Here I am, 5 months and three weeks later.  Have I run up on shoals?  Have I hit a reef?  Lets put the marine analogy to bed for now.  I consider the process of taking inventory one of the more important disciplines in life.  A big part of that process is looking at how far you’ve come.  Looking at how far you’ve come helps you keep things in perspective.  Often, taking time to really consider where you started will give you a more realistic appreciation for where you stand today.  In order to do this, you need to set aside a few minutes, take stock of where you are, and compare it to your memory of your first day at whatever it is you’re trying to assess.  For this post, I’ll be comparing where I’m at as a father today to my first day as a father.  This process is one that I’ve been engaged in for the last week or so, but I can sum up the results anecdotally.   

There was a period, after the family had been ushered out of the room, before my wife and I really became acquainted with our new child, that comes to me only in disjointed flashes.  I can’t find the thread of its chronology, all I know is that, for a some time I slept while awake.  I have memories of the things I did in my sleep, but I know I was unconscious.  The move from the labor and delivery room to the recovery room is one such vignette, I can remember carrying bags while walking down a hallway, but I don’t remember picking the bags up or setting them down.  In this way several hours went by, some of them in waking dream, others in a place of exhaustion so raw that I was insensate.  By the time I regained my faculties it was late morning on the day of my daughters birth.  I had been aware for some time, at first unable to open my eyes, and then having opened them, unable to move any part of my body.  I did eventually win free of this paralysis, of course, but there was a thick fog in my mind for several days.  It was in this state that I confronted the mechanics of fatherhood for the first time.

Of course, everyone loves babies.  Loving babies is a biological imperative.  It is not rooted in the part of the mind where opinions make their nest.  It is not a choice for most humans, or in fact for most animals.  It’s impossible not to love babies.  If asked, most people would love a baby.  To hold, to look at, to be cooed at by.  But to raise?  That’s a different thing.  The biological imperative is harder on some than on others, and I often said during my wife’s pregnancy that you had to be quite merrily insane to subject yourself willingly to that highest calling.  However, by the time the child had made her inglorious entrance into the world, I felt most of the insanity had passed.  Carrying and birthing a child may be madness, but loving and raising one?  That’s a much more rational experience.

There I stood, looking at a hospital push tray that contained the entirety of my legacy; any good that I had ever done.  I knew then that it was more good than I had anticipated, or could have imagined, though I still don’t understand the entirety of it.  As I stood and stared in wonder (My darling, what wonder have we wrought here?) a nurse bustled into the room.  We chatted amiably for several minutes, she checked on my wife but not me, and then she asked if we had changed BG Eagle (Baby Girl, who had no name).  Changed?  What would we change, if we could?  Meaning took time to penetrate the fog, and by the time I realized she was talking about a diaper, the callous woman was already unswaddling my only child, waking her up, exposing her tiny hands, her sensitive skin to the cool air.

Up to this point, I had never in my life changed a diaper.  Not one.  Don’t get me wrong, I had no problem with the process from an ideological standpoint.  I’m not one of those mysogynists who thinks that handling the “baby” is the mother’s responsibility.  To be honest, I had never known anyone with a baby well enough that I would be in that situation.  It had never presented itself.  Abigail’s first diaper change was mine, as well.

It didn’t go badly.  I was uncomfortable with the process, I used too many wipes, and it took some time to get her buttoned back up, but nobody lost any limbs and there was a bare minimum of crying.  I think most parents will be able to remember the time before diaper changes were second nature to them.  That’s not to say you were poor at it, but it wasn’t instinctual.

A few nights ago, Abby lay in her crib, fussing.  Her fuss didn’t say, “I’m bored, get me” but, “I’m tired, I can’t get comfortable.”  Three months ago, I didn’t know the difference.  Then again, there may not have been a difference three months ago.  I took her out of her crib and carried her to the changing table, because I wanted her to go to sleep in a fresh diaper.  In the pitch black I unsnapped her onsie, undid her diaper, cleaned her with two wipes, applied the requisite lotions, balms, powders and poltices, and began securing a new diaper in place.  As I closed the last strap on the clean diaper I flashed back to my first diaper change, that fumbling, excruciatingly insecure episode played through my mind.  In a few short months, to go from discomfort with a process to doing it literally blind isn’t all that impressive, but taken as an analogy for parenting it resonated with me.

