Song To Be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children

by Ogden Nash

 

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky;

Contrariwise, my blood runs cold

When little boys go by.

For little boys as little boys,

No special hate I carry,

But now and then they grow to men,

And when they do, they marry.

N

( Read more... )

When the comet killed the dinosaurs, it wiped out all traces of their intriguing clock radios, The first paleontologist to find one in a Triassic shale formation will be surprised, to say the least. The comet that killed the dinosaurs is swinging through the neighborhood again to see what's going down on the flaming waterball it left behind 65 million years ago. It has a bet going with Jupiter; what's the dominant lifeform now? Jupe says it's those funny little hamsters the Tyrannosaurs used to serve on toothpicks at gallery openings, but the comet is certain that now the kings of the hill are elephant-sized rotoviruses. What's this? the comet picks up, of all things, an FM television signal. "Desperate Housewives???" The transmission indicates that the planet is, in fact, dominated by the snarling, hideously rut-crazed females of one of the larger primate species. The males appear to be drones, drab-colored by comparison, routinely devoured after mating. The face of Marcia Cross appears, slathered with mineral unguents, lips drawn back in a snarl. The comet signals Jupiter: this place badly needs a bit of the old bolide whompin'. Impact in 5...4...3...

* * *

I don't know why I have such trouble on the job market. After all, I write my own recommendation letters; all glowing with praise, signed Professor J. Boggart Plimfeather of Pease College, Oxflap. I have an article forthcoming, with a secret acrostic hidden in it: down the side, the first letters of the sentences in the first paragraph spell "Wilamo[v]it[z] wass a flabulent rub[b]er Penguin." (By the time Classics Omnibus figures it out, it will be too late, they'll have to pulp the Spring edition or have their reputation tarnished.)

The Bean is teething already. I'm not sure why, but she seems to blame me for it. Every time she looks at me, she grabs her gums on the right side and wails, fixing me with an accusatory hurt expression. She likes "Red Dwarf" - it's a father-daughter thing, I give her a bottle of tobasco sauce and olive-brine, and we watch the great old seasons 1-6 (but not the dadblang lousy seasons 7-8 or that awful 'back to earth' thing.) Bugs bunny is strictly out, though, no interest, she rolls over and stuffs the blanket in her mouth.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

What the press corps wants to know is: does the President have a swivel chair, and does he swivel in
it? How often does he swivel? Is there swiveling going on during cabinet meetings? During
Greenwich Mean Time? During an oxygen bomb attack? What does the Vice President think of this?
Has he his own swivel chair? It wouldn't be fair if he didn't.

Recent activities:

revising the 15 page article down to 7 pages for "Classics Omnibus" (names of publications have been changed to protect the culpable). One of the referees on my article stated he wasn't convinced by the main portion of my thesis. having read his comments, I'm no longer convinced it makes sense either.

wishing this Yoonivursity was not so hostile to faculty - in particular, wishing they hadn't arbitrarily revoked my parking spot. Plus, will they ever fix the enormous wet hole in the ceiling, or will the damned thing collapse and bury us all?

woolgathering

adding too much milk to coffee

teaching The Bean to blow raspberries.

The Bean has a new trick: she can roll over on her stomach. This woulsn’t be a problem except a 21/2-month-old on her stomach has to be supervised, lest her head detach from her neck, or something. The baby books decree it, anyhow, and we must obey. Worse, she’s been working on this trick for a few weeks now with one object evidently in mind: to crawl. I keep trying to tell her, she’s three or four months early for crawling, or so say the baby books. And really, she can’t manage it yet. She gets her legs moving, raises her head, tries to push up with her arms…and thrashes about in one spot. This really pisses her off, and we end up with a red-faced hollering blob of Emmeline.

 

In other news, I’m revising an article for Classics Omnibus, to be published next year sometime, and risking my fool neck biking on DC streets.

The Bean kept us up all night for the third night in a row. Not fussy or crying, just raring to go. Now it's eleven in the morning, I am corpse-tired, and she's still bright eyed, lying on her back on the plastic-festooned baby laugh-n-learn floor mat, grunting at Bobo The Insane Singing Rubber Dog who's velcroed to one of the struts. Bobo is flashing his disco lights, rolling his horrible bulging eyes, and burbling "the itsy bitsy spider" in between snippets of Mozart and Handel. I am not sure what this desultory flogging of classical music is supposed to teach her -- that culture is something which comes out of the speakers in a vinyl dog's armpit?

in other news, I am giving up using the laptop for writing. My 1938 Corona Speedline manual typewriter is in the shop right now getting its sticky carriage return greased. it sounds crazy to regress like this, but the typewriter does not have access to the Internet, nor to music editing software, nor to photoshop. I have come to face the fact that although the laptop is a dazzling tour-de-force of technology, I cannot actually get any writing done on it.I've written several  dozen short stories and a novel all on a manual typewriter. I can type 55 words a minute on it. It needs no batteries. I can sit outside with it and not worry about the glare or about running out of juice. Melissa knows that when I'm using it I am not surfing the internet, and that I am actually accomplishing something.

