Personal Update Jan '25

"How are things going, Mr. Torrance?"

I'm writing this from the depths of the January Chicago deep freeze and my paternity leave.

My wife gave birth to our third baby in the middle of last December. We are now a family of five. And we're capping it there. Shop's closed.

This past month has been, like, a lot of work for mostly my wife but also me (and all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy).

Our two older kids are five and three years old and they have little lives that can't really stop while Mom is extremely busy with the new baby.

Our physical range in life has been, understandably, limited.

Also, we've been busy defending the fort and its inhabitants against the incredible blast of respiratory illnesses sweeping through our kids' circles: norovirus, influenza A, whooping cough (still a thing apparently!), and so forth.

We did our best to dodge it all but this week strep throat got my daughter, and then my son, and I suspect I probably have it myself.

So it's could outside, my wife is doing the hard work of constantly toggling betwen feeding and bonding with the newborn, we're all sick, and, like the Torrances, we're in the house a lot.

And I couldn't be happier about it. Truly.

It's great to be available and hands-on and present for the day-to-day like this.

I'm deeply appreciative of the time to focus on helping kids pull on their winter coats, play indoor soccer, read books and watch old Disney movies for the first time together.

But the lede: There's a new daughter in the house.

A new baby girl.

A new human creature to care for, and love, and protect. A new human life that will further dimensionalize my life, and my wife and children's lives, in ways we can't understand, foresee, or, likely, even fully appreciate.

I don't think kids are for everyone.

I don't think kids are the only way to add meaning to your life.

Speaking only for myself here: This new baby and our two other kids are–by an incalculable factor–the most powerful bolt of purpose that has or will ever strike my life.

I am grateful, though that word isn't enough.

Oh, yeah, and we bought a minivan.

The last six years–the preganancies, any difficulties, meeting and integrating new children into our life, growing our family, a move to the suburb–have been such a serious shift.

It's been headsdown work.

And now, it feels, that season has ended, and a new one has begun.

I've described it thusly to a few friends: "We've assembled the crew, built the ship, and now we launch."

Unlike all of the Torrances, we're going to make it out of this winter, and the next chapter will be all the better for us because of the work we're doing in this one.

Cormac McCarthy's The Orchard Keeper

If you have any questions about Cormac McCarthy's first novel The Orchard Keeper, please feel free to reach out right past me to someone who has a clue.

I've been reading (if not perfectly understanding) McCarthy's work for twenty years. He's a face on my Mount Rushmore of fiction writers. I believe he was an out-and-out, true and authentic genius.

But for no acceptable reason, I'd never read his first novel until recently.

Orginally published in 1965, The Orchard Keeper is unmistakeably McCarthy's work and voice, though certainly less controlled and less formally developed than subsequent works like All the Pretty Horses or The Road.

I found myself frequently and deeply lost. However. McCarthy's authoritative, resonant, scrupulous voice (and that sharp and obvious genius) steadily pulled me through.

From the 1965 New York Times review: "The Orchard Keeper" is an exasperating book. But the wonder is that in spite of them it is also an impressive book."

I doubt I'll ever read it again but there are scenes and language that will stay with me.

When he got to the filling station he had a long drink of water and smoked one of the cigarettes. There was a grocery store adjoining and he wandered in, cruising with a slithery sound up and down the aisles of boxes and cans and filling his pockets with small items-candy bars, a pencil, a roll of adhesive tape... Emerging from behind some cartons of toilet paper he caught the store-keep eying him.

Say now, he said, you don't have any, uh-his eyes took a quick last inventory-any tire pumps, do ye?

They ain't in the cake rack, the man said.

He looked down at a jumbled mound of bread and cakes, quietly lethal in their flyspecked cellophane.

Over here–the storekeep was pointing. In a crate at the back end of the counter were jacks, pumps, tire tools, an odd posthole digger.

Oh yeah, he said. I got em now. He shuffled over and fumbled among them for a few minutes.

and:

At that time there was a place in the gap of the mountain called the Green Fly Inn. It was box-shaped with a high front and a tin roof sloping rearward and was built on a scaffolding of poles over a sheer drop, the front door giving directly onto the road. One corner was nailed to a pine tree that rose towering out of the hollow—a hollow which on windy nights acted as a flue, funneling the updrafts from the valley through the mountain gap. On such nights the inn-goers trod floors that waltzed drunkenly beneath them, surged and buckled with huge groans. At times the whole building would career madly to one side as though headlong into collapse. The drinkers would pause, liquid tilting in their glasses, the structure would shudder violently, a broom would fall, a bottle, and the inn would slowly right itself and assume once more its normal reeling equipoise. The drinkers would raise their glasses, talk would begin again. Remarks alluding to the eccentricities of the inn were made only outside the building. To them the inn was animate as any old ship to her crew and it bred an atmosphere such as few could boast, a solidarity due largely to its very precariousness. The swaying, the incessant small cries of tortured wood, created an illusion entirely nautical, so that after a violent wrench you might half expect to see a bearded mate swing through a hatch in the ceiling to report all rigging secure.

