👶 TREE 625: JG – new kid

The week of questions continues.

44

The Vietnam War ended before I was old enough to understand the concept of war. I became an adult not long after the Berlin Wall came down. I grew up in a happy home and became an adult in an optimistic world.

(Yes, I just glossed over a buuuuuuuunch of heavy stuff in the last three decades of the 20th century, but this is about my experience.)

My first daughter was born in 2003. She’s never known life without the obvious presence of war.

The pregnancy that built her was scary because of what we lived through before. Except for one bleeding incident, it was uneventful. And long. Christine had to be induced and our lovely daughter coaxed out with a suction cup and the doctor’s foot up on the bed for leverage.

She was a year old before she slept through the night. She preferred to stay awake and chat. She still prefers to stay awake and chat. Now she’s a boffin studying biology at the university of Bristol.

While the world is pretty grim a lot of the time, I’m incredibly grateful that my daughter lives in a city in a country in a time where she and her girlfriend are free to be their true wonderful beautiful selves.

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Side note: in the years before and after my daughter was born I earned a black belt in karate. More accurately, I bought a karate black belt, then moved to a different dojo and earned it. I liked my first sensei a lot. It was the management style that was the problem. I should never have passed my black belt exam, but the dojo never failed anyone lest the hefty fees stopped rolling in. My second dojo charged me less and pushed me harder. I quit when I reached the stage where the only way to progress was to become a Serious Karate Person – teaching, entering tournaments, catching flies with chopsticks.

Book update

The plan was to release Burrito Van on Selsley Common in July. That’s not happening, obvs. But progress continues. It’s back from the proofreader (shoutout to Lesley). I’m making corrections this week. It should be available to preorder soon. Annual and founding subscribers will get their signed and doodled-in copies as soon as humanly possible after publishing. I’ll be in touch soon to get a postal addresses.

Here’s the cover again:

Look at all this fun waiting for you:

Seeing as we’re back in 2003, let’s enjoy four legendary minutes of popular music.

Grow slowly
Jeff