The Other Woman/Blog

Really, the other blog is more appropriate, since I'm not having sex with the other blog, I'm just diverting attention away from this one. Not that I wouldn't want to, this other blog I've got is one hot little piece of abstract tail. Announcing, my work blog where I'll be doing a little show and tell about the quick, easy and inexpensive way that I'm turning a former printing room into a wine bar. It's what I've been obsessed with for the last seven months or so, so I hope you'll enjoy. I'm counting it as part of "work" so I feel more obligated to post regularly on that, whether or not I have anything particularly insightful to say.

Now that that's out of the way....

Laura continues to be pregnant, which I feel is a damned fine thing. I went to the last OBGYN appointment and got to hear the heart beat through the doppler. I was fucking awed. It kind of makes this science fictiony warbling sound before it zones in on the heartbeat, but then it's off to the races. 156 beats a minute which can only mean one thing, that we're HAVING A GIRL OR A BOY!!!. We'll know for sure on February 5th, and if we get an image, I fully intend to broadcast naked pictures of my unborn child to all the world.

"New Haircut, New Attitude"

Since my time working on the Dean campaign, my hair has been thinning. I've been noticing myself patting my bangs forward, which has annoyed me to no end; I dispise transparent combovers. I was on propecia for a little while, which worked but caused a lot of stress and cost a lot of money (it makes a small minority of men impotent, imagine spending two months holding your breath at the onset of any hanky panky). This summer I met a very successful, local restaurantor and was shaken to see him sweating from under a really bad toupee.

I figured that I might as well face this sucker "head on" and see if I have the skull to fully commit to being a bald man. I figured that new year's would be a good time to do it since it's the traditional time to do such things and it would give me ample time to grow what little hair I have left before I opened the wine bar or became a father.

Laura did the honors and settled on a 3/8" setting on the trimmer (trimer for my beard and the dog). Josh was there to help with the mirror, the camera and to give good color commentary as Laura trimmed away "oh yeah man, with the front of your head intact you can still pull off the art school student 'do if you stopped now."

And the results? I personally dig it, my wife thinks I look hot (whew) and I don't have any wierd scars or bumps under all that. Aside from doing it in the dead of winter and having to wear a warm hat everywhere, it's been great.

BEFORE:


DURING:


AFTER:

Happy Freaking New Year

Checked off a lot of big ticket items in 2007:

Left North Carolina (thank fucking god)
Moved to St. Louis
Bought a house
Got a great job
Got a cat
Inseminated my wife

I also had a great 29th birthday, ran my best half-marathon ever and biked till I couldn't really safely bike anymore. I've resolved in 2008 to have a smashup wine bar, make more money and of course, be the best father I can possibly be. I decided to eschew the "exercise more" or "lose weight" resolutions and have amended myself to simply not put on too much "new dad weight", that puffy faced, three day stubble, saggy under the eyes look that most new dad's have. No doubt the stress and sleeplessness of both starting a business and raising a child at the same damned time will take their tole on my body, I just want to be aware of it.

Laura has planned an incredible New Year's Eve feast. Josh is in town and Matt and Narcisa will come over. We decided to go all out and under the direction of our meat man at Whole Foods, we bought five and a half pounds of upright roast. We were given some incredible bottles of wine from a family friend as thanks for helping him pack up his house, so that will make for a great evening as well.

Hope all ten of you that read this has a great new years, and an even better 2008.

ABC Motherfucker

After months of nail biting, wrangling, harrassing etc. I will be closing on the business loan tomorrow. I've been at this for about six months now, and I thought I would be at this point long ago. This is a process however, a long, tedious, stressful process.

I feel like my life will be like the movie Alive only backwards. From this point on, I'm going to have to climb some mountain ranges, eat my fare share of people jerky and hopefully, get into an uncrashing plane filled with my fellow, now-alive rugby buddies and head back to Buenos Aires to party over a game victory. Yes, I am playing Stretch Armstrong with that freaking metaphor, but it's just the way I feel, dammit!

I'm going to start a second blog about the business, I'd promised to months ago when I thought the loan closing was imminant.

