Except we don't come from the land of the ice and snow

There may be a limit to the uses for a good Viking hat, but I'll be damned if I've reached it. And it's not like I haven't been trying.

Memories are made out of now

It's really funny to be writing down the grocery list that your wife has emailed you and suddenly realize that in your head, you've been saying each item the way your toddler says it.

milk....mano!

honey....hahnee!

syrup....surp!

blueberries...blues!

beans...um, beans!

All these little things, the way he talks, his little quirks...

The way he points at an airplane as it flies over and yells his word for plane, "beam!", and then waves to it after it's flown off.

The way he walks backwards and says "beep, beep, beep!"

How when we drop him off at his grandparents, he lets us know in no uncertain terms that he'd like us to leave by forcefully yelling "bye-bye!" over and over. Does the same thing when he's pooping and wants privacy.

The way he'll sit on the sidewalk and push the little bumps in the cement like they're buttons.

The way he lets me know that he'd rather not hold hands by putting both of his arms straight out behind him, as if he's going to take flight.

The way he yells hi to strangers.

They bring us so much delight every day. I almost can't stand it sometimes, and I never want to forget a bit of it.

Holmes on the Spot

As part of his International Meme Week celebrations, Dan the Blogging Englishman entagganated me for the interview meme. Or rather, I tagged myself. Or more accurately put, I volunteered to be tagged, which means I now get to respond to a series of probing interview questions brought to us by none other than Dan himself. So put down that People magazine and read this interview instead.

Do you feel that counseling is a science or an art?
Counseling is nothing less than an exact science. You run through a list of symptoms and then prescribe Prozac accordingly.

In truth, I don't feel quite qualified to answer the question of whether counseling is a science or an art, considering I'm at the very beginning of my education in counseling. However, the question is quite clearly asking how I feel, and I'm pretty qualified to talk about how I feel about pretty much anything. That being said, I feel that it absolutely must be both. There is definitely a science to it, to understanding human beings and the disorders that afflict them and what they stem from and the dynamics of human relationships and knowing what is healthy and what is not and on and on and on. At the same time, there is an art to applying this science. Listening to a person, I dare say, is an art, and not just listening, but making a person know that they are being listened to, not to mention getting them to talk in the first place. Making sense of the dynamics of a person's situation, and never failing to recognize that each person who comes for help is a human being, with a whole universe of experience that is as grand and remarkable as anyone else's.

That's just my take on it for now. Perhaps ask me this one again in a few years.

What's in your car CD player at the moment?
We experience the occasional spat of vehicular break-ins around here, so at the moment, my car's CD player sits empty. But the last CD I listened to in the car was Bad Religion's "New America." It's not my favorite of theirs, but it's got this sort of positive "we really can make the world a better place!" theme throughout it that always buoys my spirits. Plus it's loud and fast.

What's the worst play you've been involved in?
In high school, I ran tech for "Guys and Dolls", and later for "42nd Street", thus beginning my hate affair with the "art form" known as the musical. With a precious few exceptions, I still despise musicals to this day, and sitting through those two freakshows night after night amounted to a brand of torture that I'd prefer never to repeat. Of course, these feelings put me very much in the minority in the UT theater department, but I came across a few other folks of like mind in my time there. Musical haters: we're out there.

Except you asked what was the worst play I've ever been in, and I personally don't count musicals as plays. One is a dramatic art form, the other is, in most cases, little more than a spectacle with about as much artistic value as a UFC match. I can't recall any theatrical involvement where the play itself was bad, but I've had some less than positive experiences. The one that springs immediately to mind is when I was cast in Loaded Gun Theory's "The Empty Bowl." The play itself is fantastic, and my role in particular was a juicy one, but the experience of getting it staged was one I'd rather not ever repeat. The director was young, insecure, and dictatorial, and had us do all sorts of bizarre things that made little to no sense. The real shitty thing though, was the fact that my little boy was only six months old, and plenty colicky. Every night when I went to rehearsal, after spending all day at work, I felt like I was abandoning my family. I don't think I've ever been quite so relieved to have a show close.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
The first thing I can ever remember wanting to be was a carpenter. My mom was having some work done on her house, and the guys that came out just seemed so cool to little Holmes, what with their tools and their know-how. I was able to sort of realize this particular occupational dream in college when I spent a semester working in the scenery shop at UT's Performing Arts Center. I also remember wanting to be a lawyer for some ungodly reason, a choice which would have certainly been disastrous for me, and later a veterinarian. My mom actually talked the guys at our vet's office into letting me come down and hang out and help a few times. I watched them put somebody's pet to sleep once, and that did it for that idea. Later, when I got into theater, I thought I wanted to go into the tech theater field, and later on after that, I thought I'd be a playwright. I guess since I've written a few plays, I've actually managed to be a playwright, and at some point in the future, I hope to be a playwright again, whatever my day job may happen to be.

Who would win in a fight: the Jetsons or the Flintstones?
It's always the bad guys who have the latest technology on their side. And they always seem to have British accents, why is that Dan? So should such a match ever occur, I'd have to cheer for the Flintstones. Considering George Jetson's complete ineptitude with the technology of his day, not to mention his whiny fucking attitude, I think the cavefolk would stand a fighting chance.

So that's it for this interview. If you'd like to be tagged for this one and answer a series of questions written specially for you by me, just follow the instructions below.

Interview rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

One of those wholesome family days

So even though it was like a bazillion degrees here in lovely Austin, Texas today, los Holmeses managed to get out to Zilker Park early and catch the Zilker Zephyr. Catching the train isn't really that impressive of an accomplishment since it runs every half hour or so, but the fact that we made it down there several hours before noon is really quite amazing.

