And no character on that show said it better than Al. Outwardly he was a worn out, angry shoe salesmen who seemed completely miserable. Half the jokes on that show were at Al’s expense in a vein of humor that said, “look how awful my life is and how much I hate everything. Guess old Al Bundy is just never gonna catch a break” *trombone goes wah waaaaaaaaaaaah*. But MWC always offered a little wink at the audience. Within the context of the show’s framework it consistently gave Al these soft, redeemable moments that let us know that even though he was rude to his wife, annoyed by his kids, didn’t seem to particularly enjoy the company of his friends, never had any money and acted as if his life was nothing but a cliff he jumped off of once his Polk High glory days were over there was still love in Al’s heart. And somewhere in there Al was glad to have what he did. Having watched so much of it in the 90's I constantly find myself thinking about Al Bundy when I get down on myself. Nothing can be THAT bad right? Now let’s move on before I realize my understanding of adult life and how to navigate it was cultivated by a sit-com. Crap.
Anyhoo I have been thinking about Al lately because one of the things I always thought was sweet about him was that he never referred to Kelly by her name. He always called her “punkin” and he was the only person in Kelly’s life who did this. Just one of those redemptive winks that let us all know Al was a big softee underneath his weary disposition. Now I don’t have such a depressing visage as my buddy Al, but as I said, I can relate to some of the things he was dealing with in his life. Maybe I am a little (only a little!) dramatic about it sometimes, but being a grown ass man with grown ass man responsibilities kind of wears on me sometimes.
Now I have 2 levels when it comes to expressing hard to channel emotions. Even keel and blinding intensity. Anything that falls in between those extremes is dealt with mostly inside my own head because whatever I am thinking about at the time is probably too stupid or petty to be worthy of a conversation. This can be misleading. Because I have a shitty poker face, I always appear to have more critical things on my mind than I acutally do, and sometimes Pam thinks I am upset with her when I am actually just being a baby. When you don't use words, you leave things open to interpretation which is not a good idea when your wife is trying to have a conversation with you on the heels of a drastic change in your lives. Last week she saw me over at the computer doing the monthly budget with my head in my hands, sporting a glassy, 3 mile, where-did-it-all-go-wrong kind of stare and when she asked me what was wrong I just sort of grunted. I was pouting. Not taking her perception of this response into consideration I didn't realize she may think I am over there regretting our choice to have a baby and live on one income. She may think I am wishing I had a different life and I am sitting there plotting my escape(ed. note: this is what she was thinking) when all that is really going on is that I am over there pouting because I want a goddamn X Box but I had to pay the stupid electricity bill instead and that makes me sad.
Only I know how truly ridiculous I actually am, so when Lucy is old enough to pick up on the fact that daddy is in his head about something I want her to be sure it’s no big deal and that no matter how weird I am acting it could not possibly be because of her. I really want her to feel like we have a good relationship, and one of the things I think would be cool is if she has a nickname that only her daddy calls her like Al had with Kelly. So I have been trying to come up with some things, but I don’t want to pluck some random bullshit out of the air. Something like Punkin or Angel would be so generic and boring, and I don’t want to be lazy and just call her LJ or Lu Lu or some other play on her name. I mean, I am sure we will be calling her any and all of those things at some point, but I want us to have something that only I call her. I want it to be something I came up with that shows her how well I know her and how in tune I am with the person she is. Something that only someone who loves her as much as I do could come up with.
Only problem is, she doesn’t really have a personality yet so my initial attempts at giving her the perfect nickname have been…well, how can I properly convey this?…Oh I know…a COLLOSAL FUCKING FAILURE! Here’s what I got so far: Alien Baby. Animatronic Baby. Hulk Baby. And my favorite…Zombie baby. And I wonder why she punches me in the face so often.
It's not that I have something against her. I just calls 'em like I sees 'em. And from what I have seen this baby is pretty much an Animatronic, Zombie, Ailien, Hulk child. Let me explain.
We've already covered Lucy's otherworldly baby strength in this space, so I won't harp on that. But her kung fu grip and propensity for issuing beat downs has earned her the Hulk title.
The Alien/Animatronic titles are related. They all stem from her inability to control her own motions. She's only 2 weeks old so she's not really aware of her limbs and digits yet. All of her movement is involuntary and reactionary and the look on her face always makes it seem like she's very surprised that her body is in motion. She gets all bug eyed and starts shifting things from side to side and up and down in a robotic looking way. I shit you not, the first thing I thought of when I saw her looking around, doing her robot thing was the scene in "Aliens" when Sigorny Weaver was falling to her death and the Alien she was pregnant with pops out of her stomach and starts flailing around. Lucy looks just like that, but much much cuter, you know, like a human. It just didn't seem right to walk around associating my baby with Sigorny Weaver's Alien love child, so Alien baby became Animatronic baby.
I'm working on finding a more palletable substitute for Zombie baby right now, but Lucy is not really helping. It just that...she keeps acting like such a fucking Zombie. Being a 2 week old baby Lucy gets hungry quite often. Her lack of body control sometimes makes things more difficult than they need to be and she sometimes has trouble latching onto her food source. When she's not able to find the grub she goes nuts. She starts frantically rooting around, bobbing her head up and down, and snorting in between bursts of very angry, scary crying. It's crazy to see. She moves so fast and so violently! Now these may not seem like zombie-ish qualities in the traditional sense, but if you have seen "28 Days Later" you will know what I am talking about. At this point I would embed a video, but I can't figure out how to do it (or if it's possible) to embed something from the web so here's a link. Just watch.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/55517/28-days-later-shot
That's pretty much exactly how Lucy acts when she is hungry and not getting what she wants. Lucy's hunger cries and subsequent freak outs are uncannily similar to the 28Days Later zombies' thirst for brains. Sometimes when she's flipping out it even sounds like she is screaming, "BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS!" It's just too obvious to ignore.
Needless to say, these nicknames will be on the scrap heap before Lucy is old enough to know what is going on, but if she wants better nicknames it's really on her. Like I said, I want this to be an organic process and I want her name to reflect her personality and to show how well I know her. And I feel like I do. We've spent a lot of time together. Clearly we need to work on this, but Lucy, I beg you, a little help here. Until then...
BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS!
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