Classes start in three weeks. I am not psychologically ready. I feel as though I have been kept in a gaily-colored Dreft-scented crypt for the last month. the daylight looks alien and sinister. weee hatesss the light, doan't we, my preciousssss!

My new daughter's ears are pointy. I shit you not. Really pointy. Three theories spring to mind: 1. Alien 2. Changeling 3.Satan's baby. If she's an alien, would this make her a Vulcan? Dispassionate logic doesn't seem to be her strong point. I try to reason with her, for example, that there's no need to shriek as her fifteenth meal of the day is only a minute away, but she screams bloody murder nonetheless. Perhaps she's a Romulan. I can see the stirrings of martial fortitude in her, I suppose. If she's a changeling from the world of Faerie, when would they have made the switch? When she was in the hospital nursery? But I thought better hospitals kept goats heads and sour milk lying around just so they could ward off the baby-stealing pixie hordes. As for the Satan theory, when she's hungry and really breaking windows, I can believe it.

it's 4:30 AM and I've just gotten her to sleep...and oops, she's howling again. oh well, in spite of being Lucifer's infernal protoplasmic spawn, she's mighty purty.

She's here! Emmeline Alice Schnozzberry Fryingpan Dormouse Von Piddlepot Lochinvar Amati was born on Sunday, 7 pounds 14 ounces, yelling and hollering and shaking her fist at the world.

we haven't slept much. I am pretty incoherent. She is great at making faces. She has long black hair, long lashes, and huge dark blue eyes. I'm still shellsocked. I'll be giving her the Iliad to translate later today, will announce the results.

Melissa and I spent last night at the hospital's education building pretending to wash and change a plastic baby doll that looked like Yoda. Everyone else was Very Serious about their "babies", while we were cracking jokes with ours and earning disapproving glares. We flunked Basic Baby Care and Safety. I thought I was doing well getting the bath ready, but Melissa  pointed out that I was holding the baby by one leg. Can't do that! Then she tried it, and set Baby Slug Face on top of a stack of magazines. Bad Melissa! Bad Mother! Apparently, babies not only have some shockingly bad personal habits, but are too dumb to get their faces out of a heap of smotherous towels.

I noticed that the black couples all chose black baby dolls, while the Asian couple chose an Asian one. White couples stuck to pale. Does it really matter for the two-hour span of a class on bottom-wiping? We got there late. Our baby was, I think, Inuit or Pacific Islander, the last of the selection. (That's what I get for having checked that box all these years on student loan paperwork.) The nurse in charge apologized. I said it was OK, but when I found the SOB who was the real father, I'd break his face.

Competent or not, our new large apartment has an entire room dedicated to brightly colored plastic things that light up and go "zoink!" when you bite them. Soon, young Emmeline Alice Peekskill Cadwallader Small Weetabix Bunbury Amati will be among the ranks of the breathing.

Welcome to life, Emmeline! It is short and fraught with disappointment, but there are telescopes to look through, languages to learn,  and the foibles of human greed to keep you amused. I will get your bath ready, and your stack of magazines.

To all of you still in Grad-Skool hell, I can tell you that having a job is better by magnitudes. Of course, for those of us in the one-year purgatory there's always the terrifying possibility of winding up with no job at all. (All those folks at the APA listed as "Independent Scholar" make one sit back and think.) I haven't applied for too many one-year positions for next year because the Howard Classics department voted to renew my contract for next year. Now, with the economic meltdown, there's a very real possibility that the University will cut my position anyway.  I won't find out until some random point this summer, possibly as late as August.

Meanwhile, Melissa gets more pregnant by the day, and our house fills up with baby gifts, most of which are designed to rattle, squeak, play tinkly music or absorb disgusting fluids. Young Dulcinea Bric-a-brac Dovecote Pong-Snafu Amati will not lack for noises or absorbent items. I suppose I don't worry about the same things that other soon-to-be parents worry about. I'm not particularly worried that my daughter will be kidnapped, or molested by a day-care worker, or end up dating Zarko, the drummer for the Skum Monkeys. I do worry about the Princess Mafia; the endless onslaught of pink-princess themed books and toys that certain branches of the family will certainly foist on her, along with the message that girls are born to do nothing but primp, shop and empty their minds. I was at the bookstore and I found a book called "The Double-Daring Book for Girls" which contains a miscellany of cool shit: the Greek alphabet, constellations, how to surf, how to start a secret club, slumber party games, knots, wilderness survival, jump-rope rhymes and lots more.

