Responsibilities

My weight is staying around 170, which doesn't suck. I do not feel bloated or fat. I have resumed going to the gym, have done twice in the last two weeks which isn't enough, beet than nothing, and I will try to get into the habit of going at least twice a week.

Toni keep getting bigger. The fetus, the creature, the baby, is very active, swimming around inside of her. A little tiny human, inside of her, getting bigger every day.

The show has opened. There are responsibilities, my job, my theater, benefits to throw, classes to schedule, a book to sell (got another rejection letter yesterday) -- but there are also clothes to wash and put away, food to purchase and meals to prepare, and a nursery to create. For when we become a family. The Thayer-Hansen family. I am scared, and I am unsure. I am nervous that I will be a joke of a father. But I want this so badly and I can't even begin to explain why.

Remember

I came home from rehearsals so exhausted, just wanting to get it all out of my system, and the days have been spent caring for a poor sick Toni ... and you know, I think I am not in the habit of taking notes on everything -- productions, my personal life -- because my life is the full, busy, and largely well-run thing that it is. I do not need to remind myself how to do certain things, I remember.

But then there are the things we forget and I should be writing those down. I hope some can be found here.

Grinding halt

And things are all right and not all right. The second ultrasound visit yesterday showed absolutely no abnormalities at all, but that doesn't prove there aren't any. Just as Toni's increased ABF levels don't prove there is anything wrong. (Uh, I think they are "AFB" levels.)

We were supposed to have dinner at the Pedacis' tonight but had to cancel. At first Toni seemed to be coming down with a cold but now she's vomiting again and can't lie down without becoming very ill. I may be sleeping in another room if only to keep me from becoming sick -- I haven't been sleeping very well with all of this going on and it makes it difficult for me to care for her.

Why why why why why why. I am grinding to a halt here, I can't get anything done except for this stupid play I am directing.

High levels

And things are not all right. Toni's levels are still high, they seem to have escalated. We will go in for another ultrasound tomorrow. I have an image from the previous ultrasound on my desktop. That is a little person to me, or is becoming so, and gradually. But there it is. And there is a slight possibility it will have problems. That it may have difficulty walking or need some kind of special therapy.

Toni told me about the tests not being what we wanted them to be while I was at work. I was crying at the office. I came home and just burst open with Toni. I am so scared, so sad -- I wanted everything to be perfect. Maybe they won't be perfect. When is anything perfect?

The War

And now it's a story. Our story of the war. I didn't think we were going to do this, it seems too ambitious to work. There's very little satire, just true stories of the war, fought at home and abroad. There are so many gaps in the "factual" account ... but I'm not certain it won't work. Tonight will be a very telling run-through. I hope it is enjoyable. Personal complications have made things ... complicated.

Reassurance

Things are all right. The ultrasound (one of which I am using for my desktop graphic) displayed no defects ... the fetuses' head is intact, strong looking, the spine looks strong, two hands, two feet, they couldn't see the very very base of the spine, where a lot of spinal openings, if present, can be found. They drew more blood, if the levels Toni had in the previous screening dropped we can safely chalk up the former test to, well, something else, something unknown. It was a stressful but reassuring experience.

Yes, there are a lot of things you can share with others, or rely on others for, but this is truly one where the two of you are on your own. Fortunately, Toni and I have been on our own for so much of our relationship already, it's just another part of the journey. One we knew we would have to take. I think we knew that.

Worry

Level 2 Ultrasound today. We will know a lot more today and I am scared. Not as scared as Toni. There's a reassuring voice in my head that tells me everything will be all right, and that voice is called denial. I simply cannot honestly fathom what to do if anything were wrong. So I don't. I acknowledge the possibility but take comfort (perhaps too much comfort) in the odds.

My father was adopted. I wish I'd found out why before I chose to get someone pregnant.

Complication

The new year has brought with it a series of complications and anxieties. Toni had a blood test, a screening test, to determine if there were any major genetic abnormalities with the fetus. She tested negative for Down's Syndrome, but got an abnormal in another part of the test, which could mean a host of things including (but the odds are against it) Spina Bifida.

It wasn't the news so much, she knows that could mean a number of things, including the fact that sh has, for example, twins (something she is almost sure she has thought I feel she is only being fanciful) but the way sh received it was outside the close knit loop we and the midwives have formed, it came from a dupe who works for University Hospitals. Someone mistakenly suggested she was automatically signed up for an amniocentesis test (which, at this stage and at her young age would cause more problems that it would detect, not to mention be traumatic and extremely painful) and anyway Toni had a really lousy Thursday last week.

We have calmed down a little, but the fear that our fetus might be deformed, genetically, has made me separate from it, want not to be too attached. What does Toni think? We haven't discussed it. Abortion is still an option, though a much more difficult one than it would have been even a month ago. She has really begun to grow. Everyone knows we are pregnant, so do we tell them we had to get rid of the "baby"?

