chaw or those stupid little tobacco teabags - Skoal Bandits. I, being that most clueless or rebels, preferred the more lethal delivery system that a cigarette offers.

Once I got to college, however, I let my smoking out of the closet. Virtually any participant in the college parties that I frequented would have a Marlboro Light hanging out of their mouth at some point in the evening. College is where I got properly hooked and became a smoker. Being a smoker meant that chances are if you saw me between classes or on a break from work that I would have smoke pouring out of my mouth and nose. Being a smoker meant that I was a rebel, not afraid of death or social conventions. Being a smoker meant that I smelled like the bottom of an ashtray most of the time and struggled to climb more than three flights of stairs without taking a break. Being a smoker meant that I literally burned up thousands of dollars a year on something that was slowly killing me (that’s some impressive marketing). And, as time wore on, being a smoker meant that I was in a constant battle to quit smoking.

I can’t tell you how many times I tried to quit smoking, I can tell you that the battle spanned a couple of decades. Every time I ran into a health professional of any sort, I was encouraged to quit and I occassionally listened. I tried patches, gums, inhalers, Zyban, cold turkey, Alan Carr, tapering down, hypnotism, and not trying. Sometimes I would quit for a few days, weeks or even months, but ultimately I was sucked back in by the lure of nicotine induced peace of mind. It was largely the physical addiction, the strength of which I can attests to, but a big part of the problem is that my whole identity was tied up in being a smoker. Nobody, outside of Mormons and marathon runners, was a non-smoker. Smoking was part of my image, part of my style and I didn’t know who I was without a hard-pack in my shirt pocket and a Zippo in my jeans.

But as I write this today, I do so as a proud non-smoker, as someone who hasn’t smoked in over a year and a half. What happened is nothing magical, there was no pill that I took that made me into a non-smoker. In fact, the last time wasn’t that much different than any of the scores of times that preceded it. One big thing that was different was that we had just found out that Dr. O’C was pregnant. I had always said that if she got pregnant then I would quit, but I don’t think either of us had very high hopes. Something had changed, though, and this time it just worked. Take home lesson - if you want to quit smoking then go get someone pregnant.

It was still hard work and I shouldn’t be so glib. I used patches and these new nicotine lozenges, which taste like sugar-free breathmints, for ages. I am, in fact, still addicted to (non-nicotine) sugar-free mints. I re-read Allen Carr’s book. I think that his “Easy Way” franchise is a bit of a scam, but there are some gems in there. Particularly the idea that when you quit, rather than envying smokers you should pity them. There’s nothing like a bit of healthy self-righteousness to get your blood flowing in the morning. And, I listened to k.d. lang’s “Drag” album over and over, especially when I got the nicotine withdrawal crazies. “Drag” is an album of covers, all of which involve smoking in some form or another - hence the name. Now, if you think it is a bit masochistic to listen to an album that is all about smoking whilst trying to give up smoking, then you don’t know me very well. The songs on “Drag” are so smooth, so lush, so languid that just listening to the opening strains of “Don’t Smoke In Bed” was enough to drive the fiercest nicotine craving out of my head. k.d. lang saved my life or at least extended it a little bit.

“I have a habit i have been trying to lose
Everyone thinks that they know what they want
Sometimes your drug chooses you
There are some things that I’ve promised myself
Things I haven’t done yet
It’s my last cigarette
This is my last cigarette…”

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These posts, of late, seem to be drifting away from their stated purpose. Beyond it’s powers in the realm of smoking cessation, “Drag” is just a fantastic record. It’s probably the best cover album ever recorded. Lang’s at the top of her game vocally and the musicians that she’s brought forward with her after the disaster that was “All You Can Eat” seem to have gotten her conceit perfectly. You can tell from the cover that this album is going to be be playful and slightly twisted. With her cabaret cover of  Steve Miller’s “The Joker” and the tongue-in-cheek sincerity of “Theme From Valley of the Dolls”,  Lang shows that she’s not taking herself too seriously. But then with heart renching performances like “My Old Addiction” and “My Last Cigarette” she just blows you away. Her voice is fantastic - sensual, rich and smoky.

Z did get a hefty dose of k.d. this Saturday afternoon as well as this story and a bonus lecture on the dangers of smoking. One of the reasons I quit when Dr. O’C fell pregnant was that I didn’t want to expose my child to second hand smoke and didn’t want him to think that smoking was cool. (That’s assuming that he’ll think I’m cool, an unlikely scenario).  Although, in my sample size of two it seems that children are less likely to smoke if their parents do - Dr. O’C’s folks smoke and she’s never had a cigarette; mine are vehemently anti-smoking and both my sister and I smoke(d).

