Ewy's Playhouse

On the Money

2011-02-18T07:09:00.001-08:00

If you were at a Nepalese restaurant in Golden last night and wondering if the couple in the parking lot was drunk, rest assured that the kids got home safe. We weren't hammered, only laughing like we'd eaten a bag of weed. Somehow it came up one of my more humorous language mix ups in Mexico.

It was in 2005. We were with my mom on what would be her last big hoorah. We didn't know that, but after some terrifying mishaps we did find out that she had gone blind. So by the end of the vacation I was a little hyper about the caregiver thing.

When you don't know someone is blind, you panic much less than when you do. That's from a purportedly sighted perspective, but as compared to our leisurely vacation mode to the resort, our exit was a might more energetic. I wanted to make sure we left the country quickly, and with my mother. That sounds like an easy chore. But in her hard-headed will to do things on her own, my mom had walked straight out of our room and into a hot tub. And I don't mean a graceful entrance, one for which my mother had always been known, but in not being able to see she dropped right into the water feature. We were horrified, but still probably less than the family of Scots using it. They were unnecessarily apologetic, and showed doubts about returning the scraped and bruised lady to her half-naked, hungover and sol-fried son.

From then on I was vigilant. And with vigilance comes bravado, which is brainless forward motion disguised as confidence, aka "Manboob Momentum" for the forward-leaning assuredness typical of its middle-aged male possessors.

There are times when I know I'm wrong. Someone will correct me and I have to go sheepishly back from where I came. But there are also times when I'm so high on, I don't know, certainty I guess, that I'm beyond asking questions and all about throwing forth.

This was the case in our packing up and getting out of the resort. I would confuse the Spanish word for "suitcase". So instead of telling the bellhops, the front desk, the bus driver and all the help in between that I had three suitcases, I shared with everybody that I had three wallets. Here the Mexican populace is weary of Americans throwing their money around, and I'm shouting about my multiple billfolds.
This probably wasn't all that good for security, as a guy who has that many wallets could use to lose a couple. We got out of the country fine, but there's this picture in my head of the bewildered resort staff listening to the cocksure American. I was so proud of my sentence: "Yo tengo tres carteras!" Not only was I telling them that I had three wallets, but that they were in my room and I wanted someone to get them.

Who wouldn't rob that guy?

Somehow that incident came up in our dinner conversation and Sarah was laughing so hard that she told everybody she was going to pee her pants. The kids weren't into it. Quin asked if we were okay, as I guess it sounded like I'd hurt myself. And I nearly did in that gut-grabbing hilarity that has you both wanting it to stop and for it to never end.

But it gets even better. Even if I had three wallets I wouldn't have much to put in them because I come from a long line of people who don't like money. Well, I love cash, but I must say I don't in the same way a lonely guy says he's voluntarily celibate. It's not that I'm completely broke, but my wife must pain wondering in how much comfort we'd live if I didn't do everything for free.

So you can imagine Sarah's joy when her eldest son expressed interest in cash. We had to leave the restaurant and go to a grocery store to get money for a tip (they had a debit card issue). While I was in there buying 99-cent seedless grapes for cash back, Sarah explained to Quin what I was doing. Quin replied, "I like cash."

Sarah perked up and used the moment to foment a little fire about the advantages of money. She went on to say that a lot of people like cash, and cash is used for many things. Quin agreed and Sarah finished with something confirmatory about cash being good.
Quin paused and then asked, "Is cash a fruit?"

I felt some wind as I exited the store, and I believe that was Sarah's deflation. Looks like she'll be working for a long time. But if it's any consolation I've done a lot of jobs where people paid me in produce.

On the way home there was more laughter. Our carteras absolutely full of it.

Gallons and gallons of adult drinks and I still remember this

2011-01-10T14:53:00.001-08:00

I got away with one. Quin likes watching ET, but Sarah doesn't want him seeing the traumatic parts. Well I got lazy and let the movie roll right on through and Quin saw all the drama. How did I end up winning? What did seeing his favorite Extra Terrestrial dried up and near dead in a ravine do to Quin?

Quin told me: "ET drank an adult drink and he got sick and doctors had to help him."

