John Hattaway » codename: CAMPER

Searching for a State of Equilibrium

smokingpen — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:07:48 +0000

I’ve found that some of the things I want to be doing compared to many of the things I need to be doing have kept me out of a state of equilibrium for some time. Months. I like the idea of writing blog entries and have noted that the number of hits I receive a month is directly proportional to the number of posts I publish. On top of which, my search rankings are lower when I don’t update as frequently. I would imagine, when I get to a state of popularity from publishing or some such that the direct outcome will be a lot of people intentionally searching for me and clicking through my website which will result in the ability to be lazier and still have traffic; however, at the moment, if I want traffic I have to do what is required to get that traffic.

Since I am not doing what is necessary I am writing about the why not.

In this case I find I have several things that sit, in some stage or another, on my metaphorical plate (I actually dislike the analogy). I have family, professional, educational, and obligations to self that all require a piece of my time. My family, and by that I am defining family as Erin and CAMPER, require individual attention and time. I cannot just assume that by spending time with CAMPER while Erin is in proximity that I have sufficiently spent time with her. As a result, I find myself making time for both my wife and child and making sure I spend time with them.

Along with family resposibilities I have work responsibilities. To some extent these overlap in that I am the provider and have to work to make money so that we can afford to pay bills and buy food. Previously to my current job I was working at Wal-Mart (formerly “this place“) on the graveyard shift. Because of that, I slept during the day, didn’t really care to be awake on the weekends though I chose to alter my sleeping habits to, again, spend time with my family. As a result of not being awake when Erin and CAMPER were, I looked for and found another position where I work during the day and can now sleep at night. This is better but at the same time I have to give away some of my day to a commute that equals about three hours of time. I am in a better position than I was with Wal-Mart, but still searching for a state of equilibrium.

Along with family and work I have responsibilities to my degree – specifically a Master’s of Fine Arts in Writing. This program requires me to spend quite a few hours a day writing and reading and revising and writing and revising and reading and etc. and etc. with the outcome. Granted, everything gets to be set aside in about twenty-five days for ten days where I will be nicely sequestered on an island at a Franciscan Retreat Center talking about writing. After the retreat and residency I will have to find time (that may not exist) to write and read and revise and make sure that my novel actually does get written and revised and made ready for publication.

Finally, I have responsibilities to myself. I think this is the least defined as I want to spend time with Erin and CAMPER and I want to go to school and I need to (and to some extent want to) go to work. Along with all of that I need to start taking care of my body so that my IBS doesn’t get worse. The doctor think Yoga and meditation will help and Erin is currently looking for a Yoga class on a Saturday that I can start attend and that we can afford.

The outcome to all of this is not that I don’t realize what is needed or wanted or necessary, but that I haven’t found the magic combination of time and management and energy that will allow me to find the state of equilibrium that will also allow me to spend a few minutes (or more) updating the blog and making sure I expand my readership rather than have people who get here from Erin’s website or by spending some time searching for something like Assateague Island or Roommate Etiquette or the White Screen of Death on my Macbook.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

On Being Boys

smokingpen — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:39:12 +0000

I think one of the biggest disservices this generation will be tried for in the court of history is the disservice we give to our little boys. In a period of not so many years, we have moved from a position where we treat and teach boys to be boys to a practice where we attempt to nurture the nature out of them and in turn cause them to be more like little girls. Is it any wonder that more and more children are on mood altering drugs and anti-depressants. What’s more, I can guarantee you that all youth oriented shootings are connected with the use of Ritalin and other medications because people don’t know how to treat little boys.

There are differences between men and women, boys and girls.

This becomes even more important and Erin and I try to do what is right AND best for CAMPER – a little boy. As a result, Erin has been reading books on raising little boys because (in case you weren’t aware of this) she’s never been one and doesn’t understand them. Because she is interested in, and concerned about, making sure CAMPER is raised the correct way, we are also concerned with knowing what activities and behaviors are specific to little boys. One of the key ingredients to being a little boy is testosterone and one of the results of testosterone production is aggressive behavior. The outcome is that we can expect that our son will exhibit, in some fashion or another, aggressive behavior. This has already been evidenced in some of his behaviors as he’s learned to sit on his own and play with toys: he throws things, hard, and he throws himself to the ground. Because he is a little boy, this is not (necessarily) dangerous behavior, it is behavior we have to expect and watch for as we have him in different places and positions from his bed to our bed to the changing table to sitting on our laps.

Boys, as the old saying goes, will be boys.

One of the books Erin has been reading, and that I’ve picked up and started reading, is titled: The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian. In this book he identifies, as a result of his work, three things every little boy needs to grow up to be a man. They are being brave, truthful, and good.

