baby names

Linette and I were just cleaning house and we found a wadded up piece of paper on which Id dashed out a few ideas for possible baby names. They were; Clementine, Elliott, and Baby Marmalade. Linette was very taken with Baby Marmalade.

Long before Linette got pregnant, I used to think that it would be funny to have a kid named Hitler Stalin Mussolini Maynard. I probably never would have done it, but the idea kind of appealed to me. Not only did I like the idea of standing on my front porch at dusk and yelling, Hitler, get your ass in here and wash your hands, I also liked the possibility that someone could come along and perhaps redefine a name like that in a good way. I have similar thoughts about Hitlers moustache. I often wonder how many years will have to pass before someone could wear that style of facial hair again. I would think that youd have to be a hell of man to pull it off, to reappropriate a symbol like that.

Anyway, I was thinking last night that the name Osama might fall into that same category Then, for some reason, my mind jumped to Omarosa, the abrasive, much despised candidate vying for Donald Trumps attention on the show The Apprentice. Then, like magic I decided to put the two names together.

Bang! Like peanut butter and chocolate coming together to create a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup, I created the most perfect name ever.

Osamarosa

I doubt well use it, but I cant stop saying it. Ive been saying it all day long.

Speaking of baby names, Linette and I have decided that the babys middle name will be Lao and its last name will be Maynard. So, that only leaves one name for us to decide.

Heres my question to the anagram freaks in the audience What name, when added to Lao Maynard would create the best word or phrase?

I dont have the talent or patience for such things, but my guess is that the letters of Baby Marmalade Lao Maynard could be shuffled around to create something truly unspeakable.

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the baby doctor

Linette and I were just talking about acupuncture. Actually, we were talking about Spalding Grey; his depression, his OCD and his ultimate suicide. That conversation then gave way to a discussion of my mental state. And that lead us to the subject of acupuncture Ive been thinking lately that I might give it another shot. Im especially concerned now, with the kid coming along, that my anxiety might get to a level that I cant handle. And, Id like to try to deal with it before it becomes a problem.

I have this fear that Ill be curled up in the fetal position on the floor as Linettes giving birth, and I dont want that to become a reality. I dont want the increased responsibility of fatherhood to drive me into another period of back-to-back panic attacks. So, that means Ive got about one trimesters worth of time get my mental house in order.

Linette was chatting with a friend of ours this morning who apparently knows about things like this, and she suggested three possible options. The one that sounds to me to be the most promising is an older Chinese woman. According to our friend, this womans gift made itself apparent early in life. At the age of seven, she shopped a man on the street from having a seizure by inserting needles into his flesh. (Something that she had no doubt picked up from her father and grandfather, who were both accomplished acupuncturists.) From that day forward, she was known in her town as the Baby Doctor. Apparently, she hasnt just been resting on her laurels either. Rumor has it that in the past few years shes made quite a name for herself by being able to accurately assess peoples health by examining their earlobes.

Linette has always said that my earlobes are by best feature. (Which I always interpreted as, Youre hideous.) Hopefully, Baby Doctor finds something to like about them too. Ill keep you posted.

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nourished on pork bread

I got caught up in a whirlwind of nesting activities this weekend. The combination Linette entering her third trimester and an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on Friday night was just too much. We woke up on Saturday and started tearing things apart. Right now, Im sitting in my office, surrounded by bags and boxes full of paperwork that weve decided to get rid of. Its making me anxious. I hate getting rid of things. I keep thinking that maybe theres something in one of these bags that Ill need one day. Part of me is thinking about waiting until Linette goes to bed and lugging everything down into the basement and hiding it under a tarp.

I put a little dent in a van a couple years ago. It was a rental and I was acting stupid. I was backing up without looking and I bumped into someones mailbox. I tried to pop the dent back out but it just would come. Anyway, they billed me $600 for it and I paid up. Thats one of the things that has me stressed now. Im thinking about recycling the file full of dent-related correspondences and its making me nuts. I keep imagining these scenarios where Avis would come back threatening legal action, claiming that we hadnt worked things out, claiming that I hadnt paid. Its stupid. Its the OCD.

I’m also afraid that if I recycle a greeting card from someone that they’ll die. That’s also an OCD thing.

Oh this isnt related, but Linettes mother made a loaf of bread this morning with a can of pork n beans baked into it. I know this because she left it, wrapped in tinfoil, on our front porch. She must have come while we were out taking a break, seeing the new Charlie Kaufman film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was good, but it freaked me out. (Thats my review of both the film and the pork bread.)

We also worked on the studio space a bit today adding a window and finishing the walls. (I want to have a small art show there sometime before the baby comes.) Heres a photo.

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hmmmmm

I was down in the basement, doing laundry. When I came back up, I found the phonebook on the kitchen table, opened to a giant ad for an escort service called “Erotic Playmates.” I haven’t confronted Linette about it yet… I suppose she could be checking to see if there’s a lucrative Pregnant and Chinese fetish market in suburban Detroit that we could cash in on… Or, maybe she’s arranging to have someone keep me company once the baby comes.

Actually, it was neither. I just asked her. She was looking under “Environmental Remediation.”

We’re apparently in the market for a lead-removal specialist, not an erotic playmate.

“Dear Penthouse, I never thought that something like this would happen to me, but my wife just arranged to have a team of middle-aged men come over to our house and sand our windowsills….”

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el pero est roja

Linette and I just found out from some of our friends that theyre considering a move to Mexico. According to them, theres a mass exodus taking place from the United States thats just not being covered in the mainstream media. Either I heard wrong, or they were saying that as many as eight to nine percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 35 had already left.

If someone can verify this, please let me know. I dont want for Linette and I to be the last sane people left at the party… (stuck chatting with fundamentalist Christians about the Left Behind series and Janet Jackson’s evil nipple)…

While I can certainly believe that theres a growing trend in the direction of American ex-patriotism, I find it hard to believe that it could be anywhere near the level suggested by our friends. I cant imagine that eight to nine percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 35 would have the economic wherewithal to even consider it. I mean, youd have to be either wealthy to begin with or have a fairly secure income stream that could extend across notional boundaries. While Im sure that some computer programmers could pull it off, I dont think that it would work for most people. Most people, as much as they might want out from under this teetering American empire of ours, just arent willing to compete for low-wage factory jobs in Mexico that have no healthcare benefits.

So, this is what Im thinking about tonight. Im thinking about being left behind as all the like-minded people scurry away.

My friend Doug just sent me an email that didnt help matters much. His email was short. It just told me to run a Google search on “Constitution Restoration Act” + “Dominionist.”

Well, I did what he suggested and heres a clip from one of the articles I found:

On January 6, 2004, the Yurica Report published America Stands on the Edge of a Grave Constitutional Crisis Linked to Pat Robertson. In that article we reported that televangelist Pat Robertson devised a number of ways of limiting the power of the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal courts of America. To quote from the article, Robertson said as early as March 24, 1986, Congress could say, Theres a whole class of cases you cant hear and theres nobody can do anything about it!

On February 11, 2004, we published The Despoiling of America by Katherine Yurica. To quote Robertson from this article, Gods plan is for His people, ladies and gentlemen to take dominionto reign and ruleTherell be a reformation.We are not going to stand for those coercive utopians in the Supreme Court and in Washington ruling over us any more. Were not gonna stand for it. We are going to say, We want freedom in this country, and we want power

Both these articles reported a crisis in our government and revealed the plan of the far right Dominionists who control Congress to reconstruct our constitution and restore it to subservience to a theocratic religion under God and under biblical law. It is the first step in a series of steps to take over and control the government of the United States of America as outlined in The Despoiling of America.

Now Im sitting here, in the dark, reading articles like this one about the religious right in America and their plan to shut down the Supreme Court with this Constitution Restoration Act. (Apparently, Justice Roy Lets Sneak an Enormous Ten Commandments Statue into the Alabama Statehouse Moore is involved, in addition to Pat Lets Pray for the Liberal Supreme Court Justices to Die Robertson.)

Of course, you tell yourself, something like this could never actually happen in America but, at the same time, its probably not a bad time to start learning Spanish.

whats the weather like in mexico city, i wonder
I know its unlikely that something like this would pass but heres a link to the official announcement from the office of Alabama Congressman Robert Aderholt on his introduction of legislation (H.R. 3799), the Constitution Restoration Act. According to this announcement, drafted by Aderholt, Moore and others, this legislation would, requiring the federal courts to operate within the jurisdiction given to them by the United States Constitution as it pertains to the public acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, and government. (This would essentially invalidate the Supreme Court and make the United States a theocracy.)

I wonder how you say, “Do you have any work for a day laborer?” in Spanish.

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