This is such a win/win that it's hard to explain all the benefits. First, Quin saw ET drink the Coors out of the fridge, and now he equates that do ending up sick in a ditch. Second, the scary part with the scientists bursting into Elliot's home has been turned into a benign house call. And thirdly, he'll never drink Coors.

Oh, and there's the part about his daddy ending up near dead in a ditch and daddy worried as all heck that his surviving only means there's payback in the kids.

But there's a lot of depth here, stuff that goes back to Sarah and my childhood.

Sarah is big on protecting the boys from nasty stuff on TV. I'm with her, but not as vigilant. And these days, with every football game showing up with a four-hour erection and a bloodlust for violent gaming, it's good to be on the remote control. My only hesitation comes with the fact that growing up without a TV made me, well, soft. I see even a preview for the latest creepy movie about possessed children and I'm lying awake certain she's going to grab my foot.

This is a cause and effect that has come with plenty of life research. I don't think Sarah was able to watch a lot of bad TV--her parents didn't even get cable until all the kids were gone--but she grew up in Baltimore. On the other hand, I had to drive three hours to see a homeless guy vomiting. I woke up to the crisp silence of cold mountain mornings, and went to bed with layers and layers of stars twinkling me to sleep. Until I saw Poltergeist and would hide under my covers wondering when a tree was going to burst through the window and eat me.

I kid you not, after seeing Poltergeist I didn't sleep for a week. My belief is that a world without horrific images left me pretty sensitive to even the meekest of scary fare. I'm sticking to this because it's the only reason I have for sleeping with my friends parents during his birthday slumber party.

It was 1985. As part of the evening's festivities we watched Friday the 13th part 1 and part 2. I was mortified. My heart raced with every chase, every machete hacking and pretty much throughout the entire thing. After the second movie was over all the other kids drifted off to sleep like they'd just seen Yentl. That left me alone with my imagination in a wide open living room lit only by an aquarium. I did an elbow crawl over to the wall and slid the curtains closed with my toes. For the rest of the night I stared at the window wondering if there was anything looking back. Well, for the rest of night up until I sprinted to his parent's bedroom and asked to sleep with them. They were caught off guard, but my overall desperation convinced them it was serious. My friend's dad went and found some other place to retire, and I unwittingly chiseled my name in Walden Elementary lore by sleeping with my friend's mother.

And by "sleeping with" I mean crying and needing to be held. It was not an easy time to be me.

So I'm just a little scared for my boys. I want them to be a little tougher. I want them to be seasoned just enough to know that the psycho killer in the hockey mask is just a desperate actor who needed a gig. And if either of them ever need to share a bed with their friend's mom, it's because she needs the comfort.

The old and the weak are the first to go

2010-12-03T15:35:00.001-08:00

Otto never wants to be left out. Last night at McDonalds that obsession turned tricky when he followed his brother into the Playplace. He freaked out and I had to Shawshank my way around the hamster tubes to get him. I was a sweaty claustrophobic mess and Otto was pert near apoplectic by the time we crawled through years of accumulated kid germs to get out. At any moment I could die, or I may have been inoculated for several major pediatric diseases.

It's amazing how kids survive. There's a whole world of danger out there and that's just with their parents. Everyday after dropping the kids off at daycare I burst out of the double doors so happy to have escaped the chaos. And then I think, "But I left my kids in there?" Whatever, I'll go back in eight hours when they're tired. Not so. Never tired. And they pick up everything so you're always having to learn something new; some new way to communicate, to distract or discuss the potential for i-c-e c-r-e-a-m. Why for the love do we feed them DHA and teach them our alphabet? Why do we want them to be so smart?

This morning from down the hall Sarah could hear Quin and I bickering in the living room. Quin insisted it was an Allosaurus. I said the large carnivorous dinosaur tearing away rotting flesh from a deceased Pentaceratops was a T-rex. Tangling with Quin is a dangerous prospect. He's hard-headed like the Wannanosaurus, or even his bigger cousin Gravitholus.

Sarah joined us to see what we were watching and to provide a third party opinion. I was right, but I only know the difference between the Lion of the Jurassic and the King of the Cretaceous because we've watched the BBC series Walking With Dinosaurs everyday for the past year.