I don't even want to think too closely on this, see, it probably isn't necessary but we must think about the worst to be prepared for it. But I want to be close to the baby, singing to it, telling it stories, but then I have already become so attached if anything should go wrong I will be one sad man.

Rested

Prince of Wales Hotel - Niagara-On-The-Lake

Delightful night's sleep, almost delirious. I keep waiting to have a real cold but it never comes.

And so, rested (very well rested) Toni and I will return home, ready to tackle the new year with energy. More to do now than ever, including construct a nursery. Not much time for anything else, huh? We shall see ...

She thinks she felt it move.

Happy New Year was spent in bed. After a harrowing, then pleasant time at the Skylon, we figured ringing in the new year in bed, warm and alone was better than doing it in the park with 30,000 others.

I have decided that, of all places here, I severely dislike the Skylon. It was uninviting and cramped. The floors downstairs are bare cement, giving it that Richfield Coliseum feeling, and upstairs, in the tower, JESUS.

We arrived at 8:30 for our 8:30 seating. Actually, we arrived at 8 or so, but it took a wait in line for the elevator to get to the lobby. In the lobby we waited for almost an hour to be seated. Toni was extremely unhappy, with people on all sides, alternately hot and cold, and having to stand.

There was this glad-handing stooge in a yellow turtleneck who cut in line. He emerged from the elevator in the middle of the queue, and never checked to see if that wasn't the wrong place to be. He was from Canton, he owns a Humvee - I'd seen him around town. On these roads, in a HUMMER. What a prick. I hated overhearing his conversations on line. "Solid!"

Our table was a booth, for two, facing out of the tower. So that was good. And the food, though not exemplary, made us very happy. I bought Toni a rose. It was our 12th new year's together. We speculated on future new years. What do you do with a baby?

Toni tells me she thinks she felt it move in the middle of the night.

Criticism

Vacation Inn - Niagara Falls, Ontario

There are things they don't tell you about pregnancy.

Breakfast, like dinner, was sub-par but tasty. Tacky restaurant, tacky diners. Lots of older people. I can only imagine how demoralizing it is to work there, most of their business must come from packages with this hotel. Free meals = no tips, I am sure.

It feels colder today, not inviting to walk around. We dressed warmly but not warm enough. I didn't bring a baseball cap which was dumb because I need to keep my head warm, even inside.

Today was a perfect day for a slow start, we'll do one or two things before our 8:30 dinner at the Skylon. Toni will need a nap in a few hours, anyway. She was feeling pukey after breakfast.

Must take photos of Niagara. My favorite spot, where the falls meets the wall, is frozen! Strange tendrils of ice, pointing in odd directions, like coral. Beautiful.

Ever since the plumbing in our bathroom at home got f*cked up, the most decadent thing imaginable is a bath. We took one together last night, I am running one for myself now.

I have decided Toni and I should do anything or nothing on this trip. She is far too susceptible to nausea or weakness and it's too cold out, it wears us both down to spend too much time outside, if only to scurry from place to place.

She wanted lunch at the Victorian Park Restaurant, where we had lunch in 96, but the restaurant is closed during the winter.

So we had a buffet (Toni dislikes buffets) at the Table Park complex, right next to the falls. Then we went to the park greenhouse. And now we are back, and Toni is napping. See? Perfect.

There was a striking red-head at the restaurant, like a cross between Bjork and Donna from "That 70s Show."

Looking out the window, at the falls, with ice coating everything ... must wreak havok on all the man-made construction, the mist, the ice, the freezing, contracting thawing. I don't know how the trees make it, let alone the buildings.

A greenhouse in winter, lots of frisky birds. I love that. Now I will settle in and read "What Is Theatre?" a book by Eric Bentley Dad gave me for Christmas.

"If you were the playwright, wouldn't you rather have a critic take issue with your play than be so ecstatic that you can tell he's making it up?" - Bentley

No, of course not, don't be arrogant. You are free advertising, if you cared about improving theater you would be in it and not whoring yourself to a media conglomerate.

Niagara

Vacation Inn - Niagara Falls, Ontario

Back in Niagara after 4 1/2 years, now for New Year's Eve. After last year's millennial bash, I vowed this year would be private, just Toni and I. And where better?

It's cold, not as cold as it has been, though. We took off after 1:30 PM, had to stop at an Applebee's - we tried to find a local place,the weather and Toni's pregnancy blood-sugar was prohibitive. Got here after dark. Homely motel, not bad, great, wide tub. Excellent deal. Two nights, free breakfast and dinner at the Skylon, tomorrow night. This is nice.

After dinner at Biffy's we drive down to the falls. Iced over at the edges, the mist leaves stalactite-type icicles on everything. Spidery or tentacle-like.