What I find amazing about this is that society would tell us to ignore these traits and attempt to raise little boys like we would little girls, give them dolls to play with, stifle the natural energies, and in the end stop them from becoming what evolution and biology have dictated they need to be. Rather than attempting to harness the natural exuberance and energy of little boys into appropriate behaviors by teaching them proper outlets, we teach them that the feelings and energies and behaviors are inappropriate and by extension wrong. In short, we are more kind to little girls than to little boys and we stress that little boys are inherently wrong by being born with the XY chromosome pairing.

One reason why this is important (today) is a news article I read and skimmed through over at YAHOO! News: Author’s tales of manly men a little too macho. The title, which is one of the reasons I read the article, presupposes that by representing an ideal of what men are supposed to be, this is somehow causing a diservice to boys. The article doesn’t refute that statement and supports in a couple of places. Instead of talking about the collection of (mostly) true stories, the reviewer really feels that this book is unecessary. And yet, I ask, where do our little boys look to find examples of upstanding men they can emulate?

This is actually a problem. I don’t have any heroes. At times in my life I have wondered who I could go to for guidance on some of the things I was feeling or what was happening to and around me that made me wonder if it was me, was my gender, or was even normal. As a child I learned to research answers in part because I didn’t trust or was not confident enough to approach the sources that were available to me. As much as it hurts to admit, even my older brother failed me as a role model when I needed one. The outcome is that I was raised in a confusing environment where I wondered, constantly, if the thoughts and feelings I went through were appropriate, normal, or even socially acceptable.

On top of this, I have watched as others have decided to raise their children in gender-neutral environments and have been told, in no uncertain terms, that I was not allowed to define for boys what it means to be a boy. As a result, I watch as some of the confusions I felt are being exhibited by other boys (some of whom I am related to). The outcome is, quite honestly, a little stressful as I consider what is good, bad, or otherwise for CAMPER.

One of the things that I found interesting, recently, was Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout movement, asked Rudyard Kipling if he could use some of the Jungle Book stories in his scout manual to help illustrate for the young men in scouting what it means to be a boy and a grown-up. These stories, beyond anything else, represent courage and self-reliance. They are exactly the kinds of stories I would want to share with CAMPER when he gets old enough. I also want to share fairy tales and books and novels and personal experiences and as a result, I want him to find a whole series of places he can go to not only find men to emulate – to include his grandfather’s and uncles and others, but also to know that I understand what it means to be confused by the very nature of the way society would have us behave.

As a result, I would suggest to the reviewer of the book, as well as others, that we do need stories – even fantastic ones, that help define the qualities and traits of being a man for little boys. We do need to not only define but encourage gender differences. And as a result, we also need to help our little boys channel those differences into healthy and socially acceptable areas that, in turn, allow them to be upstanding and strong members of society.

I don’t know about other people, but I believe CAMPER should have a real sense of what it means to be brave, truthful, and courageous and to that end I will encourage books and stories and experiences that help him define, for himself, what all of that means.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Updates???

smokingpen — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 06:04:31 +0000

Erin and I are trying to pack a house and move. On top of which I am trying to study for a couple of finals and actually pass. As a result of that and the move it may be sometimes around the 24th or 25th of this month before I sit down and post anything. Then again, I could sit and post something before then. So, you never know. Though, as an adendum, I do intend to update on the trip to Las Vegas with Erin’s brother (complete with pictures maybe). Til then, have a good holiday season.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Walking … After Midnight

smokingpen — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:06:10 +0000

Once upon a time I really enjoyed listening to Country music. Of course, that was before I went to a giant country music festival and sat, for an entire day and well into the evening, surrounded by people I probably wouldn’t associate with if I had free time and the desire to associate with people (it was the George Strait Country Music Festival) and as a result realized that the directions I imagined my life going, at the time, were not in line with the lifestyles I could clearly see around me and as a result of that I decided that country music, though tame (which was the reason I started listening to it in the first place) was no longer the kind of music that matched my interests and I (rather quickly) started listening to other things. Today, chances are better than even I am listening to Katy Perry, Natasha Bedingfield, Sarah McLachlan, or one of a few other artists that are mostly female, mostly pop, mostly NOT the pop-tarts out in the world, and mostly sing in a way that suggests angy and chick and music. Some people might suggest that this is a retraction of advancement in the complexity and taste in music; and I might not disagree with people, though, keeping in mind the reason I started listening to country music was because I started only hearing noise in the Alternative Music movement that was happening on the radio and very few artists seemed to create music back then that ecclipsed into actual music for me, the outcome is that I find musical tastes that are, in equal parts, whimsical, easy to listen to, non-offensive (to me), and ignorable. When country music stopped being many of those things, in part because I did not relate to people who lost their dogs, trucks, horses, wives, alcohol, and on and on, I stopped really listening to the genre of music regularly. Of course, I do have several CD’s from the artists I really enjoyed, Garth Brooks and George Strait are the two I recognize as still owning, and have considered purchasing the Darius Rucker’s country album (of Hootie and the Blowfish fame) because there is nothing more interesting than a black man singing in a predominantly white genre. That and I really liked listening to Hootie and the Blowfish back in the day.