Commuting As a Future Father

Last Thursday I biked home in snow that turned into freezing rain that just turned into rain (but that was only after it was dark out and only for the last four miles). For me, it was the time of my life. I had my shuffle stuffed into one ear, proper gear on, a blinky light and years of experience. For Laura however, it was pure hell. She's not an edict maker, but she makes it known when she's worried she might have to be a single mother because I like to save gas.

One the one hand, I don't race motorcyles, have sex with prostitutes, own a gun etc. On the other hand, it's indefensable to worry my pregnant wife like that.

When I was about to leave for college, my mom asked of me only one thing, "Teddy, I'm trusting you with a lot here, I just ask that you don't ride a bike in New York. A woman that I work with's friend died riding her bike in New York". Of course, three weeks later I bought a bike and was riding like an asshole through the streets of New York. Later, I was a part time, semi-dilitante bike messenger. In the meantime, of course, I regularly commuted by bike, chose my jobs based on whether they'd be cool with me biking to work and even went so far as to build an office for my favorite bike non-profit (for a princely sum, of course). It was years until I admitted to my mom that I rode a bike. As fate will probably have it, I'll have a girl and my biking will worry the hell out of her, too.

I'm not going to quit commuting altogether, but now that the days are shorter and my hours at work are longer, I'll be driving in. Either that, or mixing a morning commute in with a MetroLink ride home. I went to a spinning class on Monday, but it was simular to that part in the movie "Interview With A Vampire" when Brad Pitt's character starts sucking blood from rats in order to avoid the guilt of drinking the blood of hot, creole prostitutes. You could also compare it to Tofurkey or a sexual encounter with an inexpensive sex-doll. Running might be an option, or going to a gym or yoga. If it's really not working out, I'll probably pick up boxing or some other semi-dangerous thing that can be done with lots of padding.

The Lime Moves

Laura convinced me to skip the second OB appointment, saying that it would be a perfuntory five minute weigh-in, doppler, wham bam bhank you mam. It turns out that she got an unexpected ultrasound and a glance at our lime-sized bundle of joy bouncing around her uterous. It was moving too much to get a good picture, so I was left hearing the highlights from Laura. She did count two arms and two legs, so I'm pretty happy at this point.

Cranksgiving Tooth Fairy

So, two years later and my second Cranksgivng, a rolling canned food drive that roves from supermarket to supermarket, this time STL style. Patrick and the good people of Bike Works put it together and it was more of a ride than a mad-dash scramble.

At the beginning of the ride, it was mentioned that the shelter we would be donating to needed toothbrushes. When we got to the first stop, I asked some people who volunteered at a local food pantry what I should buy. They said again that they needed dental hygene products. No effin' problem, everyone who matters knows that I'm a flossing machine. No canned corn for this man, I loaded up on teeth cleaning products. Five supermarkets and 16 bucks later, I had 10 tubes of toothpaste on special, two Spider Man kids toothbrush and toothpaste kits, some floss and a few bars of soap for good measure.

All in all, 72 people took in a crap ton of food and dental products, everyone had a great time and now I'm going to concentrate on drinking water.

UPDATE!
Cranksgiving STL made it into the local paper

First Baby Pictures

Laura and I went to our first OB/GYN meeting yesterday. Dr. K, who is our other Dr. K's Wife, was pretty good. There wasn't any waiting, she was very pleasant and professional and was warm enough to make Laura feel comfortable. After only a brief meet and greet, we went to a little room, she turned on some mood lighting and shoved a condom-covered, sonogram probe up Laura's hoo-hoo.

And this, ladied and gentlemen, is what we saw:




What you don't get from the picture is the winking on and off of the heart beating very rapidly. Laura was very nervous about finding problems during this visit. I didn't think I was, but once I saw the heart beat, and saw that it wasn't in the tubes, it felt like someone had taken a bucket of relief and dumped it over my head.

Don't Try This At Home

I just wanted to add that in looking for the picture in the previous post I did a Google image search of "knocked up". If you have your filter turned off, like I did, you'll get a few images of Judd Apetow's movie, and a lot of shots of pregnancy porn.

Thanks A Lot Judd Apetow

I remember telling Laura after we saw "Knocked Up" that I coulnd't wait to see the DVD when it came out. I was actually clutching Laura's arm while the birth scene was happening. The movie holds up the second time around with the comedy as well, I've always been a fan of improv based shit.

