Today the whole family met at our house and we traveled out to a farm called Springhouse in 84 PA where we’ve gone every year for the last several years to pick pumpkins and enjoy a lazy hay ride.

Sherri and I each got a pumpkin from the fields… we were in shorts, though, and while comfortable in the unseasonable heat, we did get attacked at times by small bugs and thorny brush. But still, we had fun. We even attempted to walk their corn field maze, but we wound up taking a wrong turn and found ourselves back at the entrance a few minutes later.

It was too warm and a bit uncomfortable so we decided that with all the walking and the pumpkin picking we ought to not try the maze again and so headed back to the tractor and our pumpkins and our bale of hay upon which we sat our tired rumps. When we returned to the farm house we loaded the pumpkins in Sherri’s car and then we all headed out to eat at a new Red Lobster restaurant that had recently been built near the Cracker Barrel and the Super Walmart in Washington, PA.

The waitress seemed upset over something and wasn’t particularly pleasant and this only won her from us a ten percent tip, which might have still been too generous. Still, I paid no attention since these sorts of things don’t concern me, but also because I tend to feel embarrassed at my families picking and scrutinizing…I keep thinking the waitress might walk by and begin a fight—I’ve had it done to me once, and I hadn’t really even been the one complaining, so I suppose I’m a little “gun shy.” Of course its that I just hate any kind of confrontation. Still, as long as there is good food in front of me, I am happy and would rather think and talk about something else entirely. Yet, I could have used a few refills of my iced tea—Michael, in fact, ventured to the bar and asked the bartender for refills.

For dinner Sherri ordered the two dozen shrimp special and like an idiot I ordered for she and I as an appetizer the coconut shrimp. Sherri mentioned earlier in the day when we’d been talking about going to Red Lobster that she wanted the coconut shrimp. Of course she meant as one dozen of her two dozen special, not as an appetizer. So I had apparently “shrimped her” almost to death! But I did tell her that she couldn’t get these shrimp as part of the deal since they are only offered on the appetizer menu. Anyway she had one, I had one and we passed the rest around to all who were interested in trying one.

I got skewered lobster tails with broiled scallops over a bed of rice pilaf. All of it was very good and, in fact, was a little too much for me, but as I’m wont to do, I ate everything. Well, I couldn’t eat all of the rice, which was supposed to have simply been a side dish, but I managed the shellfish, a salad, and a “cheddar-bay biscuit,” one of their specialties. My father had the mahi-mahi, which was something I’d originally had in mind, but I’m a sucker for lobster and although certainly not the best lobster around, it is probably the most convenient place to get it. Anyway, everyone seemed to enjoy their meal even though the service left little to be desired.

Sherri was very cute this afternoon. She’s been coming up with these cute things to write about in her scrap books. For instance, today she was saying how she wanted to write to our unborn child that he/she has been on its first hayride and had picked its first pumpkins with mommy and daddy. I thought this was endearing, and of course I did not point out the fact that until the child is born, it really isn’t doing these things with us. Well, until, at least, it forms more in the womb when, I have read, it can learn and remember things such as music, voices, etc. Still, I loved that Sherri said these things. It is such things as these that make me fall in love with her over and over.

Haven’t yet continued with my story or the paper I was writing on pointers in C++, but I have been thinking about each. Mostly I’ve been thinking about the direction of the story, but recently I’ve just been obsessed again with reading and I’m really into Mailer’s book, “The Naked and the Dead,” and have been reading it every night. One thing that excites me about working from home is the fact that I can read more often—until the baby comes, that is. I suppose that the time I save driving to and from work I can use to either work extra hours or get in each evening one or two more good hours of reading.

I feel that my reading is probably the best education that I can afford for learning how to write well, especially if I do bother to read good writing (although I am dubious, I do like to think that going to school to learn about literature and writing would probably be the best thing for me).

For my self-education I’ve used Bloom’s books as guides to what would be considered excellent fiction and thus as a meter for what to read. As for nonfiction I tend to wing it; I love essays and philosophy (popular, but sometimes technical philosophy, if written well, I can enjoy) and biography, something new for me. I am choosey about the biographies, of course, preferring to read about men (and women) who have in some way contributed to science or philosophy or literature. I suppose I like to read about geniuses, or those who’ve displayed some bit of genius in their work. I wouldn’t mind reading a good biography on each of these: Pollack, Renoir, Picasso, De Kooning, Frankenthaler… or even Duchamp or Diebenkorn.

I love art, but I suppose I love to think about creating art. I seem, these days at least, to be too lazy or, really, too timid to try my hand again, although a few months back I did have for a while a small section of our unfinished basement set up as a studio. And I did create an abstract piece that I like, but that Sherri doesn’t and certainly doesn’t wish to have displayed on any of our walls.

I can’t blame her, though. It doesn’t go with any of the décor and it is a bit wild, I suppose. Perhaps when I have a decent space to myself—hey, I’m still thinking that one day I’ll write a great novel or create some great piece of software and make it big—I will be able to hang whatever pieces I want and to have the kind of library (built-in maple book shelves from floor to ceiling!) that I want. But then I don’t need these things, so if I never realize them then while I might be slightly disappointed it wouldn’t necessarily ruin my life. I live to live and I make the best of it through the depression as well as the rare happiness, the love and the hate and of course the thought of our unborn child and my fears of it.

I am frightened and I don’t know what to do as a father. I suppose I’ll try my best to be a good father. A good daddy to the little one. I hope we don’t screw up the kid or kids should we have more than one. Sherri and I, unlike my parents, do not fight so heatedly, and if we do fight at all its very rare, mostly because I give in and let her win. Mostly I tease, which I shouldn’t. Sometimes I get cranky and might snap but I never stay mad and I tend to apologize over and over for snapping. Of course sometimes Sherri gets on my nerves, but probably not nearly as bad as I get on hers.

I feel bad for her at times because, as she points out, I am “high maintenance.” I’m never quite sure what that phrase means, although I have used it myself on occasion. I suppose it just means that in order to make a relationship work (any relationship), the higher the maintenance the harder one works at tolerating the other person’s annoyances, which are subjective at best. For example, my snoring bothers the hell out of Sherri, but had I met and married a deaf woman, my snoring would be meaningless to the relationship—yes, extreme, but nonetheless valid.