With all of that out of the way, the title of the post is pulled from Patsy Cline’s, Walking After Midnight, of which Garth Brooks did a cover on his The Chase album, in which the protagonist of the song, in a fit of despair, goes walking late at night presumably to clear her or his head. The reason this is important is because it represents an element in creativity that, me thinks, is underwhelmingly ignored by a lot of people and that is the use of walking (and often late night) to clear the head and focus the mind on the task at hand. Believe it or not, this is a method that I have used in the past and have every expectation that I will use it in the future as well.

Last night I was awakened a lot earlier than I thought I would. Honestly, though, I went to bed and didn’t set an alarm (Tuesday/Thursday alarm time is 0800). Instead of getting up and going back to bed I got up and sent Erin to bed and then shut the doors between our bedroom and codename: CAMPER’s. Normally the only door that is shut is the one leading into our bedroom. The reason for this is because we want noise to travel between rooms and codename: CAMPER, when he cries, even with the monitor on, is hearable so long as both doors are open. Amazingly enough, when both doors are closed the kid can scream his head off and you do not (necessarily) hear it in our bedroom. Especially if you are asleep. I didn’t expect codename: CAMPER to start screaming, but then I also didn’t expect to be awake and needing to shelter Erin from additional cries and the maternal need to make sure he is okay.

I checked on codename: CAMPER, he was fine, looked at the twin bed that Lisa bought when she was in town, and the duvet on top of it, and then dived under the covers. This didn’t last all that long as codename: CAMPER complained about his pacifier falling out. The result of which was me getting up, putting it back in, batting away his little hands, watching as he fell asleep, and then going back to bed myself. The outcome was, honestly, a series of awake and asleep moments, the longest of which was about one hour, where he would complain and I would give him back the pacifier or would give it back, wait for him to stop suckling on it, take it away, wait for him to start fussing, give it back, wait for the suckling to stop, take it away, wait for the fussing, give it back, repeat until he stopped fussing and started sleeping. This was, as one might or might-not guess, was somewhat successful as I believe the longest periods of sleep came as a result of this, but even then it did not last in the tune of hours.

However, when I woke up and then tried to comfort Erin, and then tried to go back to sleep, then realized there was a reason I needed to be awake and made my way around the apartment looking for Erin, and then comforting and putting her to bed, I considered bundling codename: CAMPER up and doing one of two things:

One: go for a long walk and clear my head and focus; or,

Two: put codename: CAMPER in his car seat and drive somewhere.

Unfortunately, neither option was overwhelmingly ideal or desirable which is why I ended up jumping into bed, shutting doors, and trying to get as much sleep as a fussy baby who, we believe, may be hurting and, at the very least, suffering from a cold that can cause body aches and fussiness in adults and this is a baby who is almost six weeks old and as a result would be even more fussy given the body aches and struggle to breathe, and as a result I ended up, at times, hoping that the micro-naps I was catching would do what a sub-thirty-five minute nap during the day does, which is to trick the body into being more refreshed than it really was. By eight in the morning, codename: CAMPER decided to really scream, which Erin would’ve missed because it was separated by a couple of doors which in turn caused me to feed codename: CAMPER who ate insanely fast. In fact, Erin txt-ed me to let me know he ate that fast again a few hours later.

Before midnight, however, we did go out and ended up driving around the much-greater Orem area. We ended up on the other side of I-15 and into a subdivision that had roads built into it but no houses. In fact, I believe had the markets not started the successive crashes we would’ve seen a very different site last night than what we say (lots of empty lots), and instead, people realize that this is a bad time to start building because the cost of building exceeds the value of what is being built and as a result (this is called stickiness in case anyone cares) it doesn’t make sense to build if you can buy new, relatively new, or old for a lot less than it costs to have brand new built.

One of the pleasant side effects of having a new baby has been spending late nights driving around. This is an excuse, for me, to just go. Granted, I don’t always get to think about the cornucopia of things I would like to, or need to, or that just come when I used to drive for long, long hours all by myself or the only one awake and where those thoughts would take me on journies to places that I never really considered before getting behind the wheel. There is something, for me, about that journey (not the actual driving) that is only possible as a result of being able to focus in certain ways and allow the extra-gray matter to focus in a different direction.

