ed_rex

Aside from the plague, Young Edifice, how are things going?

I feel as if I ought to be pulling a Dr. Johnson, reporting on my experience of the Great Plague of 2020 (and 2021? Time will tell), but my own, personal life has thus far been so little affected, I really feel I have almost nothing to say about it at all.

Prior to the emergence of Covid-19, I worked a job in the transportation industry 4 days a week, on a shift that usually saw me get home around 2:00 in the morning. Three days a week were spent domestically, some shopping, some cooking, some cleaning, lots and lots of time with the baby.

Meanwhile, Raven is looking forward to returning to work in August, and hoping against hope that she will not be working from home, but she too is normally pretty hermatose; I doubt she goes out with friends even once every couple of months as a rule.

So for us, what's not to like? (I know, I sound like a privileged asshole, and yet, it is my personal experience with this thing thus far.) And whaddo I know about the social dislocations, the anxieties, the economic suffering, caused by the plague? Basically, only what comes through my Facebook feed and, to a much lesser extent, here or on Twitter.

It isn't that I feel above the concerns of the world, so much as that I just feel apart from them. Hell, we never even ran out of toilet paper or kleenex because we always bought in bulk when such things would go on sale. (I even managed to find a fucking pound of yeast last week to replenish my dwindling supply!)

So, I dunno, what the hell am I supposed to write about here, that I am not already writing about elsewhere?

Oi. I hate this entry already. Here, have a video showing what I've learned from my small daughter and, maybe, that might express something that some of you are feeling during these weird times. Then I'll talk a little about her, and our latest anxieties.

Well, now that I've buried the lede, I can report on our nine-month check-up with our GP (by telephone, nat'ch!).

Tiny, perfect baby growing slow ...

Well, I dunno about "perfect", but what else would you expect a father to say?

Baobao is healthy so far as we can tell. She has lots of energy, is crawling well and starting to show signs of being interested in standing; she's eating (and enjoying) a super-wide variety of foods to supplement her breast milk; her pee is clear and she's had no problems pooping; she's vocal as hell and if she's been crying more than she used to, there doesn't seem to be anything actually wrong with her — she just resents having to go down for a nap.

So, lucky us, so far and so it seems!

But one thing is causing Raven some stress, though her papa is un-bothered and, in truth, thinks it kind of amusing.

As those of you who have met me in person already know, I am not a tall man. In fact, I am considered pretty damned short, at least in the first world. I used to be a bit over 5'5" tall but at my most recent physical I measured under. Shrinking already, apparently. Nevertheless, on my dad's side of the family, I am one of the two or three tallest of a dozen or so cousins.

I credit my Mongolian heritage (a paternal aunt recently had her DNA tested and came up with 5% "central Asian" (not to mention 3% Neanderthal!) heritage, so this thesis is edging onto proven) for being what my father has long called "normal height".

Raven (5'2"? 5'3"?), on the other hand, does not subscribe to my less-is-more philosophy, and so was underwhelmed when we reported Baobao's latest measurements to the good Doctor Chow.

• Length/height: 66 centimetres = 5th percentile;


• Weight: 15.2 pounds = 10th percentile;


• Head circumference: 45 centimetres = 80th percentile

So. Super small baby, actually. And Raven told me just this morning as the three of us lounged in bed for a bit that if she were in the 3rd percentile there would be reason to worry there was something wrong with her &dmash; so she's only just within the normal range.

Which means I can still laugh about my baby's size (in contrast to my sweetie's unfulfilled desires; she wanted a boy, too), rather than worry about it.

Pardon me, sir, but that's a beautiful baby you have; can I interest you in exploiting her for $$$money$$$?"

Truth is, I started my daddy blog with at least half an eye on the idea of, somehow, earning some income through it. Hence the Ko-Fi link below most of the articles, though so far, that has netted me precisely zero coffees; between that and the lack of sales on Black Grass (the ebook version of which is currently on sale at the low, low price of only $3.99!), I'm kind of wondering whether I'm cut out for making money through anything but manual labour.

But I digress.

Will this be the photo that launches a fashion career?

Yesterday, I posted the above photo to my Instagram account and today saw the following comment:

What a darling! 😍 We'd love to have this little munchkin to represent our brand. If interested, DM our main account @jenorababies for the details. Make sure to tell them CASSIE sent you."

Now I'd be lying if I told you that Raven and I haven't already, if only somewhat idly, already thought of looking into baby modelling. We know we have an exceptionally cute baby on our hands, and earning (or should I say "earning") some extra money to toss into her education fund doesn't, on the surface, seem such a bad thing.

But we never seriously looked into it other than, on my part, checking DuckDuckGo for modelling agencies in Ottawa. There are some. I never made a call or sent an email.

But now I've been approached and must ponder the matter anew.

On the one hand, I have a long-held loathing for the fashion industry: its labour practices are often (usually?) horrendously exploitative of "Third World" labour and its marketing exploits and creates body insecurities and encourages pointless over-consumption, to name just a few of its sins off the top of my head.

But on the other hand, we live in a brutally exploitative society, and we will soon be a one-income family once Raven's maternity leave ends; we aren't poor, but we are far from rich and so the thought of extra money we can set aside for Baobao's future is tempting indeed. (And for that matter, while I worry about my scruples, I have to face the fact that, for nearly a full decade, my day job has been in the transportation industry, aiding and abetting airlines, despite my fucking terror of what global warming holds in store for my darling daughter's future.)

So here I am ... should I ignore the message or respond? What do you think, hive-mind?

December 21, 2019 - me, spending time with my fantastic daughter, a couple of days past her fourth month on Earth.

The photo has nothing to do with the post; if anything, I've posted more in the year or so since I found out Asta was going to enter my world, than I had in the previous several years!

No, at least in part, I blame Facebook.

Right. Nothing new there. But maybe I get why others have also blamed Facebook.

It's not so much (or at least, not just) that Facebook is a big time-suck, but how it is. It's not just the eternal scroll, as it is the Endless Options.

You can do anything with a Facebook post. You can read part of it, or click to read some more of it, or click again to read all of it.

You can respond by: ignoring it or Liking (or using one of the other half-dozen emojis) it. You can further (with or without a Like) reply to it. Through typing; through the re-posting of a meme; through a shared video; with a gif.

If you choose words, you can actually start a conversation - but the result, more often than not - is confusing and hard to follow, because Facebook's system has been designed not to thread conversations. Unless the conversation includes only two people, it can very quickly become almost impossible to know who is speaking to who or about what at any given time.

Why bother?

All of which is to say, while I was busily trying to catch-up on my LJ and DW friends' pages, I found myself pausing, wishing I could click a Like button so that I could acknowledge my appreciation of, or support for, their posts, but the idea of replying with words, seemed ... well, hard.

Sometimes, because a post is of a kind that demands and deserves a considered reply - and I don't know the poster well enough to offer it - you just don't anything germane to say.

Sometimes, I worried that what I had to say would just be trite, a cliche.

Almost every time I wanted to, but didn't, offer a response, was because it would take time. More time than the same, or an analogous, action on Facebook would take.

And Facebook has not only trained me to read fast, and carelessly, it has trained me to be lazy in interacting with others. Through both the carrot of endless things to read and look at, and the stick of labour, of craft and of thought.

So. Y'know. I'm gonna try and spend more time here. Post more. Comment more. Work more.

Hi there! Here's to the changing of the year!

If all this is as inane as I fear it might, I still absolutely deny indulging in a Perfectly Legal psychotropic substance purchased at a licensed facility mere blocks from my abode. Absolutely deny!