It’s neither here nor there as the lecture and story were pretty well ignored - a response to which I should probably get familiar. But he liked the music. Z’s a sucker for a good sing-song, and if  accompanied by melodramatic lip-synching and maraca shaking, he can be held rapt for a good two to three minutes.  Z seems to like a good torch song.

“Don’t Smoke in Bed” opens “Drag” and “I Dream of Spring” is from k.d. lang’s newest release “Watershed”. Both of these are available from .

Popularity: 17% [?]

If you are a man, have reproduced and live in North America, most of Europe, Asia and Africa - then chances are you woke up this morning to be greeted with a breakfast of runny eggs and burnt waffles and, depending on career choice, a new tie/hammer/hand gun. But if you’re me, you were awoken with a prod, an “it’s your turn to get up with him” and a stale scone as a morning meal. (Insert adagio violins here.) You see, Dr. O’C managed to hit both the British Mother’s Day and Australian Mother’s Day in one year, and reaped the rewards of both. I, however, missed my first Father’s Day in Oz last September and am missing my first rest of the world Father’s Day today. Suspicious timing for the move, hmmmm?

Despite not even receiving a new pair of socks in recognition of my ability to keep a defenseless child alive for nine months, I’ve gotten a bit reflective (sappy) about my role as the pater familias.* I’ve been thinking about how much things have changed in the nine months since Z came into the world, how much my tolerance for another human being has grown. No matter what the scamp is doing, no matter how frustrated I get with him - whether it be for trying to eat the dog’s food or puking on my head I’m still delighted to have him around. I understand why parents put up with endless shit from their kids, why they bail them out when they’re in trouble and why they defend them beyond the point of reasonableness. For me there is something about looking at my child’s face and seeing a little bit of me and a little bit of the woman I love looking back at me. When I see that familiarity, no matter what the boy is doing - smacking my iPod repeatedly on the table or chasing the dog whilst roaring like a maniac - I can’t help but be in his thrall.

What was I writing about? That’s right, Father’s Day, which it is everywhere in the world except Oz, Luxemborg and Nepal (oh, and New Zealand). If you’re not in any of those places and if you’re a father I’d like to wish you a Happy Father’s Day. To my friends, “real” and cyber, around the world - Happy Father’s Day. But particularly to my own Dad. We’ve had our ups and downs over the years. One of the gifts of becoming a father is that I now understand him better. Love you Dad.

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The weekend, for most folks, is usually a much anticipated time reserved for leisure and pleasure - time with the family, time with the friends, time at the beach, you get my drift. When you’re not working, and you’re as prone to fruitless anxiety as I am, the weekend means no chance of progress on the job front and just a couple of blank days of stressed hand wringing. And when the clock struck five on Friday and I still had no job offers on the table, I prepared myself for a solid 48 hours or so of sulking funk.

But despite my pessimistic inclinations, this weekend has turned out pretty damn well. I wrote a few days ago of my obsession with the local fauna here in Oz. Well, we ditched Z for our first trip into the bush and he missed out on the roo sightings. To rectify that, on Friday we took a trip up into the hills east of Adelaide to Cleland Wildlife Park to give him an up close and personal look. I know that it’s really little more than a souped up petting zoo, but feeding and petting kangaroos and wallabies in their native habitats is slightly more compelling than feeding an overweight goat behind a gas station. Z, disturbingly, didn’t seem to appreciate the difference between a six foot tall marsupial and Timmins. It’s probably a good thing that he’s a handsome lad.Also this weekend, Z’s started to crawl - something that I’ve been pushing him to do for the last several weeks. Something that I would now like him to stop. I once heard someone, a comedian or something, describe toddlers as being programmed to destroy themselves and our role as parents to stop them from doing so. Well, that’s coming pretty close to home as I’ve spent the weekend pulling Z away from dog water, power outlets and the gas fire.

But what made my weekend was a surprise phone call on Saturday afternoon. I had been to what I thought had been a successful interview on Thursday. The interviewers said that they were pleased and that they would let me know one way or another by the end of the day on Friday. That deadline passing is what had thrown me into such a spiral of grumpiness to begin with. But they came through on Saturday with apologies and a job offer. I think (and I write this whilst knocking on wood with crossed fingers, a challenge) that with a contract in hand to consider that I’m beyond the threat of jinxes, so I can tell you that I’ve got an offer to work as a writer. It’s not particularly glamorous work, nor the most fascinating. But it’s work. As a writer.

If you had asked me two-ish years ago what I would like to be doing today I would have said something about living near the beach with Dr. O’C and our first child and writing for a living. Well, we’re getting there.