With all of that said, Annie Dillard wrote Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, this is one of the premenent nature writing books on the market. It was published 34 years ago. It contains some completely fictional accounts and at the same time, represents a single cycle of seasons as Annie Dillard explores the area around where she is living in Virginia. What I realized the other day was that this is a form of the Hero’s Journey. In fact, the thought came to mind, “The Writer’s Journey,” which ended up being a book on my bookshelf. I didn’t want to focus on the elements of that book as Christopher Vogler is really simplifying the work of Joseph Campbell and his book Hero with a Thousand Faces. Instead, what I am focussing on is the idea that in order to create what she did, Dillard had to go on a quest much like the hero’s journey in order to come up with an effective narrative.

As a result of those connective thoughts and that many authors, the one I use as an example is Charles Dickens as well as Henry David Thoreau and others who then take their wanderings and observations and musings and in the process of all of that also go on a mythical quest where the outcome is, quite literally, a journey that brings the individual writer back a changed person. Whether that change is good or bad is not the question; but that the journey exists and change happens and as a result of both that the literary qualities of those changes are then transcribed into a meaningful work of some form.

Interestingly enough, it is through this walking process that I’ve come up with some of the focusses that I am planning to follow as a student and graduate student in the future. And it is through this process that I found myself thinking about Erin, a lot, and ending up marrying her. It is through the process that I discovered some of the writing focuses that exist (though, admittedly, at least one of them came into being as a result of a multi-day drive across the country that needed some form of outlet and is still being worked on). It is through this that I find personal focus and I feel better and I feel as though I can handle some of the things that, occasionally, I don’t honestly feel like I can handle. The process, of walking, and walking after midnight, is complex; and at the same time, I think I wouldn’t exchange the walks with anything else.

The outcome of my personal focusses in life is that I find connections with things that spark interesting chords, it is through this long-running process that I move forward with my semester and work and focus.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Diaspora of Thoughts

smokingpen — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:47:43 +0000

According to this article Tony Hillerman died. Hillerman is the writer of a bunch of mystery books set on the Native American reservations. My parents really liked reading him, especially since they moved to southwestern Colorado near the Ute Reservation and working on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona with the LDS church. On the sad side, no more Hillerman. On the plus side, there is a very real possibility that his estate will be more willing to see his material used in movies, television, for republication and for other uses (as well as hiring writers to continue any books or series that Hillerman started and didn’t finish). That’s the sad part about people dying. Robert Jordan’s (pen name of James Oliver Rigney) widow has talked about the options on movies about The Wheel of Time series and the more real possibility of it becoming movies. Not guaranteed, but a more real possibility. Note that nothing happened with the Lord of the Rings, in a very real way, until after J.R.R. Tolkein’s death and until after his son Christopher started working with his dad’s material. Frank Herbert’s son Brian with a co-writer (Tolkein’s son also may have used a co-author) expanded on Frank Herbert’s vision of Dune. More than that, the estate of V.C. Andrews took her copious notes and had a ghost writer write novels in her name, posthumously, becoming one of the more proliferate horror and thriller writers on the planet.

I’ve decided that we, the people of the United States, should write a new Amendment to the Constitution that further defines the legal bounds of the courts. Specifically, to restrict the courts from legislating across the bench. The amendment should dictate that the court’s role is to determine the constitutional nature of a law and not to interpret the lack of constitutionality as a measure for then telling the people that if a law is unconstitutional then by definition the law that is unconstitutional must therefore be constitutional. As a result of changes in our laws enacted through the Supreme Court, supreme courts of the states, and various other federal and state courts, it is necessary to dictate what is and is not appropriate for the justices to do. Specifically, when groups decide that it is too hard to pass legislation they start lawsuits that are designed to change the laws through the courts. Rather, if a law is deemed unconstitutional it should be returned to the legislature for changes with notes on what can be changed.

On the positive side of stuff, Erin got a check in the mail today. This was unexpected and wasn’t very much money, probably enough to buy a couple of shirts. Since she started her blog she is a part of a network of bloggers called Blogher. This was exciting. It is far more money than I’ve ever seen for blogging. And I’ve been doing it for a lot longer. Since she’s a part of a network, this means Blogher will actually send people her way. And since she’s writing more about being a mommy and does so in a very open way, her blog has also been getting hit by people who are (literally) interested in the new mommy experience. Congrats Erin.

Which returns me to my parents who are in a place called Inscription House. They’ve been there for about a week. Have already taught some lessons. Sounds like a load of fun.