It is a little violent, and I think it's done Quin a disservice to his sensitivity, or lack thereof. We were watching football with friends and a Denver Bronco ended up injured on the field. Our neighbor asked what had happened to the player and Quin casually replied, "He's dead." He shrugged and walked out of the room. No doubt an Allosaurus would come along to clean up the remains. (Can you think of a better end to the season?)

Typically we'd never show them the raw reptile violence, but it's free on Netflix. The upside is that our children are learning English from Kenneth Branaugh. They'll be a little dramatic but extraordinary articulate.

Teacher: "Quin, you raised your hand?"

Quin: "Indeed I beckon you. For it has been millions of years, nay, millions of centuries, and evolution's blood-strewn battlefield bore the fittest, bequeathing unto us the strongest, spawning yet more strength, begetting the descendants of our collective past, and bearing forth the progeny of the present, which is where I sit, and needing to pee."

What I hope to do is market a whole series of documentaries with Sarah narrating them. In Walking with Dinosaurs Branaugh will narrate a horrific scene: "And the Gallimimus comes to a bloody end. It's offspring left to fend for themselves, an unlikely prospect in the terrifying world of the Cretaceous."

With the unfortunate dinosaur headless and bleeding from a run-in with a Velociraptor, Sarah goes to work protecting her own young. "Oh, that dinosaur is tired and wants to lie down. I bet the bigger dinosaur will say he's sorry. I bet he's really nice and they're just playing."

Quin knows all seven installments of the series pretty well and roots for the underdog to swim/run/fly/crawl to safety. It happens a lot, but beware of the "Cruel Sea" episode where the big-eyed fish trying to birth gets bitten in half by the "largest carnivorous jaws the world has ever known." As cute as morbid can be, Quin says, "ooooh, no!" as the severed tail floats to the ocean floor.

Sarah: "Oh boy, that owie is going to need a band aid. Have you seen your daddy juggle?"

Daddy: "What?"

One more thing to learn.

2010-11-23T16:11:00.001-08:00

For those who live by the janky setup http://tinyurl.com/284ggto

They are, after all, here to replace us

2010-11-23T14:09:00.001-08:00

I sat down with Quin the other night and told him, "You're a great guy, and I love you, but you're making me want to check myself into prison."

We were told by many parents that the 'Terrible Twos" thing was overrated. It was three that was lurking to destroy us.

About 90 percent of the day Quin is a very good kid. It's that other ten percent where you're wondering what's so wrong about kennel training. Just a little cage where they can be safe, yet wrapped in soundproofing and somewhere under the house. People say he's "pushing boundaries." If he needs more room the Alaskan Wilderness is very big.

I try to ignore most of the outbursts, but our reaction ranges from wanting to toss the child out the window, to laughing. It's hard not to burst into giggles when this little human you've let into your home insists that he doesn't need help, and then loses his mind when you don't help him. Or maybe it's vice versa. I don't know, it's so insane that if an animal acted that way you'd have it put down.

Tonight Quin refused to eat, and then threw and broke a dinner plate. I grabbed he and his chair and set him at the end of a dark hall. Sarah was certain I was going to shotput the whole package. And, to be honest, I wasn't quiet conscious until I found myself with nowhere to go holding a child on a dining room chair.

I'm not experienced enough to be doling out advice, but I'm pretty sure you shouldn't kill a child. Aside from that, I have two rules I try to stick to: say as little as possible and don't give them options. I'm always breaking my own rules and kicking myself as each self-inflicted infraction spirals the tantrum into something from Silence of the Lambs.

Limiting the verbiage is huge. When Q loses his nut, I just walk away and avoid him. Or I try, but often I get this inkling that it could be a learning moment, and that talking over the screams of a little person wearing nothing but Spiderman shoes is going to make an impression. It never does, and I always lose.

Choices. Screw them. Kids should not have them. Don't ask them what they want for lunch or what they want to wear or if they'd like to breathe. They love an opportunity to say "NO" and shove that parental authority up the chimney. But, of course, I get giddy thinking that I'm giving my child a chance to exercise his cognition. He does--not to make an educated decision about PBJ over roast beef, but to become one of the seven princes of Hell.

