Baby, and a short history of a friendship

I am newly a father. I suppose logically, that would be where to go with this post. All the wonders and joys of new parenthood. Knowing I would take a bullet for my daughter. So on and so forth. And don't get me wrong: that's all there. But I know you've heard it all before. Yes, it changes my life, but I knew it would. Yes, I will gaze into her tiny eyes and get lost. Yes, I think she's the best thing in the world, and I have to hold myself back from hitting people who claim otherwise.  But I'm pretty sure that's less interesting to hear about. Here is a picture though, because I am full of Parental Joy:

Cute, right?

Anyway, I'm gushing. I know, my tone may read as dismissive, but I'm pretty terrible at communicating my emotions well on purpose.

Now for the reason I'm writing this blog.  I have a friend. Let's call her "Orange" (the color, not the fruit). We met when she was rooming with a girl I was desperately trying to date for reasons I cannot fully explain. The first time I remember seeing her was when I had found this girl's (the Crush, I mean) Student ID and called her room to return it. This was one of many ill-fated attempts I made at getting an actual conversation going with the Crush so I could work up the nerve to ask her out. I'm pretty sure I eventually did. Needless to say, I did not end up marrying her, and she is not the mother of my little bundle of joy (the Cuteness you see above).

Anyway, when we first met, I thought Orange hated me. Apparently, she used to get that a lot, which is a shame, because she's a lovely human being. If I hadn't already been obsessed with the Crush at the time, I would probably have been taken with her. Anyway, I doubt I seemed my usual charming self either, since I had intended that ID card to be my ticket to relationship bliss and instead I got to talk to the roommate.

Fast forward two years: I'm a senior in college. It's become clear the Crush isn't interested in me, but we still hang out from time to time. Orange and I have begun chatting.  It amazes her how down to earth I am. It amazes me how I could have overlooked her brilliance under the shadow of the Crush. No, music does not swell, our eyes do not meet, and there is no grand romance brewing. But we find a mutual respect for one another that lasts to this day. Ultimately, we are very much alike we two. Both want to write. Both would enjoy a job in publishing, but neither of us seem on track to get one. Both think in similar ways. We have similar vices, similar interests: all the makings of a friendship.

Fast forward again, I've graduated and moved. Not just home, but to New York (the state, not the city). Having met my now-wife, I was pretty much rooted down here. Orange and I are now farther from each other in terms of geography, but closer in terms of friendship. We send one another scripts we've written. Bounce ideas off of each other. Not overly frequently, but it's a nice equilibrium we've established.

You know, I had intended this post to go a different direction, but the prologue feels a complete story unto itself. I think I'll leave it for now.

(For the record, "The Crush" is a term contingent on what time I'm talking about, from this moment on, "Orange" and "The Cuteness" will refer to my friend and daughter, respectively.)

My Name

I was writing an email to a new acquaintance explaining my email including "William" but my preferred name being "Liam," and I though its contents might be helpful for those other people who have wondered why I go by the name that I do: a lot of people have asked why I switched.

Yes, "William" is my legal name. Liam is the Gaelic form of William, and my preferred variant, but if you prefer William, I don't mind that either. There's actually something of a story behind my name:

When I was a kid, my family called me Willy (some of my older relatives still do). When I was being registered for kindergarten I was asked what I wanted to go by and I opted to drop the "y" and just be Will. At some point, I stopped caring what I was called, so long as it wasn't Bill (it's a perfectly fine name, but it's what my grandpa goes by, and that was enough to keep me from wanting to go by it). No one ever called me Billy, so far as I know.

As time went on, I started to dislike the way Will looked when written. For a while, I stopped this by saying it was "Spelled 'William' but pronounced 'Will,' the I-A-M is silent." I even briefly modified it to "The 'I Am' is silent, in reverence to Our Lord," but then realized that since I was actually doing it out of vanity, to claim it was out of reverence was irreverent at best, and possibly blasphemous, so I stopped.

I also disliked how easy it was to think someone was saying my name when they in fact had said "I will do such-and-thus" or "well..." the final straw was being a Philosophy major and all the jokes a out me being "the Good Will" or "a human Will" et cetera. At this point I decided I genuinely disliked being called "Will" but had no alternative - I didn't want to be the guy who insists on being called by his full name when so many variants are available. At some point, I thought of switching to "Liam." Since I was planning on moving to LA for a film studies program my senior year of college, I decided that my last semester of college would be a good time to switch. Unfortunately, events transpired that stopped me from going to LA. All the same, I stuck to that schedule, started going by "Liam" and have gone by it ever since. Many people still call me "Will," but I don't call myself by that name anymore.

