(In the Navy, a “black shoe” is a member of the surface navy. A “brown shoe” is an aviator. There is some tension between them.)

I was shocked. Danielle had to take over with Sean’s ‘breakfast’ and I just sat there, dumbstruck.

I almost don’t even know what to write about him. I loved his essays, and I loved Infinite Jest. His short fiction troubles me, and I haven’t read all of it. That’s one thing I’m almost glad for: there exists writing by DFW that I have not yet read. But I’m also saddened that I won’t see any new writing, any new novels. That’s selfish, I know, but I’m trying to be honest.

What must he have been going through? It saddens me to imagine the psychic pain that could drive someone to suicide. My heart goes out to his family, to his wife, who found him.

After reading Infinite Jest, I read just about everything I could find about him: interviews, profiles, etc. He maintained his privacy pretty well, except for when the New York Times came to call. The New York Times piece alluded to a previous suicide scare and time spent in a mental hospital:

But Wallace was tormented and miserable. Was he really brilliant, as some people told him? Or was he a fake, as he sometimes felt? By this point he was drinking heavily, taking drugs and sleeping around, self-destructive behavior that he figured was consistent with the life style that a cool, serious writer was supposed to have. Wallace is intentionally vague on this period of his life, and what he divulges sometimes contradicts the recollections of friends. He says he never formally entered a recovery program; Alice Turner says he did. He mentions a single suicide scare and subsequent stay in a psychiatric ward; friends allude to more than one.

Is it crass to make a reference to the above at a time like this? If it is, then I’m sorry. But it clears my head a little. It makes some sense out of this senseless act.

I’ll miss his presence in this world.

This article sheds some light.

It’s finally looking like there will be some intelligent analysis of the two candidates. For the first time in my life I am seriously reconsidering my political stance. I’ve always voted Republican. Danielle has always voted Republican. Our parents vote Republican. Siblings, grandparents, etc., etc. We grew up Lutheran, for crying out loud. After 8 years of W (and, yes, I voted for him twice), I’ve been convinced that the terms ‘Republican’ and ‘Conservative’ don’t go together very well anymore. The main difference between the Dems and the Repubs seems to be ‘tax-and-spend’ vs. ‘borrow-and-spend.’

Anyway, I’m just glad to see some intelligent writing about the campaigns. The current issue of The Atlantic has some interesting stuff, too.

Thank goodness we’re finally getting beyond the simplistic rhetoric of the fictional ‘Maverick’ vs. the overly vague ‘Hope’ candidate.

To sort of copy a post John put up a couple months ago, here’s a look at how Sean has changed in the past 6 months as we retire his car seat:

He’s also in the 90th percentile for height and weight, which explains why we’ve been doing a lot of shopping lately. That’s right, we just purchased Stroller Number 3 and Car Seat Number 2. And bought a travel crib. And a new graphics card for the computer.

All of these pieces of infant equipment (OK, not including the graphics card) were necessitated by Sean’s size. He’s about to outgrow the infant car seat, so that required an upgrade to the convertible stage (which, I think, just refers to the fact that it can function as a rear-facing seat until he’s 1 year old and can then be turned around to face the front). Since the travel stroller we had was just a frame that the infant seat plugged into, we needed a new travel stroller.

Being Americans, we were assaulted with an almost unnavigable sea of choice. We consulted the eminently useful Baby Bargains, and we read a lot of Amazon.com reviews. Part of our ultimate decision for the stroller was swayed by Phil Hollenback’s blog post about having a baby in the city. Everything we read pointed to the Maclaren. We opted for the Triumph, a less egregiously expensive model that suits our needs.

The graphics card was also partially Sean’s fault. We discovered a couple weeks ago that our little point-and-shoot digital camera can take short movies. What fun! The only problem is, the integrated graphics processor in the computer doesn’t have the juice to run Windows Movie Maker. So, I upgraded. The good news is, graphics cards are very reasonably priced these days, unless you need a high end gaming card, which I do not. Thankfully.

Yesterday I decided I needed to go on a research trip to Newport Vineyards. So Danielle and Sean and I all hopped into the Raptor and headed up island.

Did you know it takes anywhere from 2 to 10 years from the planting of a vineyard to the first vintage? Great reds can take even longer.

Also, French oak barrels can cost over $600 (but a single barrel holds the equivalent of about 300 bottles of wine).

After the tour we tasted their wines. We’ve done this probably six times over the years we’ve lived here, and every time I’m struck by how tasty their white wines are and how blah most of their red wines are. They have one or two blends that are pretty good, but red wine is not where their strengths lie. I mean, they bottle cabernet franc by itself. Cabernet franc is typically a blending grape, but it grows well in this climate, so why not make it the star of its own show?

Anyway, we came home with a bottle of a red table wine called Gemini that’s very easy to drink and a bottle of sauvignon blanc, which is very refreshing and crisp and good.

I got up and turned on the deck light, which is like 200 watts and can just about be seen from space. I was hoping they’d get the message that someone was irritated next door. They didn’t.

So I put on my jeans and a tee shirt and walked outside. I could hardly believe it, but now they were singing. What were they singing? ‘So I never fell for Vietnam’ the lyric went, ‘Cause you can’t trust freedom / when it’s not in your hands.’ The song was ‘Civil War’ by Guns N’ Roses. From 1991.

I knocked on the door, but no one answered, so I went back inside and called Newport’s Finest.

‘Gooood mawning, Newpaut Puhlice,’ said a woman’s voice. She was awfully chipper for quarter to three in the morning. I explained the situation and she said they’d check it out. They probably just got a warning because they weren’t playing music, but at least they shut up so those of us not on vacation could get some sleep.

I feel like a total a-hole every time I have to call the police, but only for a brief moment before I drift off again into sweet, sweet Sleepland. I’ve made the call about once a year since we’ve lived here, always because of the same house. The rest of the street is quiet, but somehow this one place attracts the Andrew WK crowd.

The reason these late night shenanigans are so annoying is that our comfy bed is our Tibet. That’s what we’ve always called it.

This is where we go to be at peace in our world. Tibet is where only good things happen, like sex and sleep. When some d-bag wakes us up in the middle of the night, it’s like we’ve been invaded by China.

As if that weren’t bad enough, when we purchased a new stroller, I coined it the Viper.

So, who’s the bigger dork? Danielle for coming up with the Raptor in the first place, or me for thinking it’s cool?

And, yes, we refer to our house as the Battlestar.

“We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election.

On one side, you have a bitch who is a lawyer married to a lawyer, or a lawyer who is married to a bitch who is a lawyer.

On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a woman with a very large chest who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there really a contest here?”

I can hear both Sean and Puck snoring.

There has been a lot of snoring going on around here, lately, or at least as much as we can achieve between feeding the boy and feeding ourselves and doing the laundry. Occasionally, when Sean won’t settle down, I sit with him and read what I can of my news feeds.

Literary news has been slow, and I haven’t stumbled on anything really elegantly written (too much campaign news).

Tom Wolfe got a new publisher.

I’m rereading The Watchmen.

I had no concept of how tired I’d be with a newborn in the house. Everyone tells you you’re going to be tired, but, trust me, you have no concept of what that really means.