Mo and I have had endless discussions on creativity and how it fades with age. I contend it’s because when you’re young you have such extreme emotions. Love, hate, new experiences, passion. Ecstasy and darkness. As you age, you and your peers become content and happy and forget about those extremes.

Until yesterday.

Longtime readers will recall the conversation in which my co-worker explained the whole sex thing to me. I guess it was more than a theory in his case, because he showed up yesterday as the proudest papa I’ve ever encountered.

He has been pregnant for a long time and I knew he was excited about becoming a dad. But while I was on holiday last week, things got crazy.

I’m not much on Baby Theory, but apparently the pregnancy got scary, they didn’t know how it was going to turn out, the kid arrived really early (unthinkable for copy editors) and they didn’t know if he was going to be OK.

And now he’s doing great.

His dad came into work for the first time afterward yesterday. His smile was twice as big as his face. He alternated between laughing and crying. And then both at once. He had just been through the absolute worst time of his life, followed by the unimaginable best. I tried to shake his hand and he gave me a bear hug. I likely have Baby Cooties now.

His name is Beau. Beau Beckett. You know how copy editors love their alliteration. Dad said he tried out several names on the preemie nurses and Beau won in a landslide. Gonna be a ladies’ man, he said.

He had just assembled a crib at home when Beau showed up, so maybe the timing wasn’t so bad at all. He’s gaining weight every day and the docs say he’s remarkably strong for a kid arriving so early. I’ve watched his dad on deadline a million times so I know where he gets his toughness.

Dad can’t stop smiling as he talks about the future. Baby steps. That was the hardest part, he says. Now just another 18 years.

I point out that with the new economy, kids stay at home till their 27. I can see him doing the math in his head as to whether his crib is big enough for that. Oh, well. Plenty of time to work out the details.

It’s odd. You sit in a newsroom day after day, dispassionately watching the world go by. Triumphs and tragedy are just things you put headlines on before hitting the button and going home. Odd to encounter one in real life.

Joy. They say the central desk is one big family. I’m a pretty damn proud uncle.

Welcome aboard, Beau …

I worked the crazy late shift putting out the Siberia paper, with mysterious deadlines that stretch into the wee hours. I’m sitting here revved up like Dale Jr.’s car before his engine blows in the second lap. And I’m thinking  my life is pretty sad indeed.

Then I glance up at the TV. “I Love Lucy” has made way for the early CBS news. On the screen is Gabrielle Giffords, who is bidding Congress farewell so she can concentrate on learning to, in her words, speak in paragraphs again.

Can anything be worse than the late shift? Um, yeah, I guess taking a bullet in the brain in a horrific shooting rampage is worse.

So now it’s 5 a.m. and I can’t feel sorry for myself. Or think in paragraphs.

The moral: Never turn off the Lucy channel. Safer that way.

Thanks, Ms. Giffords. On a day when it’s a bit embarrassing to be a former Arizonan (yes, I’m talking to YOU, Jan Brewer), you did the state proud. You are a reminder that resilience and optimism aren’t just words. You should marry an astronaut or something.

I hope you find those paragraphs soon …

I guess I’ve known this all along, the sad truth lodged deep in the back of my head in the pile of stuff you don’t want to acknowledge, sitting there with “Maybe MmmBop isn’t that great of a song after all” and “What if Belichick really IS the antichrist and a Patriots Super Bowl win will signal the start of the apocolypse.” Things you suspect but fear to think about much.

But today my defenses were down. I went out to test the sea legs while deep in the throes of the grunge. The neighborhood loop brought me the same joy you have when you’re in a hurry at the 10 items or less lane and the customer ahead of you thought it said “100″ items or less. (And yes, it should be fewer. Damn copy editors.)

Then it hit me. I had just watched a particularly downbeat newscast. Many bad things happened recently, most of them with video. But at the end of the newscast, they showed totally pointless footage of a baby panda. Suddenly, all was well with the world.

So I’m running this loop and feeling like crap. I’m hoping I get hit by the postal truck so I will have a “not rain nor sleep nor running over a slow guy” story. But nothing. But what if, at the mile marker, a baby panda was munching on a bamboo stalk? That would be a glorious run indeed. Even with tire tracks.

But, no. One dog, a couple of startled cats, a woman with an electric mower. No inspiration.

Maybe that’s been my problem all along. I never really cared much for running. I was just in it to see a baby panda. Now that I finally realize it’s not going to happen, I’m done.

Oh, well. I guess it doesn’t matter much. The Patriots will win in a couple of weeks and the world will end anyhow.

I hope baby pandas get to go to heaven. Jury still out on the Hanson Brothers …

* It’s just fun to say “debunked,” no?

me: Maybe. Or it could just be allergy. I tend to get this around the start of the year and I may just be allergic to something. So if you become allergic to something in a couple of days, you’ll know what it is. Or it could be a cold.

co-worker: That’s way too much information.

me: Sorry. Just cut from the bottom.