I remember working in the children's room of the Crete Library as a teenager, and seeing this six year old girl come in with her mom. The girl picked up a book on dinosaurs and fossil collecting, and the mom gently pried it out of her hands and said "No dear, that's for boys." And gave her a Care Bears book! It was pink. Our daughter can pursue whatever makes her happy, but I want her to be inquisitive and daring, and imaginative, and not to feel as though her gender should prevent her from learning and doing anything that interests her. I realize she'll be introduced at some point to vacuous recreational shopping, but at least Melissa and I can teach her to waste her time with more worthwhile things. (like board games! and music! and Kingdom of Loathing!)

For those of you who are the geekiest of the geeky Latin geeks...OK that means all of you. Looking at you kudzita  and you alierakieron and also mikeynaked and sunnys_halo  and -- just admit it already! -- swan_bot !

I laughed and laughed and ended up printing this out, so I don't know what that says about me.

Read from top to bottom, get it here:

The Spring days wear on. Melissa is getting more pregnant by the hour. Our amazing daughter will be presenting herself to the sky and grass and stars and local rabbit population in just a few months. World, I would like you to prepare to meet -- Roopy Zorn-Skitterpants Amati.

My parents are none too sanguine about having a granddaughter named "Roopy" but they are mere Grand Parents. Their job is not to quibble over names, nay, but rather to spoil her with inappropriate toys, preferably noisy ones that require a new battery every fifteen minutes. My job is to instruct little Roopy in the ways of Learning The Planets of the Solar System, and Gluing Surprising Things Together That You Wouldn't Think could Be Glued, and Not Taking Any Shit From The Suits.

In other news, I should be at Howard for another year. Of course, Howard has this way of never officially committing to anything, so if thay randomly change their minds, Melissa and I could end up with no health insurance when the baby's born.

We officially hate Washington DC, and are starting to feel a bit claustrophobic in our little apartment. Still, when life gives you lemons, suck.

poem:

A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW.
by John Donne


STAND still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, Love, in Love's philosophy.
These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produced.
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduced.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us and our cares ; but now 'tis not so.

That love hath not attain'd the highest degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.

Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and westerwardly decline,
To me thou, falsely, thine
And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day ;
But O ! love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his first minute, after noon, is night.

Almost official: I'll be at Howard another year at least.


When the king walks along the shore and sings or prunes the shoots that disfigure the images of the gods that line the beach, his wives huddle in their beds in fear of of the Spirit of the Dead and of the eye of a great porcelain lamp which is always lit in their room. When he is not walking, the king is usually to be found in his boat -- stark naked apart from a brindled diadem worn around his hips.

As many of you may have been informed, Melissa will be having a baby in July, and somehow I have been named as a partially responsible party in this situation. We are under some pressure from various parents to come up with a name for the small wiggling thing.

Tomorrow we will, through the magic of Fete-O-Scope technology, find out whether our progeny is, to use e.e. cummings' memorable description, dong or ding. So today is my last chance to offer a smorgasbord of potential names of both genders.

Names we are considering:

If a boy:

Throckmorton Heffalump Amati
Stringbean Hot Wizzo Flapjack Amati
Ziggy Rumplestiltskin Amati
Hambone Soop-Halliburton Amati
Pandemonium Jones Amati
Antisthenes Blurg Amati
Piltdown Mann Amati
Satan Dark Puffin Weegon Amati
Alaric Pots-N-Pans Ebenezzer Klondike Amati

If a girl:

Formica Luge Amati
Shag Electrolux Amati
Roopy Zorn-Skitterpants Amati
Tickles McGonnegal Amati
Banja Amati (feminine form of Banjo)
Charmela Ping-Ping-Ricochet-Rabbit Amati
Penthesilea Kludge-Wombat Amati
Bandanna Swett-Ringg Amati
Helen Highwater Amati
Wan Porpoise Amati

We are very excited about this baby! We cannot wait to be supported in our old age, made proud by prodigious math scores, and delighted by prison-ink-tattoo prowess!