I was fooled, all those months ago, with my map.  There’s no map.  Those books, they aren’t a map.  After 5 months I disagree with more of them than I agree with.  But they do help to create a frame of reference.  Was I right?  Was I prepared, despite my ignorance?

Yes.  Having a child isn’t about having all of the answers.  It’s about being willing to try.  What I had 5 months ago was a willingness to take, in stride, whatever became of my life as a result of having a child.  That, coupled with the desire to give your child the best in everything, is all that there is to being a parent.  Every stage is different, every day is a transformation, and there’s no knowledge that will carry you through it all.

Was I prepared to be a father, when I wrote those words?  Yes.  Am I prepared for what fatherhood will call of me in the months and years to come?  With all of my heart, yes.

Do I fear the future?  No more than I’ve feared any future thus far, and my expectations have all been met.

Fear not.  We have an entire extra day of procrastination.  For those of you that don’t know, the participants in  NaNoWriMo are a collection of individuals devoted to a singular purpose: The writing of a novel, being no less than 50,000 words, in thirty consecutive days. 

This year, I’ve cast my lot with that happy band of lunatics.  I’ve got a thumbnail sketch of a plot, a loose idea of some characters, and a vast wilderness of unmapped territory.  My goal isn’t riches, it isn’t literary praise, it isn’t glowing reviews.  It’s simply to finish, and finish I will.  I firmly believe that a human being can endure any torture, however grim, if he only knows that there is an end.  It is because of this belief that I am not terrified by the prospect of writing a novel in 30 days.  It will require sacrifice for a period of time, but the cost can be measured, weighed, and quantified.

I’ve never taken on any creative effort of this scope, though I’ve dreampt of it.  Inspired by a love of reading, and by a father who is a writer, the title of ‘novelist’ is one that I’ve always quietly revered.  To be published is a secret dream.  It’s taken years, and concious effort, to bring myself to a level of comfort where, despite an abysmal lack of self confidence, I can even talk about that desire.  To be honest, I feel foolish, even now.  Then there’s the fear.  Fear of failure, fear of ridicule, fear of being revealed and, having been revealed, having revealed oneself, being mocked.  I know that courage isn’t a lack of fear, but what one does in the face of fear, and while my life isn’t at stake, my pride is on the chopping block.  I’d almost rather risk my life, than reveal as much about myself as I undoubtedly will writing a novel.

Why do it?  If you’re a writer, you probably already know the answer.  Paddy Gillard-Bentley famously said, “The play is the thing!”  and I think that sums it up nicely.  We write because the novel is the thing.  We write because it’s something that we want to do, and are compelled to do, by some part of ourselves which we don’t rightly understand, but which wants us to be miserable.  In the defense of the craft itself, I’ve found that I’m only miserable when I’m thinking about writing and not doing it.  Like climbing a mountain, it’s the last breath before you start that is the most torturous.

That being the case, maybe I should be lamenting the 30 days which this month is comprised of, instead of exulting.  Perhaps if it were only 28 I could have attributed these words towards my 50,000 word goal.  

I’ll leave you with this invitation: Join us.   Lose yourself in a totally new experience.  Take thirty days of your life and convert it into a novel.  To quote William Shakespeare, “Be great in act, as in thought.”

There was a bubble several years ago, fueled by the misapprehnsion that the internet was a magic portal to riches.  Companies created a visionary product that they would deliver over the internet, they pitched this idea to investors who knew it would make a killing, and invested heavily.  They put real money into an idea because they thought that the future of that idea was profitable.  Venture Capitalists, people who risked money for a living, did this.

During that era, we’ll call it the DotCom bubble, it was easy to be in IT.  In fact, for a period of time the mythos of the “IT Guru” rivaled that of the Lawyer or Doctor.  To say that we had ‘arrived’ would be an understatement.  I say “we” because this time was validation for a subculture which had been broadly and harshly denigrated up to that point, and with which I freely identify: the computer geeks.

