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Good Provider?

Submitted entry: Paul’s asleep now - he’s had a bit of cough medicine and so isquite happily sleeping through Sage and I blabbing and having musicon. (NP: You Were Spiraling’s Delusions of Grandeur album).

It was a toss-up today between going back to sleep now (I had amigraine earlier today and they exhaust me) or having coffee andwriting. I chose writing - not the best choice health-wise, probably butI really enjoy writing these days.

It’s been an interesting week with Paul. A few days ago Kiteyalso observed that Paul was being something of a barbarian most of thetime and mentioned that it might be the computer games we’re allplaying. The more we talked the more we realized that that was probablythe case. Even though we played no more than 1/2 hour a day he hasdefinitely been more distracted and more violent. These are things oftenattributed to kids watching too much television. So we stopped with thegames that day and after a few days he’s noticibly being morehimself. It’s amazing that we could have made such a mistake given thatit basically is interactive television and we all know our feelingsabout his watching television. Chalk it up to another learning experienceand we’ll all be glad we figured this out early on. We’ve gone monthsbefore with “Logic problems” as we call them. In Bethlehem itwas the worst. In all our rearrangings we at times had the cassettes andCDs on one floor and the stereo on a different one. The TV in one roomand the videos in another. We’re getting better at seeing our own lack oflogic but still we catch ourselves being silly. Our new thing is for oneof us to come up with a good idea and the other vetoes it saying that it’sfar too logical for us.

Had another Springfield trip a few days ago. Just a simple one togo to the library, dinner and to look for a used pentium desktop (lowspeed) to use for the internet gateway on the LAN in the house. We’d liketo free up our 333mHz one to be more of a community computer as it’sreally too powerful to waste it’s time as an internet sharing server forthree other computers. We also made a trip to a learning-toy store wherewe got Paul some books and puzzles which we’ve been having a great timewith. Dinner that night was fun. We went to an Italian place thathumorously enough touts itself as an “East Coast Style” Italian restaurantcomplete with Rat Pack music (a weakness of ours) and pictures of FrankSinatra on the walls. It surely isn’t as great as some of the places wewent to in New Jersey or Pennsylvania but the food was tasty, we had agood time and Paul ate all of his children’s order of ravioli and severalof mine too so we know he likes it.

I think he’s really developing druthers about what he eatsnow. He’s less likely to eat what we eat just because we’re eatingit. He’s starting to like simpler, less seasoned foods. For example, heprefers chickpeas with butter and onions and cayenne on rice way betterthan channa masala - chickpeas with cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, cumin andcoriander. He likes tofu cold and sliced up out of the package way betterthan anything I cook it in. It’s very interesting to see him change overtime.

I’ve not forgotten about the picture of me going up on thissite. I’ve actually got a few peoples’ decoy photographs though morewould be great. I just need to get the digital camera working again (itmay have to go back to Epson to be fixed) so I can get my picture in too!

I had some fun yesterday looking at old email from 1997 andearlier. I found out that Eudora mailboxes are just text files and so areunix mail files. So I just imported them into pine (the program I use formail - I’m definitely a minimalist) and read some. I swear every emailfrom me to Sage was something saying that I’d be home late, or that I’dactually be home early (“See you at 8:00 - only 3 hoursover!”). How did I even have much time to get to know Sage when I’dwork so often and then spend evenings and weekends shopping or doingerrands that I didn’t have time to do because I worked 50-60 hours/weekand commuted 2-4 hours/day? OH! I know. There’s the justification forhaving spent so much on dining out (when we kept track in Pennsylvaniadining out expenses were third to rent, and car (insurance andpayment). If I’d been cooking great meals all the time I’d never haveseen her! Yeah, that’s it! The secret to our happy marriage isn’t what Isaid before, it’s eating out or ordering pizza 3-5 nights a week. Moveover, John Gray - I’m going to start in on the talkshow/infomercial/seminar/book circuit. Men are from Mars, Women areFrom Venus and they come together at Star of India. There could beentire spm campaigns with subject lines like “SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE NOWTHE EASY WAY!!!” and just think of the money we could make from apartnership with Dominos.

You know what, though? In some ways that’s not so far off. Lookat how advertising works. Look how it tells us that if we buy a diamondour love life will be better, that gentlemen prefer Leggs and that womenprefer a Bud man. Your whole life can be changed with just the rightpurchases. Want fun? The night belongs to Michelob (but they never tellyou the next day will belong to Excedrin but think of the cross-marketingopportunity).

And they definitely market time-saving devices or eatingout as ways of saving time for yourself and your family because your lifeis so busy with working too many hours, doing too many other activities,taking the kids to all their practices and such. And why are we workingso hard? To pay for our timesaving devices. Why do we have timesavingdevices? Because we work too hard to have time. Why do we have a$250,000 house? Because that’s what houses cost close to work. Why do wework at that high stress/high paying job? Because we have a mortgage topay. Why do we go to the marriage counselor? Because we work too muchapart. Why do we work the extra hours? To pay the marriage counselor.

That was the realization I made that made it possible for me notto worry about moving here without a “real job”. I realizedthat so much of our money was supporting my job. Rent on a house nearby(we weren’t terribly fond of it or the area), a car to commute in when Iworked far away ($17,000 new because I put 50,000 miles/year on and didn’twant to worry about repairs - and I wanted to be“comfortable” (and impress people) so I got an Acura. We wereeating out so much because I worked too much to feel up for cooking. Wehad a big house because the cats couldn’t go outside with all the trafficand they needed their space so we had high heating bills. It was like asweater. I found a single thread and started tugging absently on it andbefore I knew it the whole thing came unraveled in my hands. That waswhen I realized how much of what I thought I wanted was all an illusionand when I thought seriously about what I did want I didn’t need much atall. We needed shelter, heat and food at a minimum. We’d like to haveinternet access especially since that’s meant to help us make money. Sosimplifying our lives became not so much an exercise in denying ourselvesthings as actually figuring out what we wanted that wasn’t wrapped up inmaking us feel better that we hardly saw one another. Sure, I likethe idea that we’re consuming less, but we’re not doing it out ofprinciple alone. We’re doing it because we’re having a much better timethis way than we were when we saw each other 40 hours/week or less becauseof my job (and what if we’d been working a job each?). And it’s obviousfrom the sheer number - 40 hours/week that it was crazy for me to work ifI wanted to be a father. To work 40-60 hours/week and spend 40 hours aweek home (he would sleep through much of that) is crazy. So now thebalance is better. While I’m working almost every day to some extent, I’mhome and available to my son and Sage (and Sage for us) almost everywaking hour of the day. Conservatively speaking I estimate that to over100 hours/week. See why I prefer not to be a “Good provider”?

That Terrible Cycle

We would spend money when we felt down.