Her name is Kathryn Olivia Hansen, born 5/2/09 in San Francisco at a healthy almost-a-bowling-ball weight of 7lbs 15oz and a roomy 20″.  She’s got a full head of brown hair & eyes that are a deep blue (at least so far).  And yes, she’s my new favorite person.

No, you can't get this on Etsy.

Here’s what I wrote about this whole experience last Sunday, May 2nd, right after Renee was officially admitted into the hospital & we made ourselves at home in the big sterile hotel room.  Unfortunately I didn’t have time (surprise!) to cover the whole experience in this entry, and while I’m tempted to try now, a week later, to re-capture all the feelings & events that transpired afterwards, I can’t possibly do them justice.  So the labor experience, the cutting of the cord, the smell of my daughter’s head right before they put her in the Cap of Androgeny (the little cotton hat that’s equal parts pink & blue that all hospitals use so they can prevent the correct gender identification of all babies)… none of that is written in the below, and my only salvo to replace it is to tell you that, if possible, you should experience it for yourself, like most things that are amazing.

While this blog will still mainly be for my forays into acting & comedy & for memorializing oblique pop culture references, there’s really nothing more amazing than becoming a parent, and it will undoubtedly affect every single fiber of who I am for the next 80 years (yes, I’ll live until I’m 109), so this is a fitting place for something a little different.

What we have below is a piece I will refer to as:

I Need To Sit Down, or The Day When Literally Everything Changed Forever

We are officially in the hospital, about to become parents to what
will surely be one of those girls who is cute until 7, looks way
awkward between 7 & 13, and (hopefully) grows into the nose she got
from her Dad and long limbs she got from her Mom.

I am… I don’t know what I am. If a word exists to express it, it’s
something like
HOLYSHITHAPPYSCAREDWHATTHEHELLJUSTHAPPENEDWHOAREYOUSAVETHEPRINCESS1UPGAMEOVERCONTINUE?
DAMMITIDONTKNOWWHATIAMDOINGSTOPTHESCREAMINGTOOMUCHPOOP.

Ahem.

Now with composure…

I have a feeling today is going to be the next Best Day of My Life.
And I imagine none will be its equal until she grows up and maybe
chooses to take a similar path and makes me a Grandpa.

I can honestly say I have never had so many conflicting emotions
running through me at once. Remember the show Herman’s Head? It’s
like THAT, but louder and the fat guy in charge of the “fun stuff”
has way more gas, and all the opinions are bouncing around like
Drop Dead Fred. (Daniel Tosh isn’t the only one who can adroitly
reference that movie!)

Maybe that explains why, when I fast-forward to the part in this movie
where I meet this liitle treasure for the first time, I smile like a
loon and get a little weepy. (Weepy in a manly sense.) I also can get
VERY upset when I think about anyone ever hurting her. VERY UPSET.
Like turn-green-and-rip-my-jean-shorts upset. And then I get laughy.
Because I know R and I are about to embark on our very own comedy of
errors, complete with spit-takes, prat falls and fart sounds, and I
believe I’m about to truly learn what comedy is.

So you see, children, today is a Big Day. If ever I was going to
question my own masculinity, that question has been answered, as I’ve done the most masculine thing a guy can ever do… enter the realm of fatherhood. This stuff takes BALLS.

I am currently undergoing many changes. So many changes in fact that it’s like puberty at 28, with less hair & more schadenfreude. Lest you stop recognizing me amongst all the other oh-so-recognizable Bay Area actor-comedian-blogger types, here’s the run-down of all the things that are in flux or that have just recently come out of flux, or that are about to change so rapidly that I’m just gonna call them “what the flux?!?”

But rest assured that none of these change the fundamentals of me. I’m still the only Bay Area actor-comedian-blogger type that can directly reference Freud & then a split sentence later obliquely reference Spielberg, whose name is of course German for “storied jew”, and bring that circle to a close.

Ahem.

Flux Element #1: I’m about to be a father. May 3rd is the official ETA, but any daughter of mine would totally wait 48 hours to join us on Cinco de Mayo & let the world enjoy all the pinata jokes. So let’s call Cinco de Mayo de Diez the day my life changes. FOREVER. And more than in the way everyone’s life changes everyday blah blah existential hooey blah. A FRIKKIN’ FATHER. Buckle up.