On the other side of things, neither Erin nor I have been to church in about five weeks… or is that six Sunday’s? Regardless, it’s interesting to note that between sleep and no sleep I’ve found myself (as has Erin) just trying to make it through the days let alone get to church. Our hometeachers showed up yesterday for a couple of seconds, on top of which I received a whole series of calls from a California number I didn’t recognize and didn’t feel like answering and since the individual calling did so relatively quickly after church and didn’t leave a message… well, I have spent more time on that than I intended to.

As for baby, codename: CAMPER (registration required) is doing well. We think he is not feeling well as he’s moved from sleeping and being a somewhat independent baby to needing lots of holding and cuddling. Erin is pretty convinced he’s not feeling well. Which very well may be the case, but he’s not been running a fever. On the sad part of everything, he’s also been a little stuffy which has also caused Erin to try to figure out ways to get the mucous out of his nose. There have been suggestions as well as my boycotting several of the more hair brained plans since she does not like boogers.

On a semi-related, but almost completely unrelated, topic… we are now in need of more Kleenex as we are nearly out around the house. I’m just saying. Get me blowing my nose eight-hundred-thousand-million times a day and then don’t supply me with the (comfortable) means of getting rid of the crusty hard boogers. Of course, I discovered one of those (very uncomfortable) in class today and then had to wait until I got out of class before I could go and try to remove it; and even then, it took a while because it was both hard and attached to the side of my nose up high. Gross.

Since today is Monday, and Monday means going back to school and completing a thousand different assignments (I have a one-page precis and a review of something cowboy like a book or movie and a reformatted journal into MLA, which seems weird to me since it’s a personal journal and was never announced as needing appropriate formatting) all due tomorrow. Which would’ve been nice to have remembered over the weekend… oh wait!!! I did and didn’t feel up to working on them over the weekend.

I did go to Locus Online as a result of being directed there by an interview on Ursula K. Le Guin and stumbled across the Links Portal that lists all sorts of science fiction publications for short fiction and links to websites and more. I can’t wait to go over what is there.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Lack of Sleep… new babies

smokingpen — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:58:27 +0000

Well, I am working on a lack of sleep. I am also actually amazed that this lack of sleep is allowing me to plow through as much as I have been. Most of the lack comes as a response to Erin’s needs to sleep more since she does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to codename: CAMPER and his needs. Sure, I can help with the feedings, but there is just something about baby where he needs his mommy and as such, if I can move things forward to make sure that Erin is happy and content and feels like she can handle the situation, than I think the lack of sleep is okay.

I may need to rest a little today in preparation for a test tomorrow… and I definitely need to write some “notes” for one of my classes (essentially one page opinion papers); and I need to read more when it comes to a survey of the English Language; should study some; and have some serious cowboy reading that needs to take place.

Speaking of cowboys, I am in a cowboy literature class. We have gone on a series of field trips. The outcome of those (five) trips is pictures of the participants. If you are interested in seeing what the lense of the professor’s camera (and possible, soon, one of my classmates) than you can go to the website I set up for the class and pictures: http://cowboy.johnhattaway.com/. I am trying to figure out how to work around a Wordpress/PHP limitation on uploading sizes since I can’t seem to get a couple of 100mb+ files uploaded so that interested individuals can have all of the picture files without having to download pictures independently. One of the reasons I chose Wordpress as my (current) picture repository is because it has a gallery feature allows for full single file downloads without resizing or “crunching” the entire image. Plus, it is easier to use Wordpress than most of the online gallery software packages out there.

Moving along… and maybe heading off on a small non-sequitur… maybe a bit of a tangent… Erin and I were heading into the county building to register to vote yesterday. We had codename: CAMPER with us (since he is about four weeks old and isn’t being left with anybody, though Jim and Lisa did babysit for about an hour one night when they were still in town) and were walking into the building. As we crossed the street an older gentleman (retired, probably in his 70’s or 80’s) stopped us and said something to the effect of, “That’s the right person carrying the baby.” I was carrying the car carrier with baby inside. We stopped and spoke to him and he told us that he could see when a relationship between two individuals (husband and wife) by who carries what loads and in his observation we had to have a good relationship because I was carrying baby. He also said that when a relationship was going sour it was one person’s fault. I quickly said, “The baby’s.” He dropped it, but his implication was that it would be the husband’s fault. Truth told, any relationship that is going sour is going to have fault in both directions (husband and wife). It was still nice to have this man stop and tell us we were doing something right.

