I have this bad habit of rambling to a degree that I obscure my point, as was mentioned in a comment over on my LiveJournal. So I apologize to any of you who battled through that previous post and didn't get that Sed is nine weeks pregnant.

In my defense, it would have been a lot more clear had my scanner not decided to suddenly and anticlimactically die. I'd planned to insert a sonogram image immediately following the "conception" paragraph, which would have drawn the eye and mind to the intended conclusion. But when I went to scan it, my computer informed me that there was no such device attached to it and maybe I would be better served by simply jumping off a bridge. However, I'd already written the entire entry, so I decided to simply post it as it was, diluted message and all. If you didn't read it, skip to the last three paragraphs when you do; it's more comprehensible that way.

As to the names we've chosen: there are three schools of thought swimming around in the vast, uncharted depths of my cranial lobes. To wit:

1. Retain my reputation as a wicked tease by making everyone wait until the birth before I even say a word;
   
2. Borrow a page out of Dooce's book and come up with something so horrifying that the world at large will breathe a sigh of relief when we reveal what we've actually picked;
   
3. Just spill and get it over with.

Henceforth, this blog will refer to my unborn baby as "Firstlol." You can decide for yourself which option I've picked.

We'd probably been dating eight or nine months when Sed first turned to me and asked, "So when you have kids, what do you want to name them?"

To this day, I'm not really sure whether it was casual conversation or a test to see how serious I was or what. At that early stage in the game, a question like that is supposed to freak guys out -- it's one that could potentially send me tearing down the stairs of her dorm, not really caring that I'd missed one near the top because after all falling makes for a faster getaway. But there haven't been many emotional concepts within our relationship that have progressed at a leisurely pace. We got past "I love you" within the first six weeks, and meant it -- even college kids aren't dumb enough to miss that.

Ever since, the one constant topic of conversation with my wife over the last eight years, besides which of us loves the other one more, has been names for our eventual children. We've fought over it, discussed it, lobbied for names, offered various favors and services, and continuously brought up the same one over and over to eventually break the other down into accepting it.

It hasn't been an easy subject. I like normal names, the ones that people actually have, names like Jennifer and Alex and Robert. Sed prefers to open the dictionary at random and modify the word she selects until it sounds like a name, invariably a girl's name. Her other favorite work of reference, I'd be willing to guess, is the atlas. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've shot down "Kalahari."

Unlike a lot of our "compromises" in this marriage, I haven't just given in on this issue to make Sed happy. Most of the time, it's not that big a deal to me. We moved to Florida because it was the best place for her continued education, as well as the last great adventure for us as a young couple before we settled down. Turns out I don't like it, but I'm sticking it out because she's getting a fantastic experience. Plus I know our term here will end. Names last a lifetime.

Around the start of July, though, we managed to agree, so quickly it was like it had never been an arguable issue spanning most of eight years. She proposed a boy's name that, while normal, was not the same one every other parent uses. And I suggested a girl's that was unusual, but not so much that our families would think we were high when we chose it. Everything clicked so suddenly, after all those years of negotiations, and I wasn't sure how.

But if you believe in fate, you could say we were just being set up for the conception coming at the end of the month.

For the record: no, we weren't actively trying to get pregnant. But at the same time, we both had a pretty strong inclination it was going to happen, being educated adults and knowing how it works. One of us is actually a pregnancy doctor; you can't say we didn't understand what we were doing.

Besides, we're both ready to be parents, and we're both tired of waiting for the "right time" to have a child. Originally, we'd planned to start upon our return to New Mexico, but then you're facing taking time off from a new job, having the pregnancy seen as a pre-existing condition by insurance, grandparents dismembering each other over whose turn it is to slather on the love, and so on. There will always be mitigating conditions, and so there's never a right time to have a baby.

No, wait -- that's wrong. Any time two people love and care for each other, plan to spend their lives together, and are ready and eager to share a family is the right time to have a baby. Given our early start on the lifelong romance, the prolonged discussions about the whos and hows and whens of our future, it's a wonder we waited this long. There's no question in our minds that Sed and I are doing this the right way.

We're back from a long weekend in Las Vegas. Being there reminded me of all the things I love and miss about the desert.

• It's not humid! Now, I try not to be one of those people who goes around saying "it's not the heat, it's the humidity," but having lived in the northern reaches of both the Chihuahua and the Everglades, I actually know the difference. And if I'm going to be perfectly honest, a lot of these points boil down to this one.
  
  
• There's something about a dry climate that teaches people how to actually make decent salsa. Also, the tortillas don't stick together and only taste a little bit like glue. (Hey, there's only so much you can ask from a place that isn't New Mexico.)
  
  
• Antiperspirant? Yeah, it actually works.
  