Flux Element #2: I’m way more productive these days… and my focus is somehow able to spread over multiple areas without stretching thin. Working, husbanding (not the animal kind), running, acting, prepping for Baby Girl Hansen, and let’s see what else OH YEAH being awesome. I’m like Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, without the accent, abs, orange skin, or pathetically under-developed vocabulary. Wait… so… the only thing left is the fact that he nicknamed himself “The Situation”. So I should mention that heretofore I shall be known as Brian “The Current-Set-Of-Circumstances” Hansen.

Flux Element #3: My nickname is Brian “The Current-Set-Of-Circumstances” Hansen.

Flux Element #4: There may be a marked shift in my creative efforts underway; I’ve been considering the ‘writing’ part of drama/comedy a lot more often. Aside from my ill-fated attempts at using the word schadenfreude in the world of blogs, I’m usually WAY more capable of being funny in writing than I am in person. As proof, here’s a recent email survey that a beloved friend & sometimes-mentor asked me to fill out about my thoughts on bilingual education, which is to be used for one of her MBA projects. Note my oh-so-effortless use of racial profiling, stereotypes, and things that could be offensive but aren’t because I’m Brian “The Current-Set-Of-Circumstances” Hansen. (Hmm… that’s getting annoying to type. Can I abbreviate that CSOC, pronounced “sea sock” or potentially “seize hawk”? Is that legal? Wait, what am I asking you for? I’m frikkin’ CSOC.)

————–

(1) How old are your kids? Negative 2 months… she’s still baking.
(2) What language(s) do you speak at home with them? The only two I speak – English and Bad English.
(3) Do you have family members / an au pair / nanny who speak in a foreign language with them? @#$* no. Those people are @$&*ing expensive.
(4) Are you interested in your children being bilingual? Yes!
(5) If so, why? (And, if not, why not?) Because a) I truly believe learning two languages expands the mind’s ability to think critically and recognize patterns in analysis mode; and b) this world ain’t gettin’ any smaller, and it’s unrealistic to think that US hegemony will continue much longer – meaning English may soon pass out of the “major” tongues of business & political discourse; c) I want her to be able to order off the Five Dollar Menu when McDonald’s sells out to China and becomes McKimCheeWongHsuTsong.
(6) What products (if any) do you use for your children to learn another language? (Example – teaching materials used at home like workbooks and DVDs up to immersion school or special classes). None yet, other than my spotty understanding of Dora the Explorer’s teachings of Spanish culture (“Always abra la puerta when you go to the potty!”) and what I’ve learned from my disco lessons – disco’s totally a different vibe, sheila.
(7) How did you select which language to teach your child? I declared my Aladdin puppet the “Arabic & Middle Eastern tongue” representative, I threw Miss Piggy in the ring to represent Hebrew (I heart irony), and drew some slanty-eyes on a stress ball to represent China (the irony there is that the stress ball was made in Taiwan… HAH!); I threw all three into a death match together – Aladdin strapped dynamite to his own chest, ululated a little, and then threw himself on the the porcine princess with only a three-second fuse. The stress ball survived the explosion because it was bouncy.

—————-

See? Funny. And I came up with that in ten minutes (all except the ‘English & Bad English’, which is a credit to my man-crush Bruce Willis in ‘The Fifth Element’), much like I used to write my Movie Quote of the Week (MQotW) emails. More often than not, I can sit and make up funny stuff. I haven’t learned how to tell a funny story with plot points and characters to save my g-d life, but after talking to my screen-writing sister & her acting boyfriend, I’m convinced that’s a skill I can learn. So learning & honing that skill may soon come into laser focus for CSOC.

Flux Element #5: I’m back on the roads, running regularly & loving it. Several contributing factors, but I’d say the biggest one is that I finally bought into the idea that setting goals will create the motivation to accomplish them. In November, I set a goal to run 50 miles before Thanksgiving. I had 8 days. I did it. Then I kinda stopped – I recently realized it was because I had no goal. I also believe that actually publishing those goals outside of the whiteboard in my brain doubles down on that bet, so: last Monday I laid out an albeit ambitious but still realistic goal of running 200 miles before Tax Day. Two months to run two century bike races. It’s been a week and I’ve already logged 24.5 miles. Almost entirely on pace – would be AHEAD of the game if the weather had cooperated yesterday. That’s right. That’s how we do it… CSOC style.