I hereby decree that all cities should have a park with a train that the kids can ride. It really should be recognized for the urban necessity that it is, like utilities and public transit. Henry had a good time watching the park go by, and waving at all the folks big and small, even the guitar-harmonica dude that apparently just stands at a particular bend in the track waiting for the train to pass so he can play a quick tune for the passengers as they go by. With every group of human beings that we passed, Henry pointed and excitedly informed me that they were, in fact, "People! People!"

After the train, we let little dude chase a few pigeons around, then run wild on the playground for a bit to burn off some of that crazy baby energy. I'm one of those dads who would often like to be right there on the playground equipment with the kiddos, but they're usually so crowded with, you know, other people's kids that I'm paranoid about barreling one of them over with my clumsy self while running for the monkey bars. Today though, even though there were a lot of kids at the park, there were surprisingly few actually on the playground, which I took as license to get up on it.

On the way out, I just had to get a picture of Henry on Philosopher's Rock. Three old dudes sitting around hashing out the meaning of existence. If I have my way, that's exactly the kind of old dude I'll grow into.

And no surprises, please

I like it when the mail brings me things.

I ordered one of those Rockabye Baby CD's, the ones where they take a band and turn a bunch of their songs into lullabies. I was hesitant at first because I figured that it was probably just Some Dude With A Keyboard churning these things out, but I went ahead and got the Radiohead one since so much of their music seems like it would translate well into lullaby format.

Well, I've been listening to it quite a bit. In fact, I've probably spent more time listening to it than Henry has. And while it may well be SDWAK churning these things out, I must say he's doing a pretty nice job of it. Something about it just...lulls me. Like, if you just lean your head back and let your eyes unfocus and just sort of slowly sway your head back and forth with a little smile. Go on try it for a minute. The internets will still be here when you come back, I promise.

Isn't that nice? It's kinda like that. Especially the Karma Police lullaby.

Jesus, I'm babbling over goddamn lullabies. Would you just look at this? I mean really. Fuck's sake.

But yeah, I basically put real Radiohead and lullaby Radiohead on shuffle today and just listened to it most all day. I know they're like one of the biggest bands on the planet and all, but they didn't really come on to my radar until a few years ago. I didn't have anything against them, mind you. They just didn't have the level of brutality that I required my music to have for such a very long time. Thankfully, The Ash came with a complete set of Radiohead CD's.

The revealing of new baby's name

No, not his real name, silly. It's much too soon to be sharing such privileged information, even with loyal readers such as yourself. All apologies.

But the baby does have his official in utero name. It was actually Henry's idea, in a way. See, when there's something that Henry's got that he likes, and he's suddenly out of it, he does not hesitate to ask for more. As in "moa!" Or the more common "mo mo [insert item Henry wants here, raising the last syllable slightly as if one were asking a question, or as if one were speaking with an Irish accent]." If Henry runs out of milk and must have more, it's "mo mo mano!" (mano = milk in Henryese...or is it Henryish?) If he scarfs down all the beef on his plate without giving any to the dog, we hear "mo mo beef!" If I'm swinging him around the room and yelling "Wheeee!" as part of the little game we play called "Wheee!" but then dare to put him down, I get demands of "mo mo whee!" Which is hilarious since the kid is visibly dizzy, stumbling like a drunken toddler across the floor.

If the song ends, casting us into musicless silence, it's just "moa." He doesn't yet have a word for the nicely put-together sounds that come out of the speakers.

So I figured, since there will be more baby around to love, new baby may be referred to as Momo. As in "mo mo baby!"

Plenty dopey, I know, but it only has to last while he's baking. Once he's made it out into the world with us, little Sherman Washington or Justus Aurelius or Apollo Marcon or whatever the new little Holmes comes to be called (you like our short list?) can ditch his womb moniker for good.

And then from the quiet

So Slapdash went pretty well:

Yep, that there's pretty much what it looks like. Speaks for itself, I'd say. And yes, that came from the scene I wrote. Ya never know what you're going to find in a theater's prop storage, eh?

So I think this is the longest I've gone without posting in quite some time. Even though it's only been a week and some change, it feels a bit odd to be back at it. After Slapdash was over, I felt sort of depleted, and not just in a creative sense, but just all around. I felt hungry for input, with no pressing desire to output. Or better yet, I felt less like giving and more like receiving. Like some kind of involuntary greed that I didn't like the feel of and couldn't manage to shake off. I wasn't the most patient person on the planet last week, but I managed to do some things for myself that seem to have helped me snap out of it. For one, Ash and I spent the week mostly avoiding the television, choosing instead to spend our free evenings with our noses stuck in books. We'd become much too comfortable plopping ourselves down in front of the TV after we got the GooGoo to sleep, and I was kind of starting to hate it. Not to mention the fact that my usual reading habit had gone totally to shit following the close of last semester. You'd think with no more assigned school reading to do, I'd have jumped back onto the pleasure-reading boat, but it just didn't happen that way. But thanks to our friends Jeff and Tara, we've now started down the Harry Potter path, which I've found is a nice place to be. I also started reading Lonesome Dove, a book that I've been meaning to get going on for some time even though I've never read a western that I can remember. See, it was apparently my father's favorite book, and I guess having a second child of my own on the way (another boy, no less), my curiosity about this person who was my father is once again rekindled, and I'm back to looking for clues about him.

I'm gonna go read now.