  
• Pool towels? We don't need no stinkin' pool towels! Just lie there for about five minutes, and you'll blow-dry.
  
  
• Maybe this one's what I miss about the West in general, but seeing the purple mountains rising above the red soil touched my heart in a way I didn't know landscapes could do.
  
  
• When I was younger, I screwed up my knees (which is a topic for another post), and the humidity in Florida really bothers them. I didn't actually notice this until I climbed the stairs to my office this morning, bearing the twinge behind my right kneecap -- and realized that in five days of stairs and pool ladders and running the wrong way up escalators, they hadn't bugged me once.
  
  
• I can sit up for hours with my friends drinking beers and talking about nothing and enjoying their company. No, hang on, that's "things I miss because I live two thousand miles from nearly everyone I love."

As usual, I manage to pour the last cup of coffee out of the communal office pot. Being a conscientious co-worker, and not wanting to be That Guy Who Takes the Last Cup and Leaves, I rinse the pot, start it filling with fresh water, and move to change the filter.

Behind me, one of my co-workers approaches the microwave, preparing her breakfast. She watches me filling the basket with fresh grounds and remarks, "Hey, you're doing what the Bible says."

You can see the joke coming a mile away. I'm fully expecting some pithy, commandment-themed punchline, echoing my own personal sentiment to not be That Guy. But I take the bait anyway. "What's that?"

"Hebrews."

Sandra Lee's mantra of "70% storebought, 30% fresh ingredients" really couldn't be more appropriate, considering how much plastic surgery she's bought with her success. Not that I am complaining about the new boobs.

I love burritos. Seriously. If I had my own country, the official national dish would be the burrito. We would trade in currency based on tortillas, and treaties would be notarized by pouring red chile and cheddar cheese over the top.

Naturally, the propagation of the "wrap" horrifies me. People nationwide are rolling foods up in a round flat bread and eating them, without even an inkling of the origin of this method. The most-frequently mounted defense of this retronym is that the food they're putting inside the tortilla isn't Mexican food -- but you know, if we can make a martini without gin, vermouth, or an olive, we can certainly make a Caesar salad burrito.

Of course, the Chicano culinary edification of most people in this country (as I'm quickly learning, living outside the Southwest for the first time) stops at Taco Bell. I have no problem with Taco Bell; I actually like it, but it's not really Mexican food. It's whatever cheap approximations of beans and meat and tortillas Yum, Inc. can afford the most trucks of, slapped together in different ways to pretend they're serving you different dishes. Still, if I'm going to eat a meal made entirely of partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, I'd rather be able to put hot sauce on it. And in name, at least, the menu items have always had something of an authenticity to them.

So I was mortified to walk in today on my lunch break and learn about the "Spicy Chicken Crunch Wrap." It wasn't enough that we as a people were all but ignored until last year, when we finally managed to outnumber every other ethnic group. It wasn't enough that Linda Chavez is attempting to convince the nation that Spanish-speaking kids don't need education they can understand. It wasn't enough that walking into a public building immediately profiled me as one Most Likely to Participate in Illicit Activities. Now Taco Bell, our last great stronghold in pseudo-Latino culture and education, is selling the accursed wraps.

Fortunately, I didn't have to engage the staff (paper-hat-wearing high-school dropouts they may be) in spirited discourse encouraging them to please change the menu before I delivered the cheapest possible truckload of whoop-ass. As it turns out, the Spicy Chicken Crunch Wrap is a chicken tostada set on an oversized flour tortilla, which is then folded up and browned on both sides in what appears to be the industrial version of the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine, creating a crispy six-sided UFO-looking menu item. It's a completely new presentation of the same four ingredients, and as such I can get behind a different name.

However, I feel compelled to point out that Taco Bell missed out on an even better and more unique name by not calling it the Mexagon.

Are you having difficulty falling asleep? Well, never fear! My writings section is now online and more complete than ever before! I suppose that's not entirely true -- I've left out all of the fiction I completed pre-1994, as well as the things I wrote after that which sucked. But there's still plenty with which to bore you.

For the first time, I've added some of my non-fiction (and not strictly fiction) writings to the story page. It's a legitimate part of my portfolio, but until recently it never occurred to me that someone might want to read these things to assess my capabilities. In looking over my old works, I happened upon an old assignment I did for an English class of which I was exceedingly proud. "2 Lamentations" is one of the best things I've ever written, even if it is simply a parodic retread of a section of the most untouchable of all books, the Bible. Even now, though, I read it and giggle at how clever I was, working the alphabet poem angle and the state university rivalry into it.