In addition to this "story," I also like to acknowledge the fact that I've changed. "Will" to me reflects the way I was growing up and in high school. "Liam" to me is the sum of my experiences to date, especially the growth I experienced in college. It's a much shorter explanation, but also a part of why I prefer Liam.

Is this more information than you needed? Probably. Still, I prefer giving too much information over too little.

Growing Up

As I begin typing this, I am 21 years old. My clock says 11:28. That means in 32 minutes, I'll be 22 years old. Legally. I won't actually be 22 until about 6:00pm. But that's besides the point. I'm growing up. Here are some of the recent events of my life and plans for the near future:
-Failing to get a summer job (consistently)
-A little over a week ago, my brother celebrated his half-anniversary with his wife, Lizzy.
-Exactly a week ago, I hit the 6 month mark of being single.
-The past couple weeks, I've been playing computer games I hadn't played in a while (today I was making a family in the Sims 2 with a bunch of variations of me: William, Will, Liam, Jesse, W.J.--it was fun)
-I've continued my reading, but am finding it slower-going than my previous endeavors, most likely because Tolkien is a very dense thorough writer.
-TODAY, my friend Drew got a promotion he'd been hoping for.
-On Friday, I will be celebrating my birthday with my family (Ben will be in town this weekend, so it made sense to hold off).
-On Saturday, I'll be driving back up to Canton to go to a party. These party's are always good.
-At some point soon, I need to get in touch with Malone about MC Comedy and out performance for Freshman Orientation, both to make sure we're still on and to find out the specifics.
-In just under a month, I'll be back at Malone, starting my Senior year.
-In January, with luck, I'll be moving to Los Angeles.
My point? I honestly don't know. I'm just taking stock of things, you know? This isn't a profound blog. It's just me typing.

A Smattering of Random Observations

It's a shame: I had hoped to keep up with my blogging more consistently than I have. I have been busy the past few days, though. First, a little background. At the end of March, I drove back to Canton to see my friends graduate. Around New Philadelphia on I-77, I was pulled over for speeding. The officer claimed to have clocked me going 78 in a 65, and I was issued a ticket for about $120. I did not and do not believe that I was speeding, and cannot believe I was speeding by that amount. I have various reasons for believing this, but long story short, it was resolved yesterday. While I couldn't "win" the case, I did manage to get the speed lowered from 78 to 74, which means I don't get any points on my license. The downside? Between the increased fines (beats me how they can lower the charge and raise the fine, but I wasn't in a position to argue) and court costs, I had to pay $255 instead. The biggest downsides of this are that I am already broke and I need to save up money in hopes of moving to Los Angeles next year.

But that isn't why I decided to update again. I've had a number of odd musings. One of them I can trace back to my finally reading Allan Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind," which has been sitting unread in my book collection for some time. In the introduction, he refers (very briefly) to the nuclear family and its shift from the more traditional view of the family--the extended family. That prompted an observation for me. At one time, humanity was one family. Then we became nations, but nations were considered family (ie-the Nation of Israel). Then tribes became family. Then a single lineage, as with the aristocracy, nobility, and royalty. Now, we think of the core family: mother, father, children. The term "nuclear family" may be more apt than most people realize, for what we are experiencing, I think, could rightly be called "familial half-life." As time goes on, every few generations or so, we stop thinking of people as our family who are are on the "edge" of our family. Who is next to go could be anyone's guess.

Also on my mind recently was a conversation I had with some friends not too long ago about growing up. In particular, we were talking about an early episode of Boy Meets World in which the young Cory Matthews discusses having his own girlfriend whom he can "kiss on the lips whenever [he] want[s]." Herein lies our observation: when you're younger, a kiss is on the cheek or forehead unless otherwise specified. The emphasis isn't "I kissed her on the lips," it's "I kissed her on the lips." Then, we grow up. I don't know when the change occurs, but for almost everyone, it's taken place by high school. And suddenly, a kiss is always on the lips. Can you imagine a college student having this conversation?
Romeo: And then I kissed her!
Ben: And did she kiss back?
Romeo: What? How can she kiss back, I was kissing her cheek?
I thought not. Unless you specify kissing elsewhere, we typically assume the lips. Now I wonder, is there a reason for this shift, or does it just happen at random?

Anyway, I have more things I could throw in, but I've held you for long enough, and I may want to use those other ideas later. God Bless!