Only Partially Baby Related

Kaia Update
She's doing pretty good, actually.

Wait, that's how the last update started. Well, what do you want? Excitement? Excitement in babies comes from trouble, and we'd rather be boring, thank you very much. The doctor always called steph's pregnancy "boring" right up until Kaia came early. To my mind, medically, boring is good.

So we don't want baby excitement until she starts doing cool stuff. Right?

Her birthday is tomorrow. I think I mentioned how preemies are developmentally measured from the day they were supposed to have been born, so technically, as of tomorrow, Kaia becomes a normal baby. That's pretty awesome.

I'm betting she's up over 6 lbs. now. The doc told us last week Kaia should be gaining at least half an ounce a day, so the math really doesn't work, but then, she almost gained a pound in two weeks, and she only had to do six ounces in six days. I'm thinking it's plausible.

I can tell she's getting bigger if I compare her to all the freaking pictures we have laying around. Her facial features are getting further apart, fingers longer and thicker. Good stuff.

Last night, however, sucked. At least for me. I think she was fussy and in my sleep-deprived state, I'd just go pick her up and lay back down in bed with her on my chest. At her 4/5ish feeding, Steph asked, " Why do you have her?" I had no idea. I still can't remember.

Still, she's sleeping in four-hour chunks and eating 2/5-3 oz. when she wakes up. All's good.

The "Normal" World. Well, The Online One Anyway.
Everything is vanilla these days, and by that, I mean the Internet is boring. All the pages in all the world and I read about 15 sites regularly, and even those have started to bore me. The hell?

I imagine most people fall into surfing ruts/routines. But i wonder if it's more than that. When does the internet cease to be a means of entertainment and simply become a repository of information. Something more like a newspaper. That you take for granted, get in and get out, that kind of thing.

the internet has always been a refuge for me, saving me from the daily doldrums that is my job. Now, I'm just not finding anything online capable of keeping my attention. Sorta makes me sad.

At any rate, since the internet has been boring and I haven't really gotten to play any games, I've kept on with the reading. Finished Jumper and Three Days to Never last week. Tonight, I'm starting The Devil You Know by Mike Carey. He used to write Hellblazer and Lucifer for DC/Vertigo (comic books, but Hellblazer is what the film Constantine was based on). This one's about an exorcist who gets in over his head.

On The Writing Front
There's actually news, believe it or not, though as usual, I can't really promise you dates.

One night while we were in the hospital, the batteries of the laptop went dead. I ended up writing a lot in one of my moleskines. Part of what I wrote was a big ass journal entry that'll never see the light of day (was as close to a diary entry as I've ever written). The other big chunk, however, were notes for the rest of the House and the Vanishing Girl story.

It's really weird. I never meant to set a story in Oklahoma, but so many trips between Tulsa and Stillwater, seeing all those rolling hills and almost empty scenery, it got into my head. I basically wrapped all that around all these great characters and situations from my childhood and I think I have the right combination for something pretty different and still interesting.

I'm hoping to get started on it this week.

And then there's my screenplay idea. I've had an idea for a movie before, but it was just a concept more than anything. This thing I have now, well, there's no other way to say it. It's a vampire movie. It's sort of 30 Days of Night (rent that today, kids) meets Die Hard mixed with bits of The Running Man and set in the French Quarter during Mardi Gras. And no, it doesn't have a happy ending. Hell, I'm just excited I already have the ending. It's rare for me. Hell, I even have the opening credits (animated).

I need to track down and torrent a script writing software package so that I'm not crushed by all that goddamn formatting. I had a screenwriting class in college and the worst part of writing the goddamn screenplay was formatting the thing. Nothing like having your creative momentum come to a screeching halt because you have to CENTER and CAP everything.