Writing a story and having it published is the only thing I can remember wanting to do in my life. I picked journalism as a major in college because it seemed like the only way to make money writing, and you see how far that's taken me. I do follow the periodic urge to write, to create, to get something down on paper the only way I know how -- I've tried to draw, but my pathetic cartoony sketches don't come close to the power I have over words. So far, all I have to show for it is years of Web publication, and a fan base that just barely extends past my wife.

But a day will come when I find a conventional publisher who is willing to give me a chance, to let my story ride the spine of a printed manuscript as far as it can go. Whether it flops out of the gate, rather than bucking and snorting its way to fame, is another story altogether.

Don't look to me to write that one yet.

Kucha is very vigilant about ensuring the early bird doesn't disturb the Moya household.

I used to take pictures constantly, but the cost of film and developing (and parental scolding over said cost) caused me to greatly reduce the number I shot. Of course, now that I have a digital camera film is not a concern, but it's difficult to get back into the frame of mind where I take pictures all the time. A few months ago I set up a Flickr account to help me get back to that frame of mind, and I think it's slowly working.

The trick then, once I'm taking photos every day again, will be convincing my wife that I need fancy high-priced digital camera equipment.

Last week, I was sitting at my desk at work, minding my own business, when the sudden flexing of my bulbous, Ferrigno-esque forearm ripped out the sleeve of my gold shirt.

I jest, of course. Have you seen my arms? They're nothing you'd call muscular, unless you came from a planet where the appendages of the populace were made from wooden dowels. But all I did was bend at the elbow, and the shirt tore cleanly down the iron crease. Nobody seemed to notice, but I still thanked any and every entity listening that it wasn't my pants.

This same shirt, two years ago, ensnared itself in my zipper one afternoon while I was in the bathroom. I got out of that one with a minor hole near the lower hem for my trouble, though I did lose the pants thanks to snapping off the zipper pull. It should have been my sign that the shirt was self-destructive, that it was determined to find its way out of my weekly rotation if it was the last thing it ever did.

Did I mention this shirt was the most expensive shirt I owned by nearly 80%? While most of my clothing comes from second-run discounters, I bought this shirt at a men's clothing store that caters to big and tall gents such as myself. Needless to say, it was also the shirt that fit me the best -- as I'm not muscular, nor am I fat, but I do have a somewhat long and pear-shaped torso that tends to undo my best efforts at tucking in shirts of a normal length.

I'd write this off as unfortunate happenstance, but today the second-priciest article of my professional wardrobe deserted me as well. Again in the bathroom, the buckle of my leather reversible belt -- a buckle I'd previously praised for its ingenious ability to swivel on an axis, maintaining the clean and fashionable look regardless of black or brown display -- snapped clean off as I was refastening it. The belt was undone by the very cleverness by which it sold itself.

Clearly there is a conspiracy at large in my closet, an attack aimed at the wallet that forced my clothes into servitude. Only the strongest of starches will do as I endeavor to subdue my wardrobe and rein it back into line. Irons will be employed, and drying racks are not too extreme! The mutiny stops here!

But first I wonder if I could get this destructive tendency to migrate to my wife's underwear drawer.

For the handful of you that haven't been checking breathlessly to see whether I've updated this site, the Web sites portfolio section and my biography are now online.

It can be difficult for me to write objectively about my own work. I believe one incarnation of my personal Web site had a section for my writings where each new story was described with more vitriol than the previous. "This one sucks, this one blows, this one sucks and blows, and barricade the windows because here's Hurricane Another Shitty Story By Mo!"

On the flip side, the music section has historically been hypertext self-fellatio (a different kind of suck and blow entirely). I struggled with whether to put that one back on, but as I'm trying to renew my involvement with St. Cecilia, it made sense in my head to incorporate it. You know the inverse logic -- you aren't doing something, you want to be doing that thing, so if you write about it on the Internet you will be forced to do the thing or else you look like a tool. The problem with this, of course, is that on the Internet we are all tools, and it's now an academic matter of who's providing the torque.

So with this site, I'm attempting to put my journalism degree to good use for once. No praise, no derision, no astonishment or disgust or anger, just a description and maybe a little back story. Yes, there are some personal tales in the sites section, but I've tried to keep them separated from the work itself. The goal is to let you, the reader, decide for yourself how good or bad my creations are without my feelings coloring your judgement.

And I won't be hurt if you hate my stories, as long as you invite me to play saxophone at your grandma's birthday party afterward.

It doesn't say so anywhere, but there must be some kind of a prerequisite for watching the G4 channel that I must have Tivo. I can't think of any other reason why they'd air all the shows I want to watch while I'm at work, and pad the evenings and weekends with old episodes of Star Trek.

Maybe the prerequisite is having my pocket protector thrown over a stair railing, and then being called a fag as I run to retrieve it while holding my broken glasses together.