What really scares me is that right now he doesn't know how to storm out of the house and steal the car. I mean sometimes I feel so helpless that I want to fake a heart attack. What happens when they're big and pulling the same tricks? No, really, what happens?

And one other question: Is a Toddler Taser a bad idea?

Growing up I wasn't the bad kid, at least as far as my parents knew. My brother paved the road to poor decisions and back. I learned from his mistakes and found how to conduct most of my badness without inconveniencing the family with knowledge of it. Over Quin's yelling I've been able to shout at Otto, "Learn from this buddy and your life will be a breeze." I haven't made any mention about running carefree through school before starving on a meager diet of charm and deception on the cold climb up the insurmountable mountain of opportunity. But, you know, fewer words.

The thing is that after smashing an heirloom and igniting their father, both the boys bounce back pretty well. Although it's hard to take their hugs and "I love you daddies" seriously when it's clear they're preying on your weakness. Tonight, after his mother coaxed him from his dark exile, Quin came out to the kitchen and apologized. That's when you can't help but hug the bejesus out of them...while trying to squeeze in some important tips on saving everybody's sanity. "Quin, you know that eating two more bites is a lot easier and faster than twenty minutes of screaming?"

Of course he does. That's why he does it.

Decision Day 2002

2010-11-02T09:00:00.001-07:00

Eight years ago tonight, on what was also an election's eve, I was sitting on the floor in a worker's union building. I can't remember which union it was, but they'd lent their space to the 2002 Democratic Coordinated Campaign.

There were many reasons why I was on the floor. I hadn't slept in two days. I was working three jobs. My wife and I had quit our careers, gotten married, moved to a different city and bought a house. That all took place in a month.

And our guy for US Senate was down in the polls. He's what they call in the biz "a good candidate". He is tall, handsome in an 80s Magnum PI sort of way, and he belongs to a major law firm. But the week prior he'd talked himself into a hole on national TV. I remember watching and believing he could pull it off, but every word fell deeper into a well of confusion. He was stuck trying to explain the three legs of America's financial stability. He'd gotten out two, but struggled deciphering the third. With is hands he gestured what looked to be the shape of a a leg, maybe one that belonged to a short stool. Accompanying the pantomime was a smattering of words, none of them really wanting to be together. It was hard to watch.

A few days later I would be talking to voters and one guy would say, "You've got balls. Didn't you see him on Meet the Press?" I tried to focus on the compliment part of it.

It was tough. Aside from the 80-hour-a-week campaign, I was writing radio copy for four stations and deejaying weekend evenings for another. My working hours sometimes reached into the 110/120 range. My new wife spent a lot of evenings at home, alone, and revisiting that "or worse" part of the wedding conversation.

But I wasn't sitting on the floor because of any of that. I was on the floor because I could no longer physically stand. Trust me, it would have been the best time in my life to be drunk, but I didn't have time for it. I was high on something else, if you can call it that. What I didn't know was that I was being killed by carbon monoxide.

You always hear how people go to sleep and just slip into their death. They have a headache but it's been a stressful day so they do what anyone would want to do: They crash. I had the benefit of being a "Volunteer Coordinator" for hundreds of people who in a few hours were going to fill the very hall in which I sat alone. This meant there was no sleeping until all the preparations were done. Dying couldn't get in the way.

And let me just say this about working for a campaign. It starts as just a job, or as something you'll just dabble in a bit. But soon you've forsaken sex and food for knocking on a stranger's door. You start to believe the rhetoric and, despite two hundred-plus years proving the opposite, believe that one person can feed the poor and make your nipples shoot rainbows. You really have no choice: if for one second you doubt the momentum, you'll fall off the treadmill and get trampled by five hundred people with Blackberries. Every third day or so, just when you think you can't tolerate another drop of coffee, someone you barely know tells you if you stick it out there will "be a spot on his staff." Rarely is that positive, but in politics staff spots are offered in lieu of money, and reality. Because he has to elected first, and that's why you must work harder. And you're off again, swilling caffeine and surrounded by doers and shakers and suspicious, fat men who buy you beers and swear one day you'll go somewhere. Plus there's media involved, and a spitting, blowing maelstrom of rumors and mud. When you're in the middle, in the huddle of camaraderie and like-minded hugs, you don't want to get out. So on some Saturday, when a boatload of hot, wealthy yoga moms are taking three hours to help you litter the town with your candidate's picture, and you're the frontman for a bevy of beautiful college kids all fresh faced and ready to devour your carcass, you soldier on.