Flux Element #6: I’m doing less. That’s right. LESS. I recently read & highly recommend the book “The Power of Less” by Dr. Leo Babauta. I’ll let you ferret it out for yourself, but my biggest take-away was the power of purposeful planning. So I now set up each work day with THREE (and only three) Most Important Tasks. I get those three things done at work, and everything else for the day is 100% gravy. I’ve also used it on the personal side of life, but with less success – because I always make extremely grand plans for all my free time, and can’t seem to limit my lists to only three things – but that’s mainly due to the fact that I haven’t really applied my ‘Set A Goal’ philosophy to most of my activities other than running. I’m not worried about claiming to do less at work – because my productivity has actually soared in the last month or so. I’m no longer overwhelmed, my sense of direction & motivation at work is no longer changing every day, and I get far more frequent doses of a sense of accomplishment – when none of those things were true, it frequently meant a frustrating & unrewarding day at the office. Yes, I still think there are other jobs that would be better for me out there, but at least my approach to THIS job is no longer a liability. That makes this job, ANY job, way more tolerable, because I’m no longer relying on other people to give me that sense of direction or that sense of accomplishment. Seriously. “The Power of Less.” Check that sh*t out. CSOC style.

… That’s six fluxes. That’ll do.

I think one of my next projects is to put together my acting resume and get some headshots. I really think I need more of this acting stuff in my life, and it’d be great to do it for a real audience and maybe even not have to pay for it. The classes are great, for sure, but they’re a) expensive; and b) exclusive – as in I can’t invite friends into the audience. I’d love to be in something that people can actually come see. So I’m going to get headshots, a resume, and start auditioning.

Yikes.

Comedy hasn’t fizzled out completely, just been stoking the actor fires a little more frequently. Although I did think of a new bit today in the gym. Gotta work on that one before I forget it. Could add to the five or so minutes I’ve already got, then tighten up the whole thing & make it my first set. That, my friends, could happen this summer. THIS SUMMER.

YIKES.

I would love to go back to my ten year reunion & say I’m married, live in San Francisco, am gainfully employed, am acting, AND am doing a stand-up routine. That would be a proud day for me; I don’t care how good Hylton’s soccer career is going, I’ll still be proud.

Hylton. Hmmph. I’m interested to see where he ended up. Big heart he had. Even bigger brain. His ego was rumored to match, though I can’t say I ever saw much evidence of that. But if that’s what he had going for him, I hope he put it to good use. Either to good use, or to pursue what made him happy, which, apparently, may have been farming, soccer, and lots of Bibles. I’ll bet the bookshelf in his bedroom has at least three versions of the Bible on it. He’s probably only read two.

OH! So this one dude in my acting class completely blew off his final scene & his scene partner. He gets the Douche Bag of the Month Award. Let’s call him Douchey Le Dickbag. Mr. Le Dickbag waited until the first week after scenes had been assigned, and then just STOPPED attending class. And never bothered to tell his scene partner until he randomly showed up at one of her culinary events TWO DAYS AGO. They were supposed to do their final scene next week, and he tells her on Tuesday, “Oh, yeah, I dropped that class.” Now she has to rehearse & deliver a two-minute monologue that she’s never seen or heard before. In six days. I have faith in her ability to pull it off, but I just hope SHE’S convinced she can do it – otherwise, the whole thing could turn her off from acting altogether, which would be a shame because I can tell she likes it & would probably do some pretty great stuff if she kept at it. But now all that’s at risk because of Douchey’s ultimate dose of up-fuckery.

He’s dead to me. No, I’m serious. That’s just a completely irresponsible attitude, and all this shit is just supposed to be FUN. If you don’t want to do it, don’t take the damn class! Don’t risk a scene partner’s experience and slough it off like it’s not a commitment you’re breaking. Shit’s too important to people. Take some frikkin’ accountability, you frikkin’ troll doll. (Literally – this douche LOOKS like a 5’9 version of a Troll Doll, with hair that makes him seem 3″ taller.)

Alright. Rant over. I’m off to dream of a world where people don’t rob from the bank of scholarly trust.