Our first meeting with the OB/GYN is on Tuesday. It'll also be our first time meeting the OB/GYN who just happens to be the wife of our regular doctor. I'm not too sure what one is supposed to do in these meetings. My grandmother, my grandfather and my aunt were all OB/GYNs and so I'll be sure to get that one in. I always make a point to mentiion the doctors in my family whenever I'm having a frank doctor-patient about my own impending medical attention. It's not so much a hope that they'll have met them, but that I'll appeal to that part of their superego that's more afraid of looking like an ass in front of their peers than getting sued for malpractice. It's an unfair advantage, but I feel that the cards are stacked against me anyway and I might as well use whatever I've got.

Our Blueberry Sized Bundle of Joy

It's unclear to me how Laura gets through her day. She seems to move through the world in a vomitous cloud of pure fatigue. Not being able to eat a lot, I was a little worried about how that would effect the nutritional needs of the baby. Luckily, female biology is such that a fetus will happily eat the very marrow from the mothers bones.

As you might guess, I'm playing the part of the caretaker. Gone are the days of me basking in knowledge that my junk works and that my love of cycling hasn't destroyed my cajones. Now I wake up and have to change the cat litter for fear of giving Laura a harmful cat feces born disease and there is no one to walk the dog but me since Laura is out for the count.

Work is going well, I've jumping through requisite hoops to get everything ready for construction. Lots of people that I run into bitch about how difficult it is to get anything done in the city of St. Louis, but so far everything has gone off without a hitch. Bids are due this Friday, which is the 800 lb gorilla. I'm expecting some awful sticker shock, a little horse trading, a touch of whip-sawing and then finally picking one, closing the loan and getting down to business.

I'M PREGNANT!

Laura is pregnant, but everyone says that it's a "we" thing, so yeah, while Laura is doing a great job of growing another human being in her womb, I too, am pregnant. I/Laura/we are due in late June. It was no accident, we meant to do it and it happened lickity split. Anyone who tells you that unprotected sex doesn't result in pregnancy is telling you a goddamned lie!

Laura turns 28 tomorrow and has reached her goal of being 28 and pregnant. Happy birthday baby.

Fun Times Weekend Pictures

Here's the sag wagon.

Too Much Fun

Through a friend of a friend of a friend I heard about the illustrius Tour De Moose, a semi-competetive event that marries beer drinking and biking. It celebrates the birthday of a gentleman known as Moose (or Kevin) who works as a bartender at a bar called Lemmons where the event began.

These are the rules:
1. Everyone has a helmet
2. No running lights (five minutes added to your time)
3. Stay with the turn sheet (five minute penalty as well)
4. Each beer is 30 seconds off of your time

About twenty minutes of biking, a half hour of beer, a group photo and then off to the next bar. Every weekend should be like that, maybe a ride around wine country for variety. Everybody was super chill: lots of introductions, some new friends made an invitation to a friendly game of bike polo and in the end some healthy competition.

Laura got super competetive and decided early on to house all of the other women AND DID!!! The four sophic women in charge of the oranizing and timekeeping rooted her on at every checkpoint. I took it easy for the majority of the ride, but was told at the beginning that there were a few people that always took it very very seriously. I decided to take the piss on a couple of these guys and had a great time of it. Lots of photos to follow.

Anniversaries

Went to my 10 year high school anniversary last Saturday. The timing with work was good since I could back up my brag of opening a wine bar with written assurances from two different banks. My high school class was incredibly small, and the reunion was maybe 35 people, spouses included. Two girls from my class are new mothers with six and nine month olds. Three of my former classmates fly for a living, for the Coast Guard, Air Force and privately for jetsetting millionaires. A good number of my classmates work for their dads, pretty par for the course here in St. Louis, but impossible for me since my old man never taught me how to intebate.

I got to see my old theatre teacher, tour the school and see what has changed. The former head of the school, who I absolutely hated was long gone and had been replaced by a younger guy who seemed pretty competent. I was a little bit worried that she might show up, since I had planned exactly what I wanted to say to her and I knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself. Laura was there with me, which was great for the cool, hot wife bragging rights and so that she could get a little bit of an insight into who the hell "Teddy" was.

