Hee hee. Random link of the day.

Trenchcoat should enjoy this.

Weiners!

My wife and I are on a rampage today of being really bad. After a unmentionable act of labor-inducing activity in the morning, we went to Baskin Robbins and she had a banana split with the works, while I had a three scoop sundae with all the dressings. Then we spend 150 bucks in groceries (yes, that is really excessive for us) and we spent about an hour after that just sitting around, watching TLC.

She deserves to be a little bad, being how she's pregnant and undoubtedly having serious cravings that cannot be fulfilled due to this gestational diabetes sentence. She'll be elligible for sugar parole in about four weeks. Whoopee!

I'll still be pretending to be on a diet.

Did my supposed last wedding of the year, and I'm just exhausted today. If I ever do weddings again, I will do only ceremony and reception. No more of this whole day field trip day.

I met a really nice older lady yesterday, who was the bride's mother's best friend, and her name was Rose, or Rosa as she was also referred to. She was probably in her 60s, really nice lady who was born in Sicily, and she had the coolest accent in the world. It was fun listening to her talk, about her husband who passed away four years ago, about their marriage, about her kids and her grandchildren, and about the house. The nurturing side of her came out easily, offering me cookies, a seat, and even a coke, none of which I took. Looking at all the black and white photos in her house, and the dinnerware that she got as wedding gifts from her relatives back in Italy, I really envied how some people have that history of family so omnipresent in their lives. Old photos of families, and just wonderful aged and yellowed snapshots of what seemed to be a marriage full of happiness. The way she spoke so fondly of him makes me feel happy -- that no matter how cynical the world gets, it's still astounding how a human being can make another human being feel.

I myself lack any history, being uprooted from my birth country at 14 is quite a stressful thing to do. All my childhood remmants were either given away, or thrown out because US Customs generally frown on migrating with furniture and boxes of crap. So, gone was my Snoopy doll, and my original pillow... but probably the thing I missed the most were my composition books, where I discovered writing as something that I really enjoyed doing. I started writing some really detailed stories and got a lot of good grades for imagination and whatnot, and I miss not having that.

Perhaps one day I will have the kind of family closeness that I've always wanted, it's really tough to say with today's thinking. Even I myself need to improve with my own family relations. It's too easy to drift apart, and sometimes I attribute my tendency to not be too close to anyone to my childhood. It's tough to be attached to anything that'll leave you eventually.

To my wife -- of course this doesn't apply to you, sweetie. You're my best friend in the world and I couldn't imagine the rest of my life without you.

Separate post.

My brain has gotten really skittish the last few weeks. Thought it would be polite to unload it on the blog.

Worrying about when the baby is coming, and if I can make it home fast enough, and to the hospital fast enough.

Worrying about videotaping it, having enough hands, but not ignoring my wife who will be needing me.

Bills and loans.

The future of my business.

Things randomly pop in and out of my head. Songs for example, will pop into my head, and it will not leave. "Couldn't get it right" by the Climax Blues Band is in my head right now.

Weddings. Getting it done. Getting sued. Am I spending enough time editing.

The time now and the fact I have to get up at 7:30 in the morning.

The wedding I have to cover tomorrow.

My weight.

My wife's weight.

Whether or not my work will be done correctly while I'm off work.

Getting enough money on my paternity leave.

The baby.

My wife.

Getting a movie done.

My relationship with my friends.

The idea that my stressful life may be leading to the overweightness, the breakouts, and the urge to want to just stop editing and working.

Guilt about not posting.

Guilt about not editing.

Guilt about drinking too much Coke.

Well, that's just a few things anyway. Sounds pretty neurotic.

We went to the ultrasound appointment today, Alex's third, and a lot has changed from the first one. Although we didn't really get to see his face and get a good look at the little guy, we did get a few pictures of him. He's lying on his side, and you can see his little arm and a side of his face, but not much else.

They measured everything, and everything seems to be in order. They estimate him at around 5 pounds or so, and he was quite camera shy so if we didn't already know it was a boy, there would've been a fair chance that we wouldn't have found out. He was likely sleeping through the whole affair, not aware that we were all looking at him.

Got a wedding to go to tomorrow, semi-glad that it will be the last one for a while. I'm neck deep in weddings, and been procrastinating because I'm recoiling from the first one that I finished and a rushed one after that. Need to be doing some surfing and general bumming about before I start on the second. This has been one of the harder summers for that.

Well, got a rehearsal to attend. Later.

Now for some updates!

Wife is now officially off work -- the backache and the constant tiredness simply was too much to bear, so she got a note from the doctor and will be off for approximately the next ten weeks. Wow. Didn't really think of it that way.

Tomorrow we're going for the last ultrasound, to see that the baby is going to be fine and all that. There's a strong chance that the baby would come early, with her high blood pressure and the fact that the baby may have dropped. The doctor thinks that the baby has dropped a little, but chooses to float between the dropping point (the groin, I suppose) and her tummy. Swimming monkey!

I got it figured out at work that I could probably do my three weeks off, even though the pay may be hurting just a little, but you only have a baby once, right?

I have a car seat secured and ready in my car, and we have to start packing a diaper bag -- even though we live like 5 minutes from the hospital. So we're deciding what to wear when the baby gets home, and it's a five minute car ride. But he'll look so cute!!

Really getting hyped about my son, just a lot of thoughts are going through my head about it. It's an amazing feeling of uncertainty, anxiety, and excitement. More later.

My Wife's new favorite game.
Bookworm Game

For Breeana and Kylie, the second set of pictures.

Album: Baby Shower 1

For Breeana and Kylie, this is the first set of pictures...

Album: Baby Shower 2

I love my son so much already, even though I haven't even met him. We've touched through his mother, and I've heard his heart beat at 135 beats per minute, and I've seen shadows of him on the monitor, and the very thought of him has made me smile numerous times.

4 more weeks.

This is really breaking my heart.

I know I've thought about it a lot, but it doesn't make it any more difficult to quit my business. But I filed for my taxes online today, and I probably did it incorrectly, but the correct way would've cost me about 100+ bucks, something that I really can't afford right now. So I lie on my taxes. I don't know what else to do. I was really tempted to just close shop by closing my business online, but I didn't. Then I was tempted to see my camera on ebay, until I saw the going rate. It's not shabby, I could get about 1700 for it, but that's about a 800 bucks in losses.

The only thing that I could really bring myself to do is to post a notice on my website, stating that I'm basically stopping on all requests, and finishing up what I have left. I dunno, I've abandoned ideas before, but this one is really breaking my heart. Even when I try to approach it like a movie idea that failed, or having to move on like the movie just wrapped, this one is just difficult because I created everything. I spent a lot of money (on credit, nonetheless) and created everything from the shooting techniques, the editing, the logos, the website, the forms... Everything is now just junk.

I know in a way it is the right thing to do. This business has not really been profitable to me, and it is not a business that can sustain supporting even myself. It has begun chipping away the peace between my wife and I, because she's always worried about my editing not being done. And I'm going to be a father soon, and would very much like to spend my evenings and weekends with my son, and with my wife. And I would love to do movies again. My personality has become seemingly bland and the little victories in creative editing that I have succeeded in are only enjoy by myself and my wife. I miss sharing it with the world.

I also miss one of my favorite pasttimes that I have been unable to do all summer, watch movies. Tomorrow we're going to the Pickford to watch Winged Migration. Because I'm sick of being a workhorse.

I can't go to sleep yet because I'm saddened by this. It really means a lot to me, maybe more than any movie that I've done. I just hope that it's the right thing to do.