On this day, my college kids weren't so hungry anymore. Three young women and a guy helped stuff fliers into bags and call potential voters. We were a good team until I found two of the three females lying on the floor.

"What's the matter?" I growled, trying to make my disappointment sound more like friendly sarcasm.

They had headaches. They were dizzy.

I told them to eat something and drink some water. They said they had. I was going to implore my cohort, the third woman, to motivate her friends, until I found her slumped over a desk.

"Sick?" I delivered the icy tone.

She nodded and got up. She and her friends were going to go home. I couldn't believe it. After they walked out I turned and rolled my eyes at Brian, the other guy. He tried to match my incredulity, but was busy crying.

To be fair, he wasn't Steel Magnolias weeping, but his eyes were watery and red. He worked a little bit longer, but things weren't going his way. He'd roll up an informational piece and, while reaching for a rubber band, it would unroll. Then he'd drop the rubber band while trying to roll up the sheet again. Finally he walked up to me. He kept walking until all the personal space was gone. A few inches from my face he blinked some tears and talked in slow motion about needing to leave.

I kind of took on a martyr role. I told him it was fine. I'd manage to get everything done. I stormed around the office, drinking bottle after bottle of water. I'm usually a thirsty guy, but now I was going to wash away my pain. And then, at some point, I sat down and started thinking about everybody going home. The two girls who were sick first were petite. And the third was just as thin. Brian was bigger, but at least eighty pounds lighter than me. I wondered if we all had the same thing, but because I was the thickest of the group, it was taking me longer to succumb. And then I crawled outside.

In kind of a plain rainbow, the bright florescent of the union hall streaked into the dim yellow of the street. I would have a hard time dialing 911. I got to my knees and took a deep breath of outside air. I closed one eye, and focused on the numbers. I wobbled. If I were to die, my final act would be drunk dialing emergency services.

Other than growing up in a wood-heated home where breathing smoke at least meant you were warm, I had never had any experience with carbon monoxide poisoning. It wasn't until the firefighters hoisted me into the truck that I realized how lucky I was to be alive. It helped that one of them actually said, "You're lucky to be alive."

One of the guys walked around the room with a CO2 detector. It beeped rapidly and he agreed. It was off the charts. I spent the rest of the early morning leading an ambulance around to find the other four. Turns out they all were OK, but Brian and I had to spend a few hours in the hospital for oxygenating.

One of the firefighters said that the building's exhaust had been blocked with a mound of old clothes. It was intentional, but I never heard any followup as to an investigation. I did however recall our candidate baffling Tim Russert by trying to finger draw furniture in the air, and I wondered if someone had done it to his house, too.

That night, at the big election party, I got a little recognition. It was Tuesday and I hadn't slept since Sunday. My wife was getting to spend some quality time with a sleepless prick at a depressing event for a losing candidate. On his way to his concession speech, the candidate stopped and pointed at me. He leaned into me and shouted against the noise, "I lost but you're still alive."

I'm pretty sure it wasn't spite. Like "oh god, not both!" I didn't want to ask him to try and explain. It was simple, it was true and it was as right as any politician had ever been.

I don't have anything purple, but i have this.

2010-10-20T10:17:00.001-07:00

I picked at the grass like if I tortured it enough it might give me an answer. I picked at it hoping and waiting for an earthquake or massive sinkhole to swallow me up. It was only a matter of moments before I'd have to cave and tell the handsome, middle-aged couple from Colorado Springs that their son was gay.

Their son wasn't there. He had hung himself from my bunk bed. But three days before, he was alive and cracking jokes. He was funny, he was smart and he was carrying a burden so heavy it would eventually suffocate him.

Michael was everything a parent would want. He was a great student, he was neat and he was handsome. In a world that's far, far away from ours, being a homosexual would not be a disclaimer to that list.