We took a horse ride, and then came home and defrosted with a bath.

Research

Wednesday morning was spent in the Alden Library at Ohio University, poring over old copies of THE POST. Fall 1990, Winter 1991. Man, how depressing. It really was as awful as I remembered, protests every day, the coverage of the war (man, that paper is really good) and all of those letters to the editor -- none during the build-up, almost none -- but after New Year's two or three a day. Amazing. And SO poorly written.

Finish line

The year winds down, I am headed for the goal -- Christmas. Haven't prepared at all, shopped for a few presents, wrapped nothing, the house is a mess, I have a three-day gig this week shooting this awful industrial film based on "Austin Powers", and I just want to reach the finish line ... Niagara Falls.

Proof

Heard the baby's heartbeat on Thursday. I almost cried, except there was the nurse midwife standing right there. It was very exciting.

Catching up

Wow. Found it very difficult to sleep. Didn't snooze until midnight (went to bed at 10:30) and woke around three or four to discover I just couldn't get back to sleep. Got up a half-hour ago. I want to be at work by eight, that shouldn't be impossible. Big day, I have an audition for a commercial at noon, a midwife appointment at one, there's the ACLU party beginning at five but then I have a rehearsal at seven.

Wow. Glad I don't feel ill anymore. Surprise twenty-four hour thing. Toni is so worried about all the work she has to catch up on. I must wake her at six so she can do some of it. She was so preoccupied with her play, and having sever bouts of morning sickness (she's over them, mostly) that it threw her ... I knew this would be difficult, but I had no idea how much.

Mental Assessment

The Wayward Angel

Things are hectic, at least they are in my head. But they are more enjoyable than they have been. I thought they might, hoped they might, once the Christmas shows opened. The Santaland benefit has passed, The Wayward Angel has actually come off well, it is December.

Toni is at writers' group. I sit in my bathrobe, writing here, thinking of what to do next. I have all day. I will no doubt clean up a little, maybe make the downstairs a Christmas place, that would be great.

I had double-booked myself yesterday, working Wayward in the afternoon and Santaland at night. I got a sub for myself at the evening show because Toni wanted me at home. She needed to do homework, but she wanted me at home. I wanted to be home, too. So I was home. I made dinner. She couldn't eat, but we sit together.

Bliss

Just listened to the This American Life episode, We Didn’t (first broadcast July 12, 1999) which includes an excellent rumination by Geoff Dyer on the subject of procrastination. And here I am, folding laundry when I should be on the phone to the media, But I haven’t folded and put away laundry in so long the heap in our bedroom is comical, spending the last month or two rummaging through clean clothes in hampers to the side of the bed as the heap grows.

Dyer describes how artists have children just so they will have someone to blame for their own inability to write that book, something they never would have accomplished anyway. I know I will never do that. In fact, I used to blame D. for holding me back, if it hadn’t been for D. I would have been such a success in my early to mid 20s.

And yet, it is so clear to me how Toni has encouraged me to accomplish more than I ever would have without her – and I feel I have helped her do more than she would have without me.

And the child. What will the child do? Keep me from directing, or acting, for a very long time. I will need to care for the child while mommy is at work. I don’t even consider resenting that. I think it is something I have always wanted.

Toni has made me feel experiencing life it is own work of art, from visiting museums, to watching people or listening in on their conversations, to watching plants grow and die, to listening to music to beautiful smells, to experiencing stupid roadside attractions. How could sharing that with a child be anything but bliss?

Bring it on.

The election is in five days, and we are coming to the end of a great era in American history, at least I think so. An era of tolerance and acceptance.

Clinton's Era did so much that people are painfully ignorant of now, with two major losers running for President - and Nader, who I am voting for, let Gore lose, it's his own fault.

"What?" you might say. "But the early 90s were divisive and full of hate and vitriol, what about Waco, what about the OK City Bombing, what about O.J. and Monica and all the rest?"

Yes, yes, and what about a female Attorney General, one who lasted the administration despite continual calls for her resignation by the fear merchants. What about the female Secretary of State, negotiating Post-Cold War Politics as we know it? What about the Blacks and Latinos and gays who have risen to a level of visibility and prominence and acceptance in the 90s as never before?

Oh no, maybe we shouldn't give Clinton the credit, not personally, but the past eight years have encouraged discussions on hate and love and tolerance and respect - conversations and arguments about things which were never discussed at all in the previous era.

Bring George W. Bush on.

Happy All Saints' Day

Me and Nick in a promotional photo for Cloud 9

Now that "Cloud 9" has opened and I have a little breathing space, I am trying to be a better househusband. Toni goes off for such long days, I need to make sure more and better food is in her bag. She is ill from time to time (she has a little cold right now -- what does that mean?!) but she is also doing a hellish amount of work. I am very proud of her.