It isn’t that we hadn’t been respected in our fields prior to the dotcom bubble, but the width and breadth of our desirability knew no bounds between 1998 and 2000.  We were rockstars.  No expectation was out of reach, no demand went unmet for the expert who knew everything and could get your idea on the internet.  Armed with a Dungeons and Dragon player guide, a witty and incomprehensible t-shirt, and a hairstyle nearly as surly as the affectations of it’s arborist, the Guru’s will was law.

But it wasn’t just the dedicated in our field who benefited during this time.  In conjunction with enrollments in nearly every collegiate Information Technology program increasing, anyone who knew how to turn on a computer was able to easily land a job as an “IT” guy.  

This situation was fueled more by ignorance than the Law of Supply and Demand.  It isn’t that there weren’t enough IT people to get the job done, but that no one knew exactly what kind of IT person they needed to do the job they wanted done.  Lacking clear direction, businesses hired the smartest person they could, allowed that person to set the agenda, and then hired several less competent (sometimes completely incompetent) people to shore up any possible holes in their infrastructure.  

And they should have known better.  Business ought not to allow any support personnel to set its agenda to the extent that IT people were allowed to call the shots during the Dotcom bubble.  That’s not why the bubble burst, but it is a lesson to be learned.  We exist to serve business, business does not exist to fuel interesting ideas, convoluted technologies, or hobbies that we couldn’t otherwise afford.  I digress.

The outrageous pay, the wide respect, and the perks lead even more people to declare themselves Computer Science majors.  Maybe we should have put up signs, but probably it wouldn’t have helped if the gateway to MIT and Rensselaer Poly-Tech said “Abandon all hope, ye who enter”.  The lure of promising, well paid positions in a new, exploding field was too much for some people.  They went, they got degrees, invariably they were given jobs that they either loved or hated, and either did well or failed at.  Because they came to the game late, because their motives were not “pure”, should they be dismissed?  That’s ridiculous.  And it is, again, beside the point.  The point is this: For a period of time, IT was the field to be in.  People flocked to it.

We know what happened next.  The dotcom bubble burst.  Suddenly, it wasn’t enough to have unfortunate hair and know how to work a computer, or say nonsensical things to your boss.  From 2000 to 2002 it was as if corporate America woke from a deep sleep, shook its head to clear its thoughts, and realized that it was being ridiculous.  Information Technology was standardized.  Expectations were laid down.  The attitude of entitlement was no longer accepted.  The technical workforce, no longer the golden child of industry, was forced to grow up and become professional.  

There are fewer of us now, because hundreds of thousands of people couldn’t cut it, or didn’t want to cut it.  Those who never really understood their jobs, or who felt that they were being treated appropriately during the ‘boom’, were the first to go.  Who was next and last are irrelevant, but who stayed matters.  The sharpest, the most reliable, those who integrated well with the business side of the shop, those who had a degree of professionalism, took their jobs seriously, and were committed to the work of Information Technology.  Oh, we still have our laughs.  Though we’ve gotten haircuts and wear ties, we haven’t changed all that much.  We still get more excited about technology than anyone should.  We still feel more alive in a humidity controlled room that’s 68 degrees fahrenheit, and too loud to converse comfortably in, than anywhere else.  And the ties carry the encrypted inside jokes that the t-shirts once did.

What’s the point?  After the dotcom bubble sorted itself out, there was another bubble, fueled by the misapprehension that home values would increase indefinitely, and that it was safe to buy a home of whatever price you could get a loan approved for.  During that era, it was easy to be a Realtor…

—

I’m leaving for Virginia tomorrow, on a business trip to coordinate one of the most difficult tasks of my career thus far.  I’m excited.  I mean, excitement is the primary emotion.  There’s a bit of trepidation in there as well, but mostly, excitement. 

It occurs to me that the things I do now, in the springtime of my life, are meant to prepare me for the greater victories that autumn will bring.  I can only hope that those victories require less labor, and reward me not with material things, but with the respite that I already long for.