October 7th was our 1 year wedding anniversary, a sort of half anniversary since we were actually married in February. Laura's mom, Val and her boyfriend Bob were in town and we had barbicue and went to a new wine bar where Val gave the Italian wine selection a delighfully thorough drubbing.

October 11th marked a full year since we left beautiful, thriving, exciting New York. It's becoming a more remote spec in the rearview mirror, more abstract. I miss it sometimes, mostly the people. With some notable exceptions most of my good New York friends are leaving the city, and the New York that I used to know isn't really there anymore. This may be a stretch, but I sometimes liken the city to female characters in the Tom Robbins novels I used to read in college; beautiful, eager to engage you and completely indifferent whether you stay or leave.

The day we left, a New York Yankees pitcher crashed his plane into the side of a midtown building, snarling traffic and adding several hours to our exit. I looked out the window of our rented minivan and Laura said "we could always move back if we got really rich" it was a nice thought, but I knew it was goodbye.

Happy Freaking Bike Messenger Appreciation Day

It's been a year and a day since I retired as a bike messenger.
I've got a crap cold so I didn't bike into work.
There is exactly one (1) bike messenger in the entire city of St. Louis.
Nevertheless.....

A Real, Honest-To-God Bike Commuter

I've been experimenting with my commute route for the last few weeks and I've settled on the one that goes through a long, industrial stretch of Manchester Road. It's got a lot of stop lights many more lanes than there are cars and no one else except local traffic seems to use it in the mornings. There are a bunch of factories, used car lots, a big depot for welding supplies and the illustrious Bull's-Eye indoor shooting range. It's a lot like my commute from Greenpoint to Gawanis Brooklyn, only I'm the only biker.

Except for today of couse when I got passed by a guy on a mountain bike with slicks, full on shorts and jersey and a rack with waterproof panniers, which I assume held his work chlothes. I drafted him about a half mile, we exchanged a "great freaking weather for it" with one another and then went our separate ways. I finallly don't feel like a complete freak.

Nerding Out

One of my boss's German clients turned me on to "Meet-Up German Speakers" and tonight I went. It was me, three other Deutschaphiles and a woman who was actually from Germany, a scientist of some sort. I've never quite figured out what it is I'm supposed to do with my German, it's an odd little parlor trick that I'm no longer that good at. It's not quite so good as a hard skill. Not very sexy either.

On the work front, I've gotten one bit of good news from one of the bankers, but I'm wating for even better news from the other one. I remain hopeful that things can get started soon. In the meantime, I've been clearing out some of the dead weight in the space.

Big Week

Work is going well, met with money folks last week, more money peeps this week. If things go well, I'll clear it with my boss and see if I can start blogging about my work project either here or on another, new blog.

Here's a little bit of St. Louis cultural differences for those of you on the coasts. In St. Louis, home of Anheuser Busch, drinking beer in public is your goddamned god-given right.

Life Insurance

About a year ago I was taking in a Shakespear in the Park production in New York and I ran into an old theatre design teacher of mine. He's gay, and when I told him I had gotten married he asked me very earnestly (New Jersey was mulling over civil unions at the time) "how is it?" I told him that the biggest difference I felt was that it was now okay to openly talk about my shared future with the other person. My former teacher is good at getting expository truth from people and my answer knocked me back since I had never articulated it for myself. When I was dating, even when I was in a long term, stable relationship, I was always leery of say, making Christmas plans in August.

Now that I'm married, planning can span months, years, and now I suppose, beyond. I was just notified on Monday that my life insurance policy through USAA had begun and if I crump before I turn 49, Laura will be the sole beneficiary. It's heady stuff, but I've been raised to be pretty practical about it.

Growing up, my parents would start many a conversation with "if your father and I dropped dead tomorrow..." Family friends and relatives would shift over the years and become the ones nominated to take care of my brother and I should my parents die. Once I became an adult, any changes in post mortum plans would be covered during my time home from school or when my parents would visit New York.

It has now been passed on through to the next generation like a potato salad recipe. Mortality is inevitable, and planning for it is just another form of hygiene. That doesn't exactly take away the ol' fear of death or make me feel like riding my bike like an asshole, but I was able to openly talk with Laura about future plans, even those that don't include us both.