Chatter #50 - November 5, 2001

12/14/2001 — I started the Chatter section on July 27, 2000 when I noticed that the rest of my site was sometimes getting cluttered with lots of text. I'm a talkative guy, after all! So now I talk about my life here, instead of all over the place. Originally this was one huge section, but in December of 2001 it simply became too large to remain as one page, and I broke it into dated sections, as you can see. —>PM

More Complications

John Sebastian has colic. If you're not familiar with colic, it means that for the next two to four months he will cry, inconsolably, for hours, every day. It's not known what causes colic, although they believe it has to do with gas and an immature digestive system.

There are some things that our pediatrician is having us try; a new type of formula that might relieve some of his pain (because he's not crying just to cry; he's suffering, and believe me, that doesn't make us feel any better). It works "sometimes". If it doesn't work, there are some anti-spasmodic drops that work "sometimes". But as far as I can tell, in most cases nothing works and the condition must simply run its course.

This on top of Teri's PPD and PTSD and our lack of sleep (he's fussy at night), is very hard to take. Oh, I know that things could be worse—Ottoman Turks could be torturing and killing us this very minute, after all—but still, I can't help but wish we could catch more of a break.

Family members are helping out by coming over and helping to take care of the baby, fortunately. And our pediatrician assures us that apart from the colic, JSM is doing wonderfully; on Thursday (11/1/2001) his weight was up to 11 lbs. 1 oz., and his length was 22 inches! He looks great, eats well, and is generally irresistible. If only he didn't suffer so much! I have to admit that I wonder what it will do to his emotional development. His introduction to life is months of pain...it's so unfair.

He's been learning and growing very rapidly of late. Mostly, of course, he's learned new ways of crying; different sounds which indicate different things, and different levels of irritation. A lot of them are very funny. In fact, I have to say that one thing I wasn't prepared for was how funny the baby is! His comical little expressions, his noises, the way he shakes his head and then lunges at the bottle, the way he waves his hands and feet...all of them make me laugh, a lot.

Oh, something else I hate about colic: it's so damned nebulous. You can never quite be sure if he's crying for a reason (hunger, diaper, burping), or because of the pain. Sometimes you can calm him, but you can never be sure if or how. Rocking? singing? just holding him? a pacifier or letting him suck the tip of my little finger (a VERY funny feeling)? Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. The one thing that's the most reliable is putting him in the car seat and carrying him around for a while. That usually puts him to sleep. But even then it's 50/50 on whether he will wake up and cry 10 minutes after being put down. If he does, it's back to carrying him around the house. He only weighs 30 lbs. or so in the car seat, but six months from now I'll either have arms like a weightlifter or be in traction...

Fantasy Worlds

There hasn't been any time for gaming, of course, nor for writing. I wish there were...I've been feeling creative. I need to write, soon. Recently read the Sandman Companion, about the Sandman series, and it makes me feel like creating. I could do it, I think.

I have been playing Diablo a bit on Battle.net. My most recent character there is called Hamburger_Helpr. I started him up recently to see what sort of treatment a "new" player would get from the gamers online, and of course most of them just killed me over and over and over again. Plus even the few non-killers cheat. Let me repeat that: EVERY SINGLE PERSON on Battle.net cheats! At least all the one's that I've seen. They're all carrying around Godly Plate of the Whale and Atomic Wedgie of Destructions. Ridiculous. It feels weird to be the only non-cheater.

I'm tempted to take up Bare Naked Magery, which is to say a character with no possessions of value. Or even a character who only uses cursed items, the more cursed the better. A purist would have started the character that way, but Hamburger_Helpr is using common objects he finds until his skills are high enough to allow him to survive. I've been gaming him in a closed world to avoid the PKs while I get his skills and levels up (if you'd like to drop in, it's called "Safe World" and the password is "qwerty"—of course it's only there when I am).

Once his spells and levels are up to a reasonable level, who knows? Perhaps I'll strip him naked and send him to laugh at the PKs.

Something funny: I recently read that the average lifespan of a web site is 100 days. This site has been going since sometime in 1996, which means it has been well over 1,500 days! Just goes to show you that sheer dumb persistance sometimes pays off.