Chai & Brain-Babies

The more I read articles on The Good Men Project Magazine, the more honored I am that they let me contribute my own work here and there. They are doing some amazingly honest, brazen, and redemptive work  on what it means to, duh, be a “good man,” but that M.O. easily transcends gender. Being “good” doesn’t mean being a patsy or avoiding socially awkward topics like self-destructive depression or porn, and it also doesn’t mean giving up a healthy level of irreverent humor. I would sacrifice my cast iron cookware collection to be on staff there.

Speaking of cookware (and before I get to the link for my newest GMPM article), just wanted to give a quick shout-out to my ever-so-talented friend, Katelyn Luhrs, and the blog she runs for an awesome gourmet salt/food company. Katelyn was kind enough to write a post around a smoky version of traditional chai that I concocted. Considering food is a major passion of mine (there’s a whole organic chicken brining in my hallway right now), I’m pretty stoked to have my first original recipe up on the old internet. So, if you’re interested in spicy tea, check out the post over at the Salty Dog’s Blog about my Lapsang SouChai.

Well, that spicy tea isn’t totally out-of-context for my new GMPM piece, since the lynchpin of this expecting-father’s-paranoia reflection hinges on a sobering wake-up call over a hot sauced burrito. Let’s get right to it, then: The opening to “Pregnancy of the Mind:”

Since I’m in the midst of a job search, I have to pop back up north to my hometown of Laconia, New Hampshire, for a few days here and there to do some house-painting work with my father-in-law’s business. I’m usually gone for two or three days at a time, and each time I’m gone, my six-months-pregnant wife wakes up dry heaving.

She had a fairly textbook first trimester—a Magellan-like morning sickness that circumnavigated the boundaries of “morning,” a healthy heartbeat that prompted clichés from nurses like “he or she’s going to be a runner/gymnast/acrobat,” and cravings for things she hasn’t wanted since she was a teenager.

Continuing the most-women-experience-blank formula, her second trimester has found her with more energy and free of the a.m. queasies. That is, until I leave for the night.

“It’s so gross,” she tells me over the phone during one of my stays in Laconia. “There’s no food in my stomach when I wake up, so I just stand over the toilet hacking until I’m late for work.”

“Aw, that’s so cute,” I say. “It’s like our kid already misses me!”

“That’s one way to see it.” Read More

—Image via andymangold/Flickr