Woke up Saturday morning, feeling fine. Got breakfast, said hello to a lot of our out-of-town guests, feeling fine. Got all the groomsmen dressed and collocated in the soon-to-be brother-in-law’s room, feeling fine. Got dressed myself, put on boutonnières with minimal trouble (and a little help from the Maid of Honor), all feeling fine. Went outside for our turn with the photog, went through all the poses we wanted and did a lot of joking around (knuckles in o-rings & everything), feeling fine (save for the knuckles).

Came back into the lobby of the hotel, and holy congregation were there a ton of people hanging out & waiting for the schindig to get underway. Lots of glad-handing, lots of hoping I remember people’s names, lots of “Are you ready?” ‘Yes I am / Put me in coach / If I see you at the reception, you’ll know I was ready’ routines.

NOT feeling fine. So much pressure. Even now, as I write on the train, I’m reliving it and feeling the tightness in my chest. Not like a fun Dolly Parton tightness either. The kind that makes you sweat. (In all fairness, I have no idea if Dolly Parton tightness induces the body’s cooling mechanism, but I also have like zero desire to find out.)

So after the 43^rd handshake, and my good friend Sobotka telling me that ‘usually, the groom’s off hidden in secret somewhere but it’s really awesome that you’re out here saying hi to everyone’, I bolted. I grabbed my best man and told him I needed a minute.

We made our way out to the adjacent stairwell, and as that door to the lobby pushed back the voices and the sounds of skin on skin as hands are shaken, my head was buzzing. If you’ve ever been hit in the head in dodgeball, and the ball that hit you was thrown by the beefy surely-a-lesbian-or-Popeye-look-a-like girl in your gym class who proves her surliness at every possible opportunity, you’ve probably felt the same type of dull buzz that I was experiencing at that moment. Things were morgue quiet.

As Shorty & I talked for a while, my heart was gently coaxed into staying within my ribcage walls, but my head was buzzy. Couldn’t concentrate on anything. (If this is what kids with ADD/ADHD feel like, they should thank their deity of choice every day for Ritalin.)

Then Shorty tells me his wood-eye joke. It’s not a long joke, and it’s not a fantastic joke (relies heavily on the delivery, which Shorty of course nailed), but I was able to stop buzzing & focus on it. He hits the punch line, and I bust up. I immediately call out that it HAD to be an Ed joke (Shorty’s father), and all of a sudden am picturing Mr. Short delivering that joke in his yachting t-shirt & baseball cap. I forget where I am, and that I’ve just spent 30 minutes talking to people that obviously care about me and/or my soon-to-be wife but I still won’t remember faces & names after today is over – an example of being socially uncomfortable and feeling less-than-genuine in the worst way… and once again, comedy has saved my life.

I calmed down, I laughed it out, and I felt somewhat normal again. Shortly thereafter, the groomsmen and I are lined up in the hallway, awaiting our summons to appear in front of the same crowd (or gauntlet) I had just survived. If we hadn’t continued telling jokes in that hallway, and making fun of Seth for buying a lemon iced tea, I could’ve gone sour all over again. But the guys didn’t even give me a chance. My hands got a little sweaty, and it got slightly harder to breathe, but that was more akin to stage nerves than being something like the mother-of-all-anxiety-attacks I’d just conquered.

I was going out there, with five of the best friends anyone could ever have to back me up, and I’d walk away with the beautiful bride on my arm. Wouldn’t you be nervous?

To be continued…

Coming up next time on WYLT: will our valiant hero vow his love to his vivacious bride? Will dinner be as delicious as the dancing should be dazzling? Shall families find common foundations and finally ferment into fragrant friendships? Tune in tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel.

R gets along professionally with everyone at work. But only Mrs. Smith, whom she works with (not baking pies), is someone that she hangs out with socially & on a regular basis. I brought them over to Harry’s and hung out with another BH and Timmy V., who used to also work for Big Red Healthcare. We’ve hung out & shared stories, but not frequently, and neither of them would be dudes I’d call on any random weekend to see what was going down. But Mrs. Smith’s husband, Mr. Smith, is pretty much that guy, in spite of the fact that we’ve been too busy to really hang out on any random occasion. So we officially hang out as couples, and then the Missus hang out at work and on other occasions, such as Jeans sales.