After we registered to vote (on, quite possibly, the very last day one can register to vote in Utah) I asked Erin if she was interested in going anywhere (we’d taked about a specific destination on the way to register to vote) and she said she wasn’t interested in going to her first choice anymore, and didn’t want to go home; so we did more of what I do with codename: CAMPER late at night when we are driving all over the place and we meandered through town, down into Springville, through some back streets and neighborhoods of Springville, and then up Hobble Creek Canyon. We actually made it into Uinta National Park before Erin said she was hungry and we drove back down into Springville to buy some food and then back up into the canyon to eat it, walk around (codename: CAMPER in a stroller), and then feed and change baby before heading back down canyon and back home. I found a pretty nice knife. I was going to take pictures of it and post them here, but I didn’t. And I probably won’t. With the outcome that I don’t have an outcome.

When we got home last night I watched parts of the final presidential debate between Obama and McCain. I was writing a post about it and about age and how theoretically age can play a distinct and important role in the candidate and as a result, realizing that too old and too young are both factors that are directly related to minimum experience and maximum experience with an insufficient amount of the former or an excessive amount of the latter indicating direct ability of the individual (and a cost analysis to potential employer and in this case the People of the United States) to not only capability but also adaptability, both being essential for job satisfaction and success, for the job and that McCain falls outside of the acceptable range of ages – and mostly because of his experience. In short, because McCain is older-n-dirt he will cost the American people more and we can determine this based off of experience, age, and choices (he makes).

Beyond all that, I was reading All the Pretty Horses for the cowboy literature class and, once I got past the first five or so pages, have really been enjoying the book. It is considered modern literature, which is a misnomer of sorts… essentially it is a popular book that is relatively difficult to read and requires a lot of attention paid to how the writer writes, that also doesn’t travel very quickly over a lot of pages. There are some rather distinct characteristics of a modern literary author, and I don’t personally think many of them will be recognized as such in twenty to fifty years, and most will be completely anonymous in one hundred years, with the outcome that I am enjoying the book and the story and find the details in the story (especially about horses and gentling or breaking) to be rather compelling and, from my limited research, accurate.

Regardless, this last semester is proving to be… interesting. Lots of reading. I knew that from the get-go. I’ve started to actively pursue some jobs. Hopefully there will be some positive glimmers on the horizon in the near future. All said, I am happy the semester is about over.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

When the Bough Breaks

smokingpen — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:21:04 +0000

… the cradle will fall, down will come baby, cradle and all.

Life is good. Tired. Meaning I am tired. codename: CAMPER is doing well. Erin has been updating his site. She wants me to do a ten item list like she did the other day. I haven’t decided if I am going to, though my initial reaction was that I didn’t want to. The more active Erin is on that site, honestly, the less active I feel I need to be even though she pointed out that I’ve done quite a bit in the way of postings. Of course, this was because Erin was busy with baby and busy in the hospital and has been busy trying, desperately, to get some sleep and as a result (and since updating seems important) I did some updates.

Sleep was pretty scarce last night. Erin has not been feeling well as a result of mastitis, which is an infection her the breasts. This has (probably) been long in coming since she’s always had some tenderness issues since just before giving birth. It got worse in the last few days and since it also presents itself as flu-like with the possibility of fever, it is not impossible to realize that Erin had a fever yesterday and was losing her lunch (before lunch) this morning. Neither of which are good since I don’t have to go to work, but I do have to make it to school every day of the week. This means I had about four hours of sleep last night and decided to skip my morning class this morning.

Instead of focussing on school and what needed to be done (and, “No,” I am not sure what is meant to be done at the moment), I sat in Erin’s chair and reclined it with codename: CAMPER on my chest. He would stir every so often and jerk about, this jerking wakes him up, not too surprising. If he is in his crib, where he needs to be, you get only a few minutes before you are holding him again. With that said, I did get away with at least three hours last night (yesterday evening) with him in his crib; but this required me to lie him on his chest and to check on him since sleeping on stomach is apparently a, “No, no.”

As for advice (from the web) on bottle feeding, once baby’s lips have touched the bottle the formula is good for one hour; if not, then you can refrigerate formula for up to two days. This is a good thing. One of the pieces of advice was to make two 2 ounce bottles of formula, let baby eat the first, if still hungry feed the second, otherwise put it in the refrigerator and wa-la: less wasted formula. Thanks for finding that out Erin.

We did end up (with codename: CAMPER in tow) at Costco last night where we bought a new supply of toilet paper, some ziplock sandwich bags (very useful), and some more formula. We were going to go with the Costco brand but then saw the large Similac we’ve been using and got that instead. Me thinks codename: CAMPER is going to be a little on the ’spensive side.

