I try not to think about my own life too much because I have a tendency to feel guilty for my happiness. Here is a case in point: about a year and a half ago, the position I was teaching in at the community college where I work was change from adjunct to full-time. That meant that a national search had to be conducted. There was a chance I would not get the job because someone better qualified could get it and then I would be out of a job. Over 70 people, some with PhDs, applied for the position. I have an MFA, a terminal degree, but it is still only a master's degree. Three finalists were chosen for an interview; I was one of them. I'm told that one of the finalists, a guy who had a PhD and several years worth of experience teaching at a university, flew all the way from the east coast to interview for the position. But he didn't get the job; I did, in part because I had already built up relationships with students and faculty members and was doing a satisfactory job in the classroom. I was happy to get the job, but sad for this other nameless person whose hopes were drown indirectly by me. I could have been on his end of things and not gotten the job and wasted all that time and money flying to some little rural town just to be turned away.

Besides a good job, I have a great family. Elizabeth and I didn't know each other that well before we got married. We thought we did, but looking back at our first year of marriage, when we both felt misunderstood and frustrated, we really weren't that acquainted with each other. But for many years since then, we have been really happy together. Why? I'm not sure, but just about every other couple I'm familiar with is teetering on the edge of divorce, living with disdain, frustration, power struggles, fear, intimidation, jealousy, spite. Why did I get to end up with a really cool wife? I don't know, but I rarely admit to anyone how in love I am with Elizabeth because I'm afraid they might think I'm gloating.

I haven't used the word "rad" for a long time, but I've got a pretty rad kid. Sonora is funny, loving, insightful, smart, unique, independent but not defiant, creative but not obnoxious, interested but not clingy. Some people at church don't enjoy her as much as I do, because she hasn't gotten the whispering thing down very well and is sometimes loudly observant of the people around her, but I think she is funny. There aren't very many parents who think their kids suck, so I don't have to feel very guilty about loving my daughter, but I try to downplay my admiration of her, just in case. However, an area where many people, especially dads, lack, is time. For about eight weeks each quarter, I don't have much time to spend with Sonora, but the rest of the time, I get to spend a lot of time with her: going for walks, poking around in the garden, looking at the stars, chasing each other around the house, putting together puzzles, stalking cats. I know that many parents hurt when they think about the time they can't spend with their kids; I feel that pain when I get really busy grading essays, preparing for class, and doing all that Scout Master stuff (I'm the Scout Master of our troop and I don't like how much time it takes) and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, so I try very hard not to rub in anyone's face how much time I regularly get to spend with my daughter. Also, we have friends who can't have children, and friends who are not married but would like to be. I don't know why Elizabeth and I have a kid and another on the way. I'm very glad for us, though I'm sad for those whose dreams go unfulfilled in this regard. Sometimes I feel a wave of depression when I realize everything other people don't have.

We just bought our first house and while it is little according to highly inflated American standards, it is a great place. Truth be told, our 1,000 square foot home is more than we need. It overwhelms me when I let my mind dwell even for a moment on the luxuries I've come to regard as basic services, when I realize with how little most people in the world make do. Nearly every day when I return home, I swell with affection for our house and the land it sits on. It's not much to look at, but it takes really good care of us. Here is a link to a couple of pictures of the place taken last November: http://picasaweb.google.com/JoalDLee.

I suppose it does not much good to fret about what others don't have; my mom once told me that if I can do something about a situation, I should do something. Otherwise I shouldn't worry about it. That is easier said than done because I cherish gratitude, and situational myopia--blocking out the situations of other people--is antithetical to thankfulness. I wish gratitude didn't hurt. I also wish others had those relationships, homes, jobs, educational opportunities, monetary resources, and experiences that would make them happy.