He doesn’t really have an opinion on the large number of strays in the neighborhood. Or whether feeding them makes things better. Or whether catching and killing them is the answer. Or spay/neuter (ow) release. And if that’s not it, then what IS the answer?

All he knows is that he was starving in the grocery store parking lot this morning, and now he’s working on his second can of Fancy Feast. Kitty heaven.

No, I’m not the stranger. And I’m not sure I agree with the tactics.

So why was I smiling all the way home …

Note to self: Always get two beds.

Postscript: Over four days, we drove 32.5 billion miles in a place I haven’t been in 30 years and which Mo has never seen. We navigated dirt roads, farm to market routes and highways of a dubious nature. Not once did we get lost.

One day after we got home, Mo just called. She can’t find the Taco Bell that’s two miles away.

Maybe there’s a message here …

me: Yeah. But there aren’t really any Chihuahuas.

mo: Oh.

As we drive into town it takes up an entire wall. “Is this big idea enough?” it begins. A clear signal that this is not just another in a never-ending series of small Texas towns we’ve been plowing through for days. “Is change necessary?” it asks. Appropriate, I guess, because this town is all about it.

It’s a little town that once was known for some weird lights in the middle of nowhere. In fact, the entire town was in the middle of nowhere. Then one day it became an international art mecca. The CliffsNotes version is here if you don’t know the story. But in a nutshell, a big-deal artist moved there because he found a couple of huge spaces for his works. Other artists followed. The artsy international elite came along. Boutiques and cafes sprang up to cash in on the new visitors. And the place went kinda weird.

I’m not sure what I think. Brother the Elder had described it to me a while ago but it didn’t seem that odd in the abstract. But you have to realize how small this place is. It’s not Santa Fe, where the art blends in to the city in a way that seems organic. This is a small town full of crumbling facades being turned into craziness for the whims of a few elitists.

But what if it’s your home?

We end up on a street near the town square where Mo is ogling a gallery through the window (Marfa arteests apparently do not wake up before noon.) As I wait for her, I am amazed at the juxtaposition.

On one side is a gallery so cool that it’s just solid white. No name, no information. The art world equivalent of the Beatles white album. A small sign announces that it only opens for a couple of months yearly. Lettering in the MOMA school of Important Museum Signage indicates a Warhol exhibit either there, or gone or coming. Hard to tell.

On the other side of the street: Quintana’s Barber Shop. I watch as a guy in his 80s comes walking across the street to the shop. He walks carefully but steadily as he shuffles in his boots and Wranglers toward the shop. Inside, the barber already has a customer in the chair and another waiting. It’s the same tradition that goes on every Saturday across Texas — men gathering to pretend they’re not gossiping while watching the world go by on a beautiful January day.

What must these guys think of their new world? A place where property values no longer are affordable to the people who have lived there all their lives, and grilled cheese sandwiches are served up with a side of electronic museum?

And what must the art gallery folks think? The New York art scene taking place 30 feet from a barber pole. Can these two worlds co-exist? Should they?

On the window of the local newspaper’s office is a sign for an upcoming 4-H event next to a poster announcing a resident artist’s upcoming exhibit. What does one wear when attending both in one evening?

The sign at the top of this post asks the question: “Are feelings independent of place?” That’s what strikes me about the new Marfa. It doesn’t feel like the new world is connected to the old. It’s a community that could be plopped down anywhere and just landed here by accident.

I wish I had asked the old guy in the barber shop what he thinks. But that would require actually talking to someone.

I guess it doesn’t matter what I think. It’s their world. We’re just buying gas in it.

All I know is we had looked forward to visiting Marfa for a long time. And as we drove off, we weren’t that excited about coming back.

Oh, well. Maybe we’ll come back someday and look for those lights again. And  hope for a glimpse of the good old days. You kids just stay off my lawn …

When she arrives at a motel room, she comes out of her carrier warily. Surveying the landscape, she first maps out possible escape routes. Under the bed. Behind the curtains. Open suitcases. On top of Mo’s head. Just in case, you know. Cats are like runners. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

If you ever spent time watching a tiger at the zoo, you know what comes next. She makes a circuit around the abode. Endless loops for reasons only cats can understand, with periodic curious sniffs and pokes and the occasional “why the hell are you doing this to me” look. I shrug and point to Mo. Mo just gives her a hug.

But this stay is different. As she heads from the bathroom to the living area, she freezes. There’s another cat. BK is in total shock. What are these people doing to her, forcing her to share a motel room with a stranger? She stares at the cat and gets up in its face. It refuses to budge. She gives it the Stink Eye. It gives the Stink Eye right back. BK hisses as the fur on top of her head goes into a mohawk. The other cat hisses back.

Mo comes running over to break them up. She tries to explain the concept of a mirror. It occurs to us that we have only one mirror at home and it’s in a place where BK never sees it. This place has a full-length mirror and it’ the first time she’s come face-to-face with her face. And she doesn’t like it at all. I have that same reaction a lot in my mirror encounters.

It’s a nice motel, but she spends most of the stay in hiding. Just in case, you know.

It’s not easy being a little cat with a mohawk on the road …