I’m up and out the door in six and a half hours, so I’d best be off to bed.

To smell like a dog the animal has to have a little freedom.  They have to be allowed to roll in dirt, run through sprinklers, and chase the wind.  They have to be allowed to eat sticks, and wrestle, and dig in mud.  When this dog comes to you, not because he knows he’ll get a treat from you, but because he wants to teach you something about wildness, he is not, in any way, unpleasant.  Though he may muddy your tile, may shed dust on the floor next to your bed, may even, in his exuberance, plant filthy paws on your chest, there’s nothing unclean about this animal.  When you bury your face in his coat you’ll smell three things; the warm scent of a living thing, the green vividness of the world outside your door, and the soft, cool smell of contentment.  Of these things, which can you object to, or what’s not to love?

I suspect that this difference in smell is as much about the healthiness of the animals spirit as it is about their specific living conditions.  How can you flourish when you are not whole?  How can you be whole when a part of your nature is denied?  I’m not advocating complete freedom, or a life without rules by any means.  But dogs, like boys, have a wildness in them which must be encouraged.  To deny it in either species (and I don’t think any of you will disagree that a human boy is its own unique and challenging species) is to deny an essential part of them.

I guess I should step back for a moment and define some terms.  A Vision statement describes the goal that a company has set for itself.  The Vision is the purpose that the company exists to serve.  A great example of this is the Vision statement of Google, which reads, “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  A Vision statement is a “high level” document, it does not describe the steps needed to accomplish any goal, it simply sets the goal in writing for all to see.  It is then the duty of every employee to function with the company’s Vision in mind, and particularly of Management and Product Development to drive the organization toward its Vision.

The term corporate culture (”Culture”) describes the attitudes and beliefs of a business.  As it does for individual people, it is the belief system of a company which determines how it behaves.  From how it hires its employees to how it interacts with its clients, the beliefs and attitude of a corporation, the “culture”, give it the ability to respond consistently in a myriad of different situations.

These two elements are critical to the success of large businesses, and must be clearly and purposefully defined.  Within smaller organizations, there is more room for error, because the head of the organization is still well connected to the lower ranking members, and by proximity he or she is able to pass on goals and a framework of behavior that take the place of a Vision statement and corporate culture.  When numbers of employees and layers of management increase, Vision and Culture are critical tools in communicating corporate goals and standards of behavior to employees at all levels of the organization.  An understanding of these two key elements should give employees a good handle on how to behave in situations that may not be documented in their employee handbooks.

Back to our two employees.  The super-star understands the Vision, but doesn’t care for it.  He constantly bucks corporate culture, ignoring it when it interferes with what he wants to do.  On the other hand, the mid-level employee, who consistently meets his deadlines and may make one or two little mistakes here or there, believes in the Vision, and is fully invested in the corporate culture.  Downsizing requires that you lay off one of these employees.  Which one should you lay off?

While it may seem that the super-star is the obvious keeper because of his superior production, the human element must be considered.  The mid-level guy loves not just his job, but what his company stands for.  He is able to take pride in what he does and who he works for.  The super-star doesn’t care, and is only coming to work for a paycheck.

The result?  The mid-level employee is more likely to invest personal energy in his job than the super-star.  This may take the shape of studying and recommending new technologies, becoming more invested in the Research or Planning phase of projects, or suggesting better, different, or new ways of doing things.  The super-star will do better at what’s expected of him than is expected because it fans his ego, but without any real reason to stay with the organization he will likely leave at the first sign of a better offer.

Retaining the person who is a better fit for the organization is always a better choice, even if that persons performance is not as strong as the performance of the top player in the department.  Making this choice is very difficult for managers at any level, because they see only the loss in productivity.  To be successful you must look beyond what you are producing, selling, and designing now.  How will it be sustained in a year?  2 years?  Over any longterm time-frame, an employee who is more invested in what your company stands for will contribute more to the overall success of the organization.

People can be trained.  People can gain skill through experience, and a mid-level guy today might be a super-star in a year, but a super-star today can never be convinced to believe in what you stand for unless he wants to.

Your responsibility?