We watched the film Juno tonight. I quite liked it, though it was strange to view the adoption process from the reverse angle. Before we conceived Sonora, we had begun the adoption process and were starting to spread the word among our acquaintances that we were looking to adopt, should they know anyone...We were considering placing advertisements of ourselves, hoping to lure a pregnant college woman to choose us as the parents of her child. It felt unnatural to me, this process of selling ourselves like a grocery item, like so much sterile canned food with a flashy label.

So I liked the way the film shined some light on this struggle, but more than that, I liked how the film captures the feeling of an age. When I write "age," I don't mean adolescence or adulthood, but era, or epoch. You see, I've been contemplating of late about what attitudes will shape the next age. I'm pretty sure we are beyond Post-Modernism--with its uneasy relativity--and we are heading toward something else, though I'm not sure what. The idea that a sort of Jungian-like shared mythology permeates the minds of millions of people simultaneously is a fascinating idea to me: Separate from a shared culture, what defines us, the whole lot of us, right now and probably for the next few decades?

Many people have jumped on 9/11--U.S. paranoia; the suicidal evolution of guerrilla warfare; Terrorism replacing the Red Scare in our political dichotomy--as the defining characteristic of the new times. Fear, loathing, and Irony are the fall-outs. To some extent, I think this is true, but for some reason, the reality represented in the film Juno stands out in opposition to the 9/11 conclusions. In Juno, we find a celebration of the life of the individual as it is protected, fostered, by the New Family. Of the different incarnations of Family in the film, none are the traditional nuclear family, but all provide a sense of strength, a sense of comfort, a sense of refuge. This suggests to me that, as we recover from anchorless post-modernism and from fear-inducing 9/11, people are embracing as their anchor and their harbor the family, whatever form that might take, and the communities that surround them.

I jump on Juno as an example because to me it felt timely; the film didn't necessarily capture my convictions, but I think it might have captured and portrayed a large swath of America's, perhaps much of the Western world's, convictions.

Another film I watched a while ago that I think likewise taps into a philosophical/collective-unconscious vein is Donnie Darko. This film was originally released in 2001, so it was all filmed pre-9/11. Strangely, though, it is steeped in a sense of post-9/11 uncertainty; part of the plot involves a jet-engine falling from the sky to crash into Donnie's house. Beyond a deep sense of uncertainty and shifting reality, however, are interesting questions of existence and meaning. Existentialism, it seems, is still a driving philosophy. Or, at least, the questions that is raises are still being asked in seriousness. One thing that Darko brings to the table that most other existential discussions have not, however, is God. God remains a nebulous, remote presence, but the presence is there, introduced unabashedly into the plot as a changer of events, a true force.

The films Juno and Donnie Darko seem to be the two ends of this new age: on the one end is family and a celebration of living; on the other end is the misunderstood, absurd individual who recognizes a god in some form, and the reality of inevitable death with the idea that life and death need not necessarily be meaningless.

So we are perhaps squirming away from the edge of post-modern drift and unknowability toward a grasping of family/community and some overt sense of God or spirituality. Where the individual previously struggled alone in a state of separate desperation, she or he now might be more inclined to pull others into the fray to see if they might all make some meaningful connections that will make the whole experience less frightening.

I think I'll name our new age: The Juno-Darkoist Age. I think the name will stick; it's very catchy.

I've been kind of saturated in nostalgia of late, the kind that is deliciously depressing, that creates a slightly crushing-chest breathless feeling.

But I'm kind of sick of thinking and writing about heavy subjects. Here is a list of pleasant sublimities I've been enjoying: swinging Sonora in a blanket and hearing her completely honest, unrestrained laughter--it sounds like joy; feeling the swell of Elizabeth's tight-skinned pregnant belly; feeling the swishing kick--like the slapping tail of a powerful trout--of our unborn baby as she sloshes around in amniotic fluid; walking outside at night and feeling the clear, shining stars reaching down toward me through the tree branches; sliding in my socks across the living room floor; smelling the skin of Elizabeth's neck; watching the snowman Sonora and Elizabeth built melt down to a nub and be buried by new snow; noticing anew for the millionth time that snow sparkles.