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers’t “Moanin’” is available from Amazon or .

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Today is one of the glorious days on which I have sole custody of my son. His Mum is off on an interview and his Nana is working herself. So, it’s a proper SAHD day on the ranch. At the dawn of these days I’m fired up - excited at the opportunity to spend a day of father. By the end of them, as the boy finally drifts off to sleep, I nearly collapse with exhaustion and relief.

I was inspired by a new Daddy Blogger that I discovered via my favorite review site. He did a little photo essay on his experience with fatherhood thus far. I thought it was such a good idea that it inspired me to try a similar tack today. I carried our little digital point and shoot around with me for the day and tried to capture a typical What follows is A Day In The Life of Z and Papa in photos:

Now, I should hasten to point out, before Dr. O’C does so in her charmingly pedantic manner, that I was really only the sole custodian of my son for half the day. I should also point out that I opted for parenting over photography in the truly dicey moments of the day, so there’s no photo of Z pulling a ladder down onto his head for example. Probably for the best, that.I’m not sure who was happier to see Dr. O’C come through the door this afternoon.

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I’m by no means a workaholic, in fact those who have worked with me or supervised me might describe me as having a casual work ethic. Or the more direct of them might describe me as lazy. The original relocation plan called for me to take a few months off after we got Down Under to get my footing, relax, spend time with my son and other idyllic pursuits while Dr. O’C got back to work. In theory.

What I’ve come to realize in the couple of weeks we’ve been here is that I am a creature of habit. I spent the last few weeks (OK, months) of my job in Oxford looking forward to the time of leisure and meditative wandering. What I didn’t realize is that without the routines granted by a full-time job I would find myself more lost than languid, more confused than centered and more stressed than serene. Without an alarm clock bleating in my ear every morning I find it difficult to remember what day of the week, even what month of the year, it is on a daily basis. And without a regular paycheck, I’m finding it difficult to avoid regular panic attacks.

So, my time of leisure and relaxation has become more of a sentence than a reward and I have officially begun the job search in earnest. It’s been a long time since I hit the streets as one of the ranks of the unemployed. But here’s hoping, for the sake of my sanity, that it’s quick and relatively painless.

Anyone reading from South Australia who needs an out of work geneticist?

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Today is our last day in Sweden. We’ll jet off into the dark western sky for another hop over the North Sea. After landing in Heathrow we’re in for what is bound to be a harried race across London to Gatwick Airport - with slightly more luggage than we arrived in Sweden with ten days ago. Assuming that we manage that little jaunt we’ll be headed west again. And south as well this time, to the Sunshine State.

Florida, Florida, Florida - the most soporific of states. There’s a scene in the movie “Primary Colors” when Libby & Henry are driving to Miami to dig up some dirt on Jack Stanton’s new opposition. It’s wonderfully filmed, with the hazy muted colors that are so characteristic of Florida. It is the dialogue, however, that really nails the state of the Sunshine State. Libby speaks with lackadaisical resignation:

“We are in limbo now, Henry.”
“We are outside the mainstream.”
“We are in purgatory.”
“We are lost.”
“Libby, lf you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill myself.”

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But we’re still an ocean or two away from anodyne sunshine. Sweden has been Sweden. I’ve spent more time in Sweden than any other European country and I still don’t really have a feel for the place. It’s a lot like Canada, but with more Volvos and disturbingly attractive people. Most of what I’ve learned on this trip is about myself. I’ve learned that I am nowhere near as patient as I am going to need to be to make it through this parenthood gig. I’ve learned that anything that I do not want hurled to the floor with astonishing speed needs to be kept well out of range of young Z. This includes - but is not limited to - iPods, breakfast, telephones, glasses of Coke, and handheld gaming consoles. I’ve learned that I will never be as entertaining to Zach as kids nearer to his own age. This is true even if they descend on him in a mad, screaming horde like the Vikings from which they are descended.

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One other thing I’ve learned about Sweden, is that they have some great music. I’ve been featuring Swedish musicians over at my music blog for the time in which we’ve been in country. There is an astonishing number of oustanding independent pop bands coming from this not particularly large country. So, they’re good looking and talented. The Swedes are the people I hated in school. Bastards.

Yesterday, I posted an interview with what has become my new favorite band, and the soundtrack for this post, Moonbabies. They are a duo, in life as well as music, from Malmö. The music on their lates LP, “Moonbabies at the Ballroom” is catchy pop with a sauntering, dreamy tempo. If you’re a “Grey’s Anatomy” fan, you may recognize the song I’ve posted below. There’s more of the same on the album which is available from and Amazon.

 

 Moonbabies - "War on Sound" [3:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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