1. Stand for something.

To have a Vision that means anything to anyone, you have to mean it.  Googles’ Vision aims to serve the world, and it’s clearly something that they believe in.  Something that simultaneously transcends and gives meaning to the relatively simple idea of “indexing web pages to be searched.”

2. Say it clearly

The best way to get your Vision ignored is to take a long time explaining it.  One sentence works best.  If it takes more than three sentences, you’re probably not talking about your actual vision, but about how you plan to accomplish it.  Move to a “higher level”.

3. Put it in front of your employees, every day.

These are the people that need to believe in it.  If they believe it, they’ll communicate it to the customers.  If they don’t see it, how can they believe it?  Every employee in your company should know where the Vision statement is located, and should be able to communicate the gist of it.

4. Decide how you want your company to behave, and behave that way yourself

Culture only happens from the top down.  If you want a company that’s loose on dress-code and strong on innovation, encourage an open-door policy amongst your managers, give credit where it’s due, and don’t stress the small stuff.  If conforming to an image of professionalism is important to you, enforce that idea with your managers, make sure they understand what the standard is, and that you expect it to be met.

Vision and culture are very easy to ignore, and very important.  By forgetting about them you can get into a lot of trouble, by spending some time thinking about them you can help your organization find an identity that yourself and others can identify with, and  really get behind.

They didn’t watch the crash of the waves, or count sets as surfers might. They didn’t look like any of the stereotypical beach denizens. Both wore denim blue-jeans and reinforced workboots, orange safety vests belted over their button-up shirts. Their hats said “Oregon D.O.T” in a proud shade of gold, which belied the spirit of the Department.

Finally, the shorter of the two turned slightly and spoke, still not taking his eyes away from the bulbous gray shape that seemed to have erupted from the surface of the sand.

“This is going to be bad, isn’t it?”, Hector said.

George nodded, then took a deep breath, let it out and started walking. Hector followed, head down, legs working twice as hard as usual it seemed, to push through the sand. Within two dozen paces both men were short of breath, and trying to hide that fact from one another. Then the smell hit them. Hector had once discovered a sack of potatoes in the back of his pantry, a sack which he did not remember buying. When he found the sack, the potatoes had congealed into a syrupy black fluid with tufts of sickly green mold growing on its surface. The smell, he would tell you, was putrid, a word which he had learned specifically so that he could describe the rancid black puddle. He used it now.

“It’s…putrid.” He said.

George, who understood the reverence with which Hector treated that word, grunted his agreement through gritted teeth.

By the time they came within spitting distance of the carcass, Hectors’ body had adjusted to the stench, though waves of nausea still rolled through him if he moved too quickly. He surveyed the gargantuan corpse.

“It’s big…It’s a Humpback, yeah?” He asked.

“No,” George said “sperm. We need to measure it.”

Hector nodded, and they set to it. They worked through the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, measuring the length and circumference of the body, the fins and everything else they knew the name of, scribbling quickly as they went. Small crowds of people gathered and dispersed, some of them standing nearby for hours, others only coming close enough for a quick look, but all of them staying upwind.

After the measuring was done they retreated up the beach. Hector sat on a hill, staring out into the ocean and trying to breathe the scent of dead whale out of his nostrils, as George made his phone calls.

“Eight tons.” George said.

Hector looked up, realizing that George was speaking to him.

“Really?” he said, “Eight tons? That’s a big one. That’s too big, man. We can’t…there’s no way we can get that on a truck, is there?”

George laughed. “Nothing we’ve got,” he said. “We’d have to rent something. Won’t get approval.”

“Well…” Hector squinted, the way he did when he was thinking very hard, or lying, “if we don’t have a truck, how can we move it?”

George was already walking away, and couldn’t see the excitement on Hector’s face when he jumped to his feet. “Hey! We can cut it up!” he said, sliding down the hill after George. “Cut it into smaller pieces and load the dumptrucks!”

“Stupid.” said George.

Hector stopped, looking crestfallen. George glanced back, mid-stride, and seeing the look on Hector’s face said, “Well, do you want to do it? Cut up a rotting whale, flesh and bone and sinew, put it in bags and load it onto trucks? I’ll loan you a machete.”

