The Self-Hating Blogger, Futility, and So Forth
So, yeah, I feel kind of silly doing this. I've hated blogs, blogging, and bloggers since first becoming aware of the concept. It struck me as just the latest frontier of small-time masturbatory self-aggrandizement, the logical successor to what used to be called "perzines" in the old days of fan geekery (and maybe still are for all I know). But...well...the wife -- that'd be Mama Dog, I guess -- went and started a blog during pregnancy as a means of keeping a circle of friends aware of developments without having to type the same stuff over and over, and...yes, well.... I guess I'm pretty sure that if she jumped off a cliff I'd at least think about following her over, so here I am.
And yes, we're new parents, six weeks tomorrow, thanks very much. Since I'm fairly certain we're the only people in the history of the world to ever have a child, this is likely to be a prominent topic in this...do I have to call it a blog? No I don't, do I, though I picked the cutesy name for the "Dog/Blog" rhyme. Let's call it a Faversham, though I'm not going to bother going back and changing the name to Papa Blavisham's Faversham. Anyway, being as Baby Dog (aka the Li'l Puppy) is such a constant and consuming subject of thought, so too will she be regularly pondered in the Faversham.
Lately, the big struggle has been getting her to go to sleep. If you don’t have children, it might surprise you to learn that along with hunger and wet diapers, one of the most common causes of persistent crying in infants is the need to sleep. They get tired and it makes them feel uncomfortable and unhappy – I believe the technical term is cranky. But because they're so new to everything, they have not yet mastered the equation of “Been Awake Too Long + Not Feeling Great About It = Should Go To Sleep.” The way they tend to put it together is “Been Awake Too Long + Not Feeling Great About It = Think I’ll Scream and Cry and Flail About for a Couple More Hours.” The thing that intrigues me about this is that the baby’s natural reaction to fatigue – the screaming and flailing – is the one thing most surely guaranteed to thwart sleep. That is – the baby gets tired, grows cranky, and responds by ensuring sleep will not come and fatigue will grow worse. This strikes me as not just a metaphor for but an encapsulation of the most basic form of human futility. “Something is bothering me! Damn this thing for thwarting my needs and goals! Let’s see what I can do to make it worse!” I’ve seen this pattern countless times in adult life, as have we all, from “I’m bummed about my low wages and crappy job. Think I’ll go drinking all night, oversleep, and get fired.” to “I’m so unhappy about being constantly used and discarded by men that I think I’ll hook up with a self-absorbed commitmentphobe and wonder why he doesn’t call.” I never would have guessed the whole thing begins in the first weeks of life, though. And I guess we’ve got our work cut out for the next lifetime or so, trying to show Li’l Puppy the error in that way of thinking.
And yes, we're new parents, six weeks tomorrow, thanks very much. Since I'm fairly certain we're the only people in the history of the world to ever have a child, this is likely to be a prominent topic in this...do I have to call it a blog? No I don't, do I, though I picked the cutesy name for the "Dog/Blog" rhyme. Let's call it a Faversham, though I'm not going to bother going back and changing the name to Papa Blavisham's Faversham. Anyway, being as Baby Dog (aka the Li'l Puppy) is such a constant and consuming subject of thought, so too will she be regularly pondered in the Faversham.
Lately, the big struggle has been getting her to go to sleep. If you don’t have children, it might surprise you to learn that along with hunger and wet diapers, one of the most common causes of persistent crying in infants is the need to sleep. They get tired and it makes them feel uncomfortable and unhappy – I believe the technical term is cranky. But because they're so new to everything, they have not yet mastered the equation of “Been Awake Too Long + Not Feeling Great About It = Should Go To Sleep.” The way they tend to put it together is “Been Awake Too Long + Not Feeling Great About It = Think I’ll Scream and Cry and Flail About for a Couple More Hours.” The thing that intrigues me about this is that the baby’s natural reaction to fatigue – the screaming and flailing – is the one thing most surely guaranteed to thwart sleep. That is – the baby gets tired, grows cranky, and responds by ensuring sleep will not come and fatigue will grow worse. This strikes me as not just a metaphor for but an encapsulation of the most basic form of human futility. “Something is bothering me! Damn this thing for thwarting my needs and goals! Let’s see what I can do to make it worse!” I’ve seen this pattern countless times in adult life, as have we all, from “I’m bummed about my low wages and crappy job. Think I’ll go drinking all night, oversleep, and get fired.” to “I’m so unhappy about being constantly used and discarded by men that I think I’ll hook up with a self-absorbed commitmentphobe and wonder why he doesn’t call.” I never would have guessed the whole thing begins in the first weeks of life, though. And I guess we’ve got our work cut out for the next lifetime or so, trying to show Li’l Puppy the error in that way of thinking.
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 1:24 PM
1 Comments:
Hi PapaDog,
I love that you have started a blog/favisham! Quelle surprise! (And yes, you are still capable of surprising me, even after nearly 5 yrs of marriage.) My only quip has to do with the background color that you have chosen as your "stationery." While black is great color for sweaters and pants, I find that, as a background, it makes the light-colored text hard to read.
Love,
MamaDog Duvallier.
P.S. If our wee bairn is "Baby Dog," what will our dog's moniker be?
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