It was 1993 and gay was everywhere. Gay was new to me. In my little hometown no one was gay in kind of the same way Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says no one in Iran is gay. There was denial, but perhaps like someone who doesn't want to come out of the closet in a conservative Muslim country, small town America doesn't exactly roll out the purple welcome mat. But I shouldn't blame small towns or even my town. In 1993 gay was everywhere because of big city politics.

It's ironic. Gay was everywhere not because homosexuals wanted to be, but because a group of self-declared non-gay folks in Colorado Springs forced it there. They put an amendment on the fall '92 ballot that was struck down by the Supreme Court as infringing on the rights of gays and lesbians.

For me this was all new. I was so clueless that the first woman I ever hit on at college was the president of the Gay and Lesbian Bisexual and Transgendered Alliance. She would say "no", and I reeled from the rejection until she presented to the class her role with the GLBTA.

So I wasn't at all presuming anything when I walked into my dorm room, and sitting on a well-made bed with matching pinstripe comforter, sheets and pillows was my new roommate. He'd organized his desk. It was simple and clean with a designer lamp, calculator and notepad. He hopped up, and in a button-up shirt and tie introduced himself. He also apologized for moving to my desk all the dirty clothes and empty beverage containers I'd left on his.

It was going to be a tough adjustment for me, because prior to school I'd had my own room for the three weeks of football camp. I'd gotten accustomed to my mess.

Michael and I were the prototypical freshman dorm dwellers. We started out as friends and ended with a bitter falling out. There was something about his stereo. It was broken and he blamed me. I was mad about him borrowing my car. He became messier than I was. I was loud when I was drunk. Those things add up and in a space the size of a handicapped bathroom stall. The fumes build and all it takes is one little spark. I can't remember the final straw, but I left a week before school ended. I'd found an apartment and was in the process of moving when I got the call.

A friend of Michael's walked into his room and found him. She was not supposed to go into his room that morning. He'd called the night before and asked that I pick him up so he could take me out for breakfast and we could fix our problems. I was on my way to my car when I noticed the apartment complex payphone ringing. For the heck of it I picked it up. It was a mutual friend desperately trying to find me.

Someone had seen Michael the night before. She said he seemed very comfortable. He was stoned, maybe tripping on acid, she thought. He commented on the stars and how pretty they were. She was out walking her dog and was taken by how calm he was, in bare feet, standing on the lawn outside the dorms. It seemed he had made up his mind, written his letters and made peace with his decision. He was going to die.

Under the same stars where we all live. On this same bit of dust floating through the universe. It's seems that we are insignificant, but in this small space, we are not. To each other we are the world. We are the meat between the morning and the night. We are the lovers past dusk and the comfort before dawn. We are the scaffold on which we all try to climb and the helping hand that can help us get there. We are all we've got. For a moment, imagine a world without heaven or hell. Without Harry Potter or magic or a fifth dimension of gentle, glowing ease. We can only be certain of what we can do for each other.

You can add a god if you want. But time still passes. And on a day in late April of 1993, I walked across campus in a daze. Kids were looking at me, talking. I was the roommate of the kid who had killed himself. Some of the less tactful asked if it were true that I got an automatic 4.0. I didn't.

In the distance there was a tree on a hill. It stood still as college kids walked past it. They would keep on walking, through school, internships, their trip to Europe and into their adult lives. The tree would loom in the background--perspective for perpetual motion. I got a chill knowing that I would one day leave campus and move onto other things, but Michael would not.

Screwed down to a microscopic focus so tight you've cracked the lens, there I was on the back lawn of a stranger's home. A friend of the family offered their Durango house for an informal celebration of life. Everyone was inside hugging and sharing the pleasant smiles and laughter that perforate the darkness of death. Michael's parents arrived from Colorado Springs and requested I join them in private. They wanted to know why.

They sat together. They were imposing and beautiful in the sun by the aspen trees. Middle aged but well kept, he had a full head of dignified silver, and she was gray, but put together like a Lego person. Sharp angles and sleek.

"Yes. Why?" she repeated. "We want to know anything you know about what Michael was thinking."

She looked at me, piercing. He joined her. They looked like they were posing for a political piece.

"We don't have our son, Jared," he filled. "All we have left are questions."

I looked down between my Indian-style lap and picked at the grass some more. I couldn't dig fast enough.