I have come from the hiding place of the dead and the gates of darkness
Where Hades lives apart from the gods
Polydorus, child of Hecuba and Priam, my father
Who, when danger threatened the city of Troy
With destruction by the Greek spear, sent me out in secret, in fear
To the home of Polymestor, a Thracian friend
Who sows this finest portion of the plain of the Chersonese
Ruling by might the horse-loving people...

I don't know what's the best part: the slogan "It'll bust your crank...and leave skidmarks on your soul!" or the fact that the whole family dies fiery horrible Dale Earnhardt style deaths.

many strange developments in the life of Matt lately, not the weirdest of which is that last week I was offered a real academic job, at a real university.

Melissa and I will be leaving Madison, which stirs many mixed emotions in the old thumos -- angst at leaving a place where we're well settled, separation anxiety from our friends and families, trepidation at having to land an affordable apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the whole USA, the fear that I possibly do not know anything at all about Classics, really, and that I'll look comical and desperate my first day, sadness at having to tell BEEFUS to put away the top hat and hang up the electrical banjo indefinitely.

but also some relief since I'll finally be earning a real paycheck -- a very generous one for a first-time position, although its happy high number value may be offset by the high price of beans and petrol.

 My graduate school career is over. I passed my dissertation defense yesterday, to my own considerable surprise. Perhaps the $100 bill I slipped into each copy given to my committee members helped matters, but it was actually quite short and uneventful.

I spent the rest of the day in a state of mild shock. Only mild shock, because passing the defense has lately been the least of my worries. I did not get the job at the University of Bison-Biscuit. What's more, until yesterday, I also hadn't heard from Hogwarts School of Classical Arts. I emailed them to tell them I'd passed, and they (finally) got back to me to say they had been very busy mending the campus windsock and hadn't got around to making a decision yet.

Melissa and I went to dinner. Just as we were ordering, my cell phone buzzed. It turned out to be a third college, one from which I hadn't yet heard anything. I stepped outside to take the call, which turned into a forty minute impromptu interview. Poor Melissa was left to pick at her lonely appetizers...then salad...then entree. I ran back in, just as the waiter came with the boxed up food. Needless to say, I feel pretty terrible about it.

Still no job...PhD celebratory dinner ruined... it is a rough time all around.

Truly My Satan thou art but a Dunce
And dost not know the Garment from the Man
Every Harlot was a Virgin once
Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan

Tho thou art  Worshipd by the Names Divine
Of Jesus & Jehovah: thou art still
The Son of Morn in weary Nights decline
The lost Traveller's Dream under the Hill

This is not the exact card that swan_bot sent me. The real one burst from its frame in even greater gory gooey grotesque magnificence. but for those of us who took our MADBALLS to bed with us as kids in lieu of teddy bears, seeing them leer from your b-day card is a welcome sight indeed.

you are a hoopy frood of the mightiest stature, O 'Bot!

I was revising the dissertation last Thursday (the orders had come down: two menny typoze, need better conclusion). And in mid-sentence, the laptop died.

I wish, when this kind of thing happened, the infernal machine would have the sense of drama to let loose with blue sparks and a groaning sound. Instead, I put it to sleep to go help Melissa bring some groceries in, and when I came back, it would not wake up.

Taking stock, I realized I'd last backed everything up the day before. Unfortunately, I'd been working steadily for about twelve hours since then. This may have something to do with the computer giving up the ghost. I can't say I didn't know how it felt.

Instead of rewriting everything, I spent the evening and the next morning taking the computer apart, surgically removing the hard drive and hooking it up to a Temporal Mean Free Path Atomic Defibrillator. I got everything off the hard drive.

That's the second laptop in a year. I now have two Dynex hard drive enclosures sitting on my desk, USB cables trailing forlorn. I feel like Bluebeard, gazing at the brains of his ex-wives in jars. (Who's next? Is it you, little Dell notebook? Or you, slender gorgeous Mack-Book Air?)

And the hell-baby is once again turned in. Yes, I stuffed the squalling horned demon-child into my advisor's mailbox Tuesday at 3 PM. And I finished the thing on an ancient screen-less laptop belonging to kind members of Melissa's family. Alas, now I have no Internet access. I am cut off, isolated. I hear an African American fellow is running for Thomas Jefferson's old seat, and that these horse-less carriages are quite the rage in Bean-town.

Alas, too, I can only sporadically check the Live Journal. Those of you reporting monumental events -- graduations, marriages, beating Super Mario Galaxy using only your prosthetic limb to hold the Wii controller -- fret not if weeks go by without encouraging comments from this blogg.

I'm off the internet. Back to bike rides and watching sunsets, and reading stuff off paper.


UPDATE!!! I have a defense date! It is May 2nd! huzzah!