What I don’t understand, and what we discussed briefly last night at our third watering hole, was why things click with the Smiths, but not with Timmy V & BH, or with R’s colleagues Jai and Swop. It’s no revelation that relationships are different, that you get along better with some than others. But does anyone know WHY?

Here’s why I ask: I’ve been hanging out with BH & Timmy V off and on for, oh maybe 3.5 years. They’ve invited me/us on multiple camping trips, trips to Tahoe, Vegas stuff, etc. We have never gone anywhere with them, save for the occasional b-day party or Happy Hour. And no, we’ve never really invited them to go anywhere with us – not out of spite or obvious feelings of inadequate adventure, but mainly because I/we just don’t think of them when we consider hanging out with lots of people whilst being involved or traveling to take part in other activities.

It’s not like we have nothing in common. Worked for the same company, doing essentially the same things as one another, for 3 years each; lived in the Bay Area for 2+ years each; all like hiking, camping, exploring, traveling, drinking, etc.; all straight males in their mid-20s; all fairly humorous guys who just enjoy a good time.

But without a poker game, a sports event that I actually want to go to, or some other occasion that calls for a night of extreme drinking, I rarely hang out with these guys, and when I do, it’s usually them inviting me, and I rarely feel … comfortable, I guess. Almost like I’ve been invited to hang with the cool kids but don’t know any of the stuff that cool kids talk about. It’s not that juvenile, but it’s early and my analogy-of-the-day calendar is still sleepy, and my electrical metaphor producer hasn’t sobered up yet. But I go and have a good time and usually get left out of conversations so that I can nurse my beer. We didn’t invite them to the wedding (feel bad for it, but we didn’t) mainly because I don’t feel like we know them, or that we would remember if they were there. They just aren’t people that stick out in the mental family photo. (You have one of these too – when you sit and think about your friends & people that you care about, there are TONS of people there, but only a few of them are making “Oh!” faces or mooning the photog, and for me, those are the people that I recognize when I scan that photo, because they’re the ones that want me to notice them.)

Without admitting to having some sort of social anxiety disorder (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I want to leave clinical psychology out of this), I can’t expect to be one of only a few people to have these types of relationships around him. So I’m open to conjecture: what makes relationships like the ones I have with BH and (to a lesser extent) Timmy V. so uncomfortable compared to the ones I have with Shorty, Mr. Smith, Seth, Cermak, Bob, Choi, Moatzy, Sobotka, Charles, Priyesh, Danny, Dani, Erin, Meg? (Uncomfortable is an unfair word. But if Shorty, Mr. Smith, etc. are the cast of Christmas Vacation, BH & Timmy V. are the cast of The Station Agent. Or for a more direct analogy, Shorty et al = the cast of Friends; BH & Timmy V. = the cast of Monk.)

My first excited conclusion is that I’ve gone through very similar things at the same time as everyone in the latter group, and during that time we leaned on each other in one way, shape or form. Can’t think of what the psych term for that is, but it’s the whole “misery loves company” idea. Problem with that is that we didn’t just one day decide to lean on each other – we were ALREADY the sort of friends that lean on each other. Knock that idea down.

Second: drinking. But I drink, at times heavily, with all sorts of people and can’t call lots of them the same type of friends as Shorty, Priyesh, etc. Throw that baby out with the bath water.

Is it sense of humor? I can say to a great degree of certainty that the people I’m way close to are people I’m always totally comfortable laughing with, laughing at, or causing to laugh. But it’s not like BH or Timmy V DON’T have senses of humor. Though I can’t say that I ever saw either of them actually laugh to the point where they’ve bared part of who they are, or that we’ve ever shared a laugh that had its own harmony of hysterics to it———-
SIDETRACK: if it’s not already out there (Google says no), watch this ‘blog for a new theory on Laughter Harmonics – the concept of simultaneous laughter and its impact on social relationships. I believe that when you truly share a laugh with someone, you kinda transfer a part of who you are on to each other, and that makes it slightly less awkward to be socially present together. More later, now back to original programming.———-
so I won’t go so far as to completely eliminate the idea that our senses of humor are tilted just far enough off of each other that we can’t easily transition in the medium that I’m most comfortable (which is comedy… C’MON PEOPLE!).