So, yeah, pretty smart writer, in my view.

My Best Latest Indie Rock Music Find: Social Animals

I listen to a lot of music.

Humblebrag: According to my Spotify wrapped, I was in the top 99% of listeners for the year 2024.

The Minnesota-based rock band Social Animals was, undoubtedly, my musical discovery of the year. I found them late in the year and haven't stopped listening.

I think I listen to many genres but my first true love was alternative rock back in the good ol' days of the early 90s: Green Day's Dookie, Weezer's The Blue Album, Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, and more.

Those same clear, steady, ringing, swaggery, personality and fun-driven vibes burst from Social Animal's gargage rock music. It's so fucking human.

Listen to "Use Me Too" and try not to bob your head.

It cannot be done.

I... Am... The Caffeinator!!!

"Maybe another iced coffee will help me relax?" — A thought I’ve had a time or a billion. 

I once gave up coffee for a year.

The results were blended: I wish I could say it was great and I never looked back, but really I never stopped missing that AM jolt that is just so fun to ride. 

But as we all know that precious acceleration comes with serious caveats and qualifiers.  
 
"For most individuals under most circumstances, the optimal dose of caffeine is 200 milligrams," the US Army Holistic Health and Fitness Manual (a book I should not own) reads.

“Caffeine only temporarily helps restore alertness and performance. It does not replace sleep. Nor does it fully restore all the cognitive abilities decremented by sleep loss.... [I]t does not improve that Soldier's judgement, coordination, or reaction time." 

"I'm Going to Strike the Perfect Balance." (He Tells Himself.)

There have been days in my life when I have so overused caffeine it caused me sleep and other problems as much as two days later. So, that was too much.

I could cut it entirely. I've done it before. And I do credit myself for being able to actually give things up: alcohol, sugar, red meat.

But, critically, I don't want to give caffeine up entirely either. I love coffee and I love what it does for me when I measure out the right quanitity at the right time. Which is what exactly? I don't know. I've been winging it.

So let's try not to, any more. Let's try to get it correct.

My Optimized Caffeine Experiment

Morning

• 6:30–7:00 AM: I'm starting each day by chugging a full Nalgene (32 ounces) of water. Next, 200 mg caffeine in the form of (20 ounces of iced coffee measured out the night before).
• This with breakfast. Non-negotiable. Usually a banana and protein like chicken sausage (Amy Lu's is so fracking good).
• 9:30 AM: Another 100 mg caffeine (10 ounces coffee).

Post-Lunch

• 1:30 PM: 2 to 3 is when I hit the wall. Or, more accurately, the wall collapses on me. I hate it. I'm trying to offset that with a light lunch and my final coffee or caffeine of the day: 150 mg caffeine (12 ounces iced coffee).
• 3:00 PM: Drink more water, bro.
• If it's an emergency, a small dose of 50 mg caffeine (8 ounces of iced coffee).
• No caffeine whatsoever after 4 PM to protect my sleep quality.

Long-Term Battle Against Tolerance

1. Track Intake: I need to measure everything. Tracking this across each week in my fitness tracker will—I expect—help me see how much caffeine I'm actually intaking and motivate me to further control it. Who knows, maybe in 2026 I'll want and attempt to cut it entirely. (Doubtful, but why live at all if you can't occassionally summon more than zero optimism?)
2. Cycle Usage: Saturdays and Sunday will be low-caffeine days (one coffee in the AM should be sufficient) to reset sensitivity.
3. Hydrate: For every coffee, slam a not-insignificant quantity of water. (Caffeine dehydrates. Great.)
4. Test and Learn as I go. Keep Tracking.

Takeaways

I don't know if there's going to be any trick or hack here.

I think if I take a step back and really ask myself what's going on and what I'm trying to do, the answer is pretty simple: Use caffeine intelligently. Don't be an idiot and overdo it. Don't be so casual that it becomes easy to increase my tolerance and depenedence.

As with most things, putting a plan down on paper should prove helpful.

Thanks for reading. A treasure map to my nonsense is available at LaneTalbot.carrd.co. I'll be back with more Dark Midwest and The Actionator soon!

Your Freshman year college roommate,

Lane