I like to be quick with answers but this was, apparently, an answer in lieu of their living son. I thought about the truth, or at least what I knew of it. I figured they should know it.

When "homosexual" rolled out of my mouth it didn't feel like word. It felt like a sea cucumber or mound of mud. I didn't know if I'd said it correctly. I repeated it louder and simpler: "He was gay."

I paused. His parents squinted like my vertical hold had gone.

I just kept going. I couldn't stop myself.

"I think he died because he was gay. He was gay and had no idea how to explain it to you or the world."

I could have set myself on fire and his parents would not have budged. They were paralyzed.

I went on to tell them about how I believed he'd come out, and then regretted it. Every few days we'd get a call from the GLBTA. A familiar female voice would ask for Michael and ask how he was doing. Often heâ€™d be in the room but would refuse to get on the phone. One day, when he was gone, a professor called and asked for Michael. I knew the professor so asked if I could help. He'd been crying.

He told me that he'd just read Michael's paper. He said it was the most moving student piece he'd ever read. It was a story about the struggle of an oppressed woman.

Michael's parents cried. I cried. I don't remember much after that. The day smeared into a Monet of self doubt. I don't know how long I sat out there, but I fielded questions about a dead man's sexuality until my face was hot with sun burn. It was a small sacrifice compared to the shattered existence of a mother and father.

A few weeks later they would send me a letter. It said nothing of Michael's sexuality. Just that they missed him and they chose to remember him as they knew him. I guess that said a lot.

Not too long after that I ran into one of Michael's friends at a party. She said she could never forgive him for killing himself. I wasn't sure what to think. He's dead. All the kids he knew are going to grow up chase after their dreams. Michael won't get to do that. And I wondered if it was him who needed the forgiving, or a world that made him think he had no reason to live.

Mourning the loss of another sensible, financially sound lifestyle.

2010-10-15T07:52:00.001-07:00

We have several friends who are about to have their first kid. I wanted to make a list of things they should do before it's out of its convenient carrying case.

Take a nap. Go out to eat and then see a movie. Nap during the movie. Then go back out for a late meal. Wake up and have a three and a half hour breakfast where the only person you're worried about running off is you after your second pot of bottomless coffee. Break something glass and leave it on the floor, and then stay up all night playing Nintendo. Cuss. Cuss like a fucking shit-faced cockwad sailor with a penchant for pussy, tits and ass. Cuss until you can't stand yourself. Cunt. Wear formal attire just for the hell of it. If you're the father, drink. This is your moment to relish one of the little known highlights of a pregnancy; a designated driver with big boobs. Mom, you need to be sober for many reasons, but being lucid is so important to savor every moment of every peaceful meal, every sip of something without floaties, every solo trip to the bathroom, and every conversation with an adult. Nothing will ever be yours again, and in about a year you'll hear yourself talk and wonder when the hell you became that annoying parent you swear you'd never be. Don't go to McDonalds. Don't do it. You'll get plenty. Go to a real restaurant and order your food cooked slow. Get several appetizers, several desserts and extra steak knives just to carelessly place around the table. Read. Read with porn playing loudly in the background. Listen to gangster rap and the Dropkick Murphys. Impulsively go to a concert you don't even care about. Call your friend with kids and ask if they want to go. Challenge yourself to see how last minute you can do things. As you leave the house breathe deep the air of spontaneity, maybe leave the porn playing. Appreciate logic. Watch sports, or whatever your favorite show is. First, switch to PBS to make sure cartoons are on, then flip away to your favorite show. Do this over and over while loudly wishing horrible, violent things on Elmo, Bob the Builder and that shit Caillou. Cuss while having sex. Make some noise you've never made before. Do an animal impersonation. Break the bed. Book a trip on a plane to wherever. Pack a bunch of liquids and knives so the delays in security are all your own. Relish controlling your own chaos. Board the craft and be sure to be indignant about the crying kids. It is a shame that some people should be so thoughtless. Get a convertible coupe rental car with barely enough room for yourselves. Go to a body of water and be careless about the shoreline. Go to Vegas and get a hooker. Pay her by the hour to discuss what her parents did wrong. Vocalize criticism of your spouse. Verbalize all the negative things about the people you know. Go. Go now and be free with your dark, inner, nonparental beast. Love the animals in your house. Talk to the plants. Go to all the parties you can and be the life by saying you'll never take your kids for fast food and you'll never sit them in front of the TV and you'll never buy them those stupid light-up shoes. Go mofos! It's time to spread your wings and fart like a drunk trucker. Get over yourself and laugh at burps and take notes on all the stupid shit you do all day just so you'll remember what you did with your time. Get on with it! Get to the beach, start a bar fight in Mexico, cook something that's not shaped like a zoo animal! Smell broccoli like it's a rare flower, put saffron and thyme and basil in things. Eat a pan of brownies, chug a wine cooler, smoke something and don't give a damn who sees you do it. Celebrate the shit out of your birthday and buy absolutely nothing for no one for Christmas. The clock is ticking. The person you know as you is about to die, so live it up. Fill that bucket list up with debauchery and opulence and vast swaths of sloth without once somebody rubbing a booger on you. Or wipe a boog on yourself while shouting something morbid about the tooth fairy.

