Tuesday, November 07, 2006

The Host/Borat/Mom/Shopping for Illusionary Pussy

I saw The Host. It's now my second favorite movie of the year. It was directed by Bong Joon-ho, who was at the screening. I had this planned with my boys before the wife spit the kid out, and with my mom in town, it was okay that I went. I really enjoyed the movie, but it fucks you up to leave your kid at home after being so attentive for the last couple. It was a relief, but it's still hard to leave behind. The film is coming out in January, and you ahve no excuse not to see it.

Saturday night my mom let us go out for dinner and a movie. Aili wanted to see Borat. It's funny to hear a Finnish girl do a Kazakh accent, but she nails it. Aili also loves it because it makes fun of both Americans and the Eastern Europeans. It's a two-fer. Aili had a glass of wine at dinner, but then stopped herself, thinking about the kid and the milk. That shit's fucked up yo. She still hasn't made up her mind if she's quit smoking or not. Mostly, she's worried about the weight, and most mornings now, now that she's at least a little back to it, she tries to put some time on our exercise bike. We both loved Borat, BTW.

Having Mom here (she's leaving tomorrow) was nice for the break factor. She gave us both some time to not deal with the baby, though we both are very much in the headspace where even though we might want that a little, we can't keep ourselves away. Aili's not due back in the office until mid-January, but she's already doing some things from home. Just cause. Mom got a little testy because we're both so ragged. And then on Saturday, on the way home, I slipped and tweaked my glasses. Right now it's tough, it's so incredibly tough when it comes to money, and we just paid the rent, and though Aili's still salaried for her absence, and I'm working, baby's cost money, and there's so many new expenditures. Though the glasses weren't broken, the thought of both being sightless (my only pair), and having to buy new ones set off panic attacks. Mom sort of helped by saying she'd help, but it's just the way things are. It's so tense because we're starting to build up more and more credit card debt. Part of that is just one time expendatures, but budgeting with children is difficult. And sometimes we're both horrible about getting our son stuff. We find it hard to say no to him. I took the glasses in and they were fixed in an instant, but that was fourteen hours of pure stress.

This morning I took the kid out for some shopping at our local Ralphs. Like most parents, I don't get more than a couple hours sleep in a row, so I took the kid with me this morning and let my wife and mom sleep in a bit. But by the time the two of us were ready to get going, my mom was up and did the normal mom thing by doing some cleaning. I said I'd be back in a bit, and offered to have her join us, but she was happy cleaning our bathroom. Moms be crazy. By the way, I'm finally at about B- level at diaper changing.

Here's the funny thing, it's 9:30, I'm shopping at Ralphs looking mostly like a zombie, but women just can't keep away from a baby. I looked fine, but everyone likes to stop and stare for a minute. Hot thirty-year-old women love my baby. I'm too tired to flirt them up, but it's a weird catch 22. And I get it, they don't want me that much, and the reason why they are so flirty is that babies tend to bring that out, and they know I'm safe, but being all daddy with baby is just sick when it comes to that. But that phermonal sign that I'm a breeder, and that I take care of my own is dangerous shit.

I'm reminded of a time I went out to lunch with the head of a company I worked for with a bunch of my coworkers, and the waitress was flirting with me. After she left that came up though mostly between us, and I said "Oh, you noticed that?" His response was "Well, yeah. I'm alive." Me too, I'm alive too. But I love my wife and life. So there you go.