52 Novels

If you paid minimal attention to the YouTube post here a few weeks ago — and an ancient post at Elephino Creative — then you may have noticed a microtrend. If not (why would you?) I’ll spell it out:

Mrs. Novels and I are trying to have a kid.

In a month — almost to the day — I’ll be forty. That means, even though my wife and I have a good feeling about May, I’ll probably see another birthday come rolling around before the as-yet-unmade ankle biter squeezes from the dark and into the light… so make that forty-one.

Geezer dad.

Obviously, we’re having a great time with it all. And it’s only been a few months that we’ve been trying to get her pregnant, so I’m a long way from being one of those strange men who say they felt like a piece of meat after a while, that their wives treated them like little more than a sperm factory.

I told my wife I’m expecting her to punch me in the mouth if I ever get that way.

Of course, waiting for so long to start a family has it’s disadvantages. For starters, our ages put a damper on the process. Teenage girls these days seem to get pregnant just thinking about unprotected sex. Mrs. N and I figure it’ll take us six months to a year.

Also, it turns out I’ve got a pituitary disorder that’s putting the kibosh on my testosterone. Actually, it’s not exactly a disorder.

It’s tumors.

There. I said it.

Tumors.

Okay, technically, I have brain cancer.

But to say that insults people who have Brain Cancer.

No, what I have are two benign masses — each about 2.5 millimeters in diameter — on my pituitary gland. Two-and-a-half millimeters may not sound like a big deal, but considering the gland itself is the size of a pea, the tumors are big enough to seriously mess with my hormones.

For now, my doctor and I are using the “watchful waiting” method of treatment. He takes my blood every couple of months to monitor my testosterone level, which, by the way, is normal… for a sixty-five year old man.

I’m going back for another MRI later this year. My nads doc also takes a sperm count every three or four months. It was seventy million — give or take — last time around. That’s normal for a man my age. And I’m thankful (thrilled!) I didn’t have to count them myself.

The real irony here is that we’re going this route because of Operation Yard Ape. If I started drug therapy (legal anabolic steroids… woo hoo!) it’d raise my testosterone and shrink the tumors.

But it’d also squash my swimmers. Can’t have that. Not right now, anyway.

The good part is that I feel fine. But I do have some manifestations.

I gain weight like it’s nobody’s business.

Back in December of 2006, I’d been holding steady at about two-thirty… a great spot for me. By Memorial Day weekend of 2007, I’d jumped to two forty-five, more or less. By February of this year, I hit two sixty-five.

Makes sense. Part of the thing that testosterone does is regulate body fat.

I’ve since been able to trim my weight down to two fifty-eight or so, provided I watch my sodium. Seems I’m overly sensitive to salty foods these days. Maybe that’s another manifestation. In any case, if it’s salty and I eat it, I’m up about four pounds the next day.

That rules out everything that tastes good.

I can’t exactly stop eating so, for now, I’m not worrying about it so much. Besides, once my old lady gets pregnant, the manabolics get switched back on.

I’m losing muscle mass.

While I wouldn’t call myself a gym rat, I do like lifting heavy things in interesting ways and I do my best to make sure I’m getting to a weight room three or four times a week.

On the plus side, I’m not losing strength… in fact, my strength is holding steady or increasing. But I’m getting a little mushy, especially in my arms and chest.

And belly.

Legs, too.

Speaking of mushy, I get super-emotional during movies.

I’ve always been a bit of a softy. Just ask my wife about what happens to me when I watch the movie FLY AWAY HOME, especially during the part where Anna Paquin flies over the field just in time to save the goose refuge from the evil real estate developer.

Cue the Mary Chapin Carpenter song and forget about it.

Yeah. Just call me “blubbering mess.”

But these days it’s ridiculous. If what’s on screen hints at being even remotely touching, I get a lump in my throat the size of Oklahoma.

It’d bother me if it wasn’t so freaking hilarious.

So there you have it. Too much information.

But there are also advantages.

Advantages to waiting until now to start a family, that is. First among them is that my wife and I have a lot of wisdom these days, way more than we had when we got married a decade ago.

Don’t get me wrong… the wisdom tank’s not full. Not even close. We know there’s no owner’s manual for life in general and child rearing in particular — despite the book store’s teeming evidence to the contrary on all counts.

I was talking to my mom a few weeks back and she said, “You’ll swear to yourself that you won’t make the same mistakes your own parents made. But you will… plus a whole bunch of new ones, too.”

I’m sure she’s right, but whatever. I have to think we’re better equipped now.

And even if we weren’t it wouldn’t matter because Mrs. Novels and I are as excited as, well, we’re pretty damn excited about this new part of our lives.

And it ain’t even happened yet!

People who know me are well aware I’m ready for the first of this year’s summer Hollywood blockbusters. Since June of 1995, I’ve had this etched into my left leg:

And speaking of comic book tattoos, here’s a guy who’s really dedicated.

While I’m on the subject of comics, don’t forget about this:

It’s tomorrow at fine comic book shops near you.

That’s what happened to my crusty, not-so-trusty desktop computer on Tuesday.

Well, okay, maybe not exactly like that. I was at work when it went tits up, so the specifics of its ever so timely demise are unclear at press time.

In fact, I didn’t know a thing about it until my wife mentioned during dinner that something’s wrong. She’d tried to add some movies to the Blockbuster queue.

“I couldn’t get the stupid thing to turn on,” she said. Her relationship with computers is adversarial at best, dysfunctional at worst.

“There’s no reason for it to be off at all,” I said as I got up from a steaming plate of whatever it was we had for dinner that evening. I ignored her pleas to sit back down. My relationship with computers is, um, well… yeah.

Let’s just say my wife sometimes wonders if I’ll ever return from the Vortex of the Seventh Level of Mind Rotting Hell once I step into our home office.

Anyhoo, the smell in the office was distinct and immediate. Something had burned up during the day. To be honest, I wasn’t really surprised.

Last fall, I’d begun to try and save a seven year-old motherboard with a cobbling of pieces-parts… a dark stab at avoiding the inevitable expense of buying a new computer. It started with a new case and a RAM upgrade.

Then I added a new CPU cooling fan and power supply. Propping up the sad illusion, I also upgraded the video card and optical drive. Then came the USB 2.0 port PCI because the old board only supported USB 1.1. Imagine the suckage when loading up the iPod.

Of course, I did all this on the cheap. Newegg and I became best friends. It got to the point where the Web site would exclaim “Hello, lovah” when I’d sign in.

The new config ran like a top for about three months. But it got to be more than the old board — complete with a Duron 950 MHz processor — could handle. So, sometime on Tuesday, the old goat met its maker, sparing me the pain of seeing it die.

I’m touched.

My solution? I’m writing this post from my dining room table… new notebook… wireless router. I stepped into 2008.

At least my wife can see me now.

This post’s title says it all.

Intense Debate is installed and mostly functional. There might be some other funkiness while the kinks get ironed out. But all should be good enough for rock and roll.