At present, I look forward to sleep tonight, now have to revise my project proposal for the Cowboy Class; need to come up with a conference paper proposal for my American Lit since 1960’s class (I am thinking about authors intent versus author’s statements); and have a test to study for and some reading to catch up on with my English Language class. What a fun week ahead of me. More, I need to spend some time researching information in the Harold B. Lee Library’s archives on ranch experience for a one-act play I will be writing between now and December. Wicked fun.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Day Job No More or Some More

smokingpen — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:05:39 +0000

First things first. I spoke to my boss and on my own volition and with Erin’s support, I have cut back my hours to nil or next to nil with the possibility that I might return to work in three or four weeks or not until the end of the semester when I come in to say goodbye. But that as a result of some family needs, and that the job was not appreciatively helping us out financially, and if we needed the money it would be Erin who would have to go to work because my job didn’t allow enough money to take care of anything,

Well, the weekend was a good one. I slept. Erin slept. codename: CAMPER slept and ate. Erin started to feel worse, physically, and after a trip to BYU Urgent Care we discovered that she had mastitis. This is an infection and has flu-like symptoms. Fortunately, she was not running a fever on Saturday; but by last night the visible signs of mastitis had gotten worse. The outcome was my running to a pharmacy to fill a prescription of antibiotics and to Smith’s to pick up a cabbage (we hear that cabbage leaves naturally reduce swelling and help with pain) to help with the infection. Not a lot to report on that front at the moment.

While at the pharmacy I heard some rather nasty music being played and looked up to see a rather tacky looking white boy doing a weird upper-body jig to the song as he let his phone ring (the ring tone was the song) and had a goofy look on his black-wanna-be outfit that didn’t work for his white bread body. Had that been the only passive interaction with the dude I probably would’ve forgotten about him. But, within a few minutes, he was back to the general proximity of where I was waiting for the prescription to be filled and talking to a group of people: boy-girl-boy-girl. He was one of the boys. The other boy had a baby that was between three and six months in arms. The two girls were less than attractive, and at least one of the girls was rather awkwardly overweight. As I tuned in to the discussion, and apparent reason for the call and the nasty music, was a discussion and search for an apartment for all five individuals (I am county baby as one of the individuals) and that they were having trouble coming to a concensus about which apartment they’d looked at (so far) to take.

I could probably ignore a discussion about apartments by people who are old enough to be talking about apartments or who have reasonable requirements for apartments; and forget about the whole thing (even though I would’ve still listened in), but the white bread dude had some requirements for an apartment (something like walk in closets or a pool or reasonable access to the curb or something inane) that he had to have. This resulted in the group not coming to a decisions about what they would do for an apartment. The result was white bread dude stating something like, “I hear Springville has cheap places to live.” This comment then caused the boy-boy combination in the group to discuss how far that meant the one holding the baby had to travel to get to work. The consensus was 40 miles one way. Honestly, I don’t know where in Utah County he would have to go to make a trip even from Springville 40 miles as from front door to front door, my house to the REI at 106th south was less than 26 miles. However, 40 miles was important to guy holding baby (not white bread, by the way) and as a result may have (allegedly) eliminated Springville as a possible location to live.

What caused me to listen and pay attention and then become annoyed with the conversation was not where the group wanted to live, or that Springville had cheap places to live, or that one of them would have to drive one way 40 miles to get to and from work. Rather, it was that every member of the group looked to be between sixteen and eighteen and at least two were relatively new parents. What was annoying and obnoxious and caused me to feel that these kids were destroying their lives was all of the previous annoyances stated and the fact that not a single one of them appeared to have the sense God gave a dead gnat to take care of what needs to be taken care of first. This was (in part) indicative of the way they handled themselves and the little child (for whom they were in the pharmacy and who also needed the medication they were trying to fill).

I can’t control what and how people are allowed to make decisions in their lives. I also have to assume that the ages of the majority of people in that group were at least eighteen since eighteen is the legal age of adulthood. I know thath eighteen marks the beginning of emerging adulthood where decisions take on real world consequences. As a result, no one can technically tell these kids they are being complete duffuses. For those under the age of eighteen, and in direct opposition to what it appears is the trend in Utah right now (and among the LDS faith), a teenager should not have the right to keep a baby and that baby should be put up for adoption; and that adoption should be completely anonymous. Neither the child nor the teenage mother should know about the other. And yes, I understand that the teenage mother will now she had a baby, but she should not have the right to make the choice about whether or not she keeps the baby. If I were to make a law, the only exception would be the teenagers parents (or the father’s parents) adopting the child and accepting full financial and legal responsibility under the proviso that the teenager does not have any legal rights over the child.