Hector blanched, then nodded.

“You’re right George. That’s right. No one would do that. What can we do?” he asked.

George smiled, it was a smile that Hector had seen too much of in High School. It meant George had been inspired. When George got inspired, bad things happened. Usually to Hector. The worst of them involved fire.

“W…what?” Hector asked, involuntarily stepping back, which caused George to laugh.

“We can’t move it, and we can’t bury it. We’re not allowed to push it back into the ocean. I only see one option.” George said, his smile growing slowly, just at the edges.

“We’re not allowed to light it on fire, George.” Hector said. George laughed harder at this than he had at Hectors fear a moment before.

“No, Hec. Not fire.” George said, “Dynamite.”

Hector only had to think about this for a moment before his stomach flipped over. He leaned to the left, bent at the waist, and vomited into the coarse Oregon sand.

## END ##

This scene is fiction, but it is based on a true story. In November of 1970 a team of Oregon DoT workers used dynamite in an attempt to disintegrate a beached whale. The results were captured on video tape, and were disastrous. Flying whale blubber rained down in a half-mile radius around the site of the explosion, causing extensive damage to nearby cars.

It was such an awesome story that I had to invent a fun backstory for it. I was able to use it as an exercise in characterization. I think it’s a little cheesy, but fun.

As always, comments are welcome!

For more on the exploding whale, check Wikipedia and YouTube.

Kim decided to go see a movie with ‘the girls’ this evening, so Abby was left with me. She was fussy at first, but by the time I had her diaper changed, the car loaded, and the baby Bjorn adjusted, she was pretty much conked out. We met her uncle Brian at Starbucks, she woke up to eat and all that, and then he left and we went to Borders, because it’s her favorite.

I found the Orson Scott Card book I was looking for, “Characters and Viewpoint” and Abby got to ride around in her Bjorn. She really enjoys that thing, it settles her right down. That is, until I try to pull her out.

Oddly, the attendant told me that I was the second person wearing a baby (bjorn) who asked him where the books on writing were.

I was thinking about the odds of it. In the same day, two people wearing a baby went to the same Borders and asked the same employee where the “writing” section was. Maybe there’s someone else out there who looked at his daughter, who held her, who kissed her face, and said to himself, “Self…I can’t keep leaving her. There’s got to be a better way to live.” And if he does exist, I’d love to meet him. I’d love to talk to him over a cup of coffee, to figure out what he thinks about writing, and art and music, family and manhood, to see how similar we are.

He may exist, but I’d like to posit another possible reality…What if, in the future, I invent a time machine. I go back in time to get the last copy of a discontinued first edition of an important writing book. Since my future self was wearing a baby, it must have been a very near-future me. And if I was willing to risk Abby in a dangerous and untried time travel machine, the book must be extremely important. Despite my future-self knowing where the writing books were, I’d have to ask that attendant about it, to set the ball in motion…And that’s why I have to take Abby, so the attendant makes the connection and makes that comment to now-me, so now-me will know that the other guy is really future-me, and understand what I need me to do! If that’s the case, I need to go get started on my time machine right now!

I’m really excited about the ideas I’ve been having, and I’m trying to let them marinate so I don’t mutilate them.  I have a feeling it’s going to turn into a “You can see it when it’s done”.  Even for my trusty Beta readers.  But if any nice little vignettes reveal themselves, I’ll certainly share them.

On Magic: I love it, and I want to create a magical world, but I don’t want magic to be a panacea for all problems.  I have some interesting consequences, as discussed briefly in a previous post.  Hopefully my concept is unique, and not…inane.  Look, I don’t want balls of fire smashing down buildings.  That’s not subtle or entertaining.  If you’re going to make a ball of fire it should behave like fire.  Not smash through a building.  I get that it’s magic fire, I do.  But Magic Fire is still Fire, right?  …Right?  Books are about humans dealing with problems.  Imbuing them with super-powers that obviate character development or personal sacrifice is lame and juvenile

I think that’s all I have for right now.  Work in 8 hours, time for bed…3 hours ago.