But I also don’t really know what it was that Mr. Smith & I laugh(ed) about that has made us comfortable around each other. And the only other thing that he & I really have in common is being (almost) married and having (almost) wives that work in the building at 1 Post. Yeah, we’ve found similar interests such as Wii & running & great food & watching stand-up, but at least half of those things we found AFTER we got “there”, meaning wherever we got to that let’s us know we can just hang out and enjoy life in the same space.

I realize I was harping a bit about BH & Timmy V., but this does happen often enough that I think about it – it’s not like they represent an anomaly or anything. Attribute the focus on them only to recency of incident. But it is something I’d love to understand a little more. It’d just make me happier to know what I need from a person in order for us to be comfortable, hanging out & enjoying life in the same space.

I’m intrigued by lots of different sh!t, and if I had the time or the capacity to explore more of it, I might be the next Tay Zonday (sp?) or even the next Josh Blue (minus the palsy). Hell, even bloggers have the ability to generate some cash flow – though they’re either way more into tech than I am or they seem to be able to devote their lives to their blogs. But NOOOO… I spend my time trying not to get ulcers about whether or not I’ve used/produced/made up the right numbers on a spreadsheet. Why? Because maybe we make the wrong decision about the price of ice cream in Anchorage, and then some idiot Inuit ends up writing a letter about how he didn’t get his monthly fix of super-premium chocolate marshmallow banana leche mint chip at $3.89 on special at Safeway. Hey INUIT, you live in -10 degree temperatures! Why the F are you eating ICE CREAM, fattie? You need MORE insulation on your frame? Feel like the door to the igloo is just not cramped enough when you squeeze through it?

But seriously, what Eskimo is going to write a letter about the price of ice cream? Back up even further: what possible decision are we gonna make based on the right or wrong number in a spreadsheet? And whatever number I might have doesn’t mean Safeway’s going to listen to us about it – they’ll bleed the Blubber Huggers dry whether we want them to or not.

I suppose the same thing could be said about comedy or creative ventures as well. However funny my posts are or whatever jokes I might say on some stage, how’s that helping the world? It may not be, but dammit, at least I know that whatever I put out there in the world is making someone laugh (or not laugh, or cry or not cry) and hopefully I’m around to see it/hear it/read about it in a very nice comment post or (gasp!) feedback email. Immediacy of action and results, my friends.

Plus, I like to think laughter’s the best and most universal medicine. There’s a great part of … shit, I can’t remember if it’s Tim Allen’s book, Drew Carey’s book, or something from ‘Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates’ by Tom Robbins, so just read all of them and let me know. Anyway, it’s about how that moment of “getting” the joke, that split second between the punchline’s delivery and your reaction (hopefully laughter) that’s as close as you can get to Nirvana or enlightenment or whatever. (The more I think about it, the more I think it’s Tim Allen’s “I’m Not Really Here”, and I think I might be the only person that read it.) So that’s kind of a powerful notion, whether it’s true or not. Just thinking about that split second… well, no matter how many times I put my numbers & formulas together and come out with the right price on ice cream, it’ll never feel as good as putting a whole audience into that moment.

Learn anything yet?

So last night, I subscribed to their iTunes podcast, and then bought the six songs they’ve got on iTunes. On a Tuesday morning commute, ‘Business Time’ totally rocked me. Here’s a little taste:

“I remove my clothes, very very clumsily… tripping sensuously over my pants. Now I’m naked, except for my socks. And you know when I’m down to just my socks, what time it is…

It’s Business / It’s Business Time / (Y’know when I’m down to my socks it’s time for business that’s why they’re called business socks)…”

Seriously. Business socks.

They’re a little bit on the order of Tenacious D, except they’re less intense. (C’mon, they’re kiwis.) So if you’re at all interested in musical comedy, highly recommend you check ‘em out.

I said the same thing in Lesson #2, but I can only reiterate how awesome these guys are & hope that you’ll all take my word for it. If you do, I’ll see Brett & Jermaine’s fame take off & they’ll start getting more a$$ than a toilet seat. Or at least get another season on HBO.

Now, it’s time to get a kebab with the most beautiful girl I have ever seen with a kebab. (From “The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room.” SERIOUSLY! CHECK THESE GUYS OUT!)