What makes me happy is realizing that even though I’ve been pretty bad at a lot of things over the years, and spent most of my twenties being rather irresponsible about some of the decisions in my life. At least, on the surface it appears that my choices didn’t have a lot of thought going into them. Truth told, I was focussed in a singular area and as a result the outcome was that I made choices that allowed me to get to the point I am now. However, I don’t think I would change the twenties for anything. I am happily married, I love my wife, I love our son, and I am pretty certain, knowing myself, that I would’ve screwed up any other relationship before now.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

Manic Tuesday’s or not really

smokingpen — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:09:36 +0000

Well, it is officially Tuesday morning and since I rarely (these days) go to bed before midnight, and often well after, I have now seen Tuesday from a couple of different angles. Which, as everyone clearly knows, is absolutely imperative to having a clear and guided notion of what is going on in the world, life, and etc. With that said, Erin got to watch me leap out of bed late last night, over her, throwing the blankets and sheets off the bed, and racing out of the room when I heard a rather loud bang take place. First to babies room (Erin behind me) and then the rest of the house (Erin in babies room). A magnetic whiteboard/calendar we’d purchased fell off the refrigerator. I was almost immediately reminded of a couple of experiences in New Hampshire where instead of running or moving away from rather potential danger, I put myself between the danger and the individual I was with. In one instance it was, ostensibly, a large animal trying to scare us off; in another instance it was a truck that was driving erratically and far to fast for conditions and speed limit and area. In both cases, the individual I was with was moved out of the path and I placed myself in the immediate path, though with the ability to move out of the way if necessary. In the instance with the truck on the road in the nighttime (they were both at night, actually), I called the police after the man attempted to appologize for nearly killing us. Since I had his license plate number I called 911… as far as I know they never did anything about it even though Iw as assured that a police officer would be calling me about the incident. Honestly, since it’s been over three or four years since that happened and I’ve changed my phone number at least three times since then, I don’t think I am every going to get that phone call.

With that said, I had my American Lit since 1960 class this morning. I think, honestly, that people intentionally miss the nuance keys that authors place into stories and intentionally choose to be dense when it comes to what is actually happening. More, I think we often mis-represent and mis-understand what the elements of a story are confusing a story that might contain religious elements with a religiously centric story. Rather than discussing a short story that is by a Jewish author and, reasonably, covers a Jewish boy asking questions of his Rabbi as a story about a boy who is asking questions of an authority figure AND they happen to be Jewish we confuse that with a story about a group of people who are Jewish and one of them has a lot of questions he wants or needs answers to. And yes, I am being particularly nuanced in this area as I believe that there is a signficant and important different between telling a story and having it contain a certain kind of person or telling a story about a certain kind of person and having it contain specific elements. In truth, when discussing literature, talk should encompass more of the former and less of the latter; though the latter is informative when discussing author influence and what was intended by said author for the audience. It is important, in a story where you have the and they happen to be Jewish as an element in part because the author is drawing your attention to the nature of (in the case of the discussion) the kinds of questions coupled with the kinds of answers and the disparity between existing questions and the answers one might expect to hear in a given situation as opposed to the answers one might want.

Which leads to: Just because you are asking a question does not mean the person answering the question has to give you the answer you want.

And: Just because you may not be comfortable answering a question does not mean you have the right or lack the responsibility to answer the question in a way that is satisfactory to the person asking.

Fiction is meant to entertain, first, and inform second. Informing should be on the human condition, in some form or fashion, and by informing an audience should be given opportunities to see how things might be different if they are willing to look; but that same audience should walk away from the experience feeling they were entertained in some way. Not all fiction entertains all people in the same way. Because this is true, we have different kinds of fiction from general and literature to Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and others (Cowboy or Western and more). Each genre appeal to a different group; though, when an author does the job or writing well, singular pieces can transcend genre boundaries and end up becoming more than was realized. Regardless of case, fiction is first to entertain.

As I am talking about writing and fiction, and as I am in this mode, I am thinking that I may be taking “In Order to Write” (all of the domains), copying the posts, and adding them to johnhattaway.com and forwarding inordertowrite.com, inordertowrite.net, and inordertowrite.org to point here rather than to have a separate address. I am working on a new page (for this website) that will explain some of the personal logic used. However, the process does require some effort and it is that effort I need to work through before I leap into the process of making the change.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

codename: CAMPER post

smokingpen — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:23:38 +0000

In case anyone (who comes here) needs to know, Erin and I had our little boy just over a week ago. However, that is the most I can say (on this website). Updates on CAMPER are being written (and posted) to codename: CAMPER-dot-com.

What this means (for you) is if you know Erin and or John AND we know who you are AND if you want to find out more about CAMPER (e.g. name, pics, video, and etc.), then you will need to go to codename: CAMPER-dot-com, create an account, get it approved (if I don’t know immediately who you are this might mean emails back and forth) and then log into the site to gain access to all things CAMPER.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly