Alieniloquent

It’s been forever since I last blogged.

Chances are, if you’re reading this, that you probably already know most of what has transpired in my life since March. I tweet a lot (sometimes). But, writing it out seems like a good way to ease back into blogging.

A week after my last post, Liam Apollo Tesla was born. We had him at home, but ended up at the hospital to tend to Erica’s health. It turned out that Liam had some respiratory distress, which developed into pneumonia. We lived at the hospital for nearly ten days. It was not the first ten days as a new family that we had hoped for, but it was what we got, and we made the most of it. It was stressful, and when it was all over, we were elated to finally be at home with our baby where he was born.

We weren’t there for very long, though. We were already planning a move to Chicago that was just waiting for Liam to be born. The next month was devoted to Liam and cleaning and organizing and packing. I said my goodbyes at work, then the movers came and we hopped on a plane. I cannot recommend enough having other people pack and move your stuff. I am so thankful that I can afford that.

Apartment hunting in a new city is stressful. Doing it with a seven week old baby is doubly so. But, through Erica’s sheer genius at finding things, we found a great apartment. It is in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago, and we love it. We feel like we found a little sliver of San Francisco here by the Lake.

Fast-forward six months. I’ve been killing it at my new job with DRW. Liam has tripled in size to a whopping 33 pounds and change, and he is wearing 24m/2T clothes. My 8-month-old wears toddler clothes. Yeah. We (yes, Erica again) found a great deal on Craigslist. We’re good on clothes. He just cut his seventh tooth, and will likely cut another before his age-in-months gets ahead of his tooth count. Being new parents is awesome, and I mean that in the fear-and-wonder sense, not the Wayne’s World sense.

Only recently have I even remembered I have a blog, let alone thought of things to write for it. But, now I have a lot of things I want to say. I’ve been putting this off for a couple of weeks. What’s one more week on top of eight months, right?

There’s a lot going on in my life, and a lot going on in the world. I’ve got things I want to share and things I want to say. Surprisingly, little of it has to do with programming any more. I had a realization not too long ago that I am happier with hobbies that aren’t programming. I still may do some, but I’m finding that I actually enjoy the programming I do at work much more if I’m not spending all hours of the night programming at home too.

I knit. I’ve been knitting a lot. Since Liam was born, I’ve finished one scarf, a pair of gloves, three hats, two pairs of socks, and the sleeves for my first sweater (I had done the rest of the sweater before that). I am presently designing an Aran sweater for a class I will be teaching in a few months at my local yarn store. I am also knitting a sweater for Erica.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about political stuff and activist things. The Occupy movement has really connected with me in many ways. It’s really only by sheer, dumb luck that I’m not in the same boat as so many people that are out there protesting. Part of me wants to be out there protesting, too. But, there are so many things that need our attention. Not just the screwed up (non-)regulatory systems for banks.

Since Erica got pregnant, we have both immersed ourselves in feminism. In the last twelve months, or so, I’ve come to realize a lot of things about our culture that I really don’t like. I’m not sure what to do about them yet, but I’ll probably step up on my soap box and blog at whomever whishes to come along and read it.

So, I’ve got lots of posts rattling around in my brain, and now that I’ve hunkered down and actually written my I’m Back Post™, I’ll start writing them.