Quick entry, because I should be marking papers:

Blake & the potty training: Over the past couple of weeks, Blake has gotten interested in “making my bed.” This usually consists of me making the bed, after which he wiggles under the sheets and messes it all up. (Good thing I’m not OCD about bouncing a quarter on my bed linens.) When I change the sheets, he gets to lie in the middle as I repeatedly snap & wave the flat sheet over his giggling body. Lately he’s decided that pillows are his metier, so he makes a point of stacking and arranging them – sometimes evenly, sometimes according to the tastes of the sleepers, and sometimes acceding to his own eccentric design (the mighty tower of pillows!) We have two pillowcases from Dirk that feature cartoons of naked people, one gender per pillow. They’re kind of tacky if you want to know the truth of it. Blake, of course, thinks they’re great, and would very much like to keep the universe in order, which means a boy pillow for daddy and a girl pillow for mommy. If this is changed, he changes it back. When we play on the bed, I am only allowed to lie on the girl pillow on my side. Heaven forfend I should touch my too, too sullied flesh to daddy’s side.

So my issue is obvious: how can a boy smart enough to fit an abstract pictorial symbol to an even more abstract category, who can repeatedly order this symbol into definitive spatial layouts and enforce their seperation through the encroaching chaos of our bedroom…why can this boy not understand that I don’t want to change his poppy diapers anymore? I am left with one comfortless answer. He knows I don’t like this, he knows the difference between wet and dry, and he even knows how to control himself until he gets to the potty (as he does in his nightly bath). He Just Doesn’t Care.

I’m still struggling to reconcile myself with this conclusion.

Tapes: I got to fool around with cassette tapes today, and it was like coming home. God, I miss making tapes. I should probably do more of it, as I have a car with a tape deck and that won’t last forever. Today I taped my mom’s battered LP, the “Hair” original cast recording: scratches, bumps, weird level changes and warps. My dad offered to download and burn the soundtrack. I was momentarily amazed at the depth of his misunderstanding.

Weekend: Saw Sula and Philip at the Duke on Friday night, drank too much, talked too much, knit too much.

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” – Blake.

Maybe it does. It also leads to sore throats and a subtle sense of failure. I’ve accomplished what in my life, exactly? Oh yeah. A kick ass son and a really good bulletin board in my last job. I’d trade that last one for some decent hair and a second chance at my bachelor’s.

I suppose that the main source of my mild depression was the promise of seeing Dirk, coupled with his eventual decision to stay in. This choice wasn’t about me, but it’s been a long time since I even spoke to him and I was intoxicated with the possibility of a night on the town. I’d feel like Charlie Brown kicking the football if I wasn’t 100% sure that Dirk did not choose to stay in willingly.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 10/01/2006 08:32:00 p.m.