Go. Godspeed. Explore what's beyond that childproof gate. And whatever you do, tell us about it. You are our Magellan and we are starved for your spicy adventures.ï»¿!

OTTO THE GREAT, great pain in the ass

2010-10-12T15:07:00.001-07:00

Today was a cluster. I'm always overreaching. Icarus, please help. I'm sunburned and I haven't even gotten off the ground.

Today was the fourth day of my four-day weekend. I told my boss I wanted to use up some of my comp time. He suggested I take Friday to extend the three-day Columbus Day weekend. I was thrilled. I had visions of sleeping, taking three-hour lunches, drinking and writing about the Great American Experience, or mine. The latter availed itself.

I totally deserve what I got. It was Karma for flaunting my vacation to Sarah who, after the Summer of Sick, has absolutely no days off left. Sarah was so happy to break her news to me: The boys would not have school on Monday. I was on the hook for daycare or, you know, being a parent for an entire day.

I can't wait to get back to work.

Now I think as far as fathers go, I spend an enormous amount of time with my boys. The neighbors comment how everyday they see us go to the park with Otto, Paco, Quin, Quin's bike, a ball, snacks and beverages. The problem is that even on those trips across the street, I try to do too much. I think I have my reasons, but first let me tell you what happened today.

My plan was to go to Boulder and see the boys' great grandmother, and then over to Niwot to see their great aunt. It would be a great day. Sarah told me not to do too much. I chuckled and told her not to worry as she headed off to the train to work.

The issue is this: In my head I imagine things as they should be, not as they will be. Now to get an accurate picture of "will be", you have to incorporate some delays like traffic, temper tantrums, potty breaks, snacks and tempests of toddler snot. I picture all of those obstacles in my head, but I don't incorporate them with the timeline borrowed from a fifties sitcom, where everything rolls along smoothly, there's happy music playing, and not once does my sixteen-month-old son dive into a fish pond at an assisted living facility.

We got back from the neighborhood park at approximately 11am. With a groan I set down Otto, and with a grunt I pulled Quin's trike up to the front steps. To make my overreaching more possible, I was pulling him and his bike with a dog leash. I had a second dog leash in the same hand, that one for the sixty-pound narrow-minded muscle that nearly killed us when he tried to pursue a cat across the street.
This is bad. I should know this is bad. I put the lives of several species at risk with one trip to the park, which is fifty yards away. Involving a grandmother, an aunt, a long drive and two children should not be allowed.

We got to Grandma's home at noon, but we decided to wait for my sister to show up before we headed into the labyrinthine depths of her living quarters. I'm convinced half of those people don't have Alzheimer's, they're just lost in there. Laura (sister) was nearly an hour late, and by then the boys enthusiasm for the lobby aquarium was giving way to hunger. Otto was protesting the meager sating offered by the animal crackers and Quin, a boy who I think lives on the microbes in the air, actually asked that we eat lunch.

This is all very scary because these children come from two adults who can't handle hunger. I get delusional, I ramble and I'm easily irritated. That's a bad combo because it means I believe there's going to be a restaurant right around the next corner, and when there's not, I go on a tirade about the lack of city planning and viable food options and if we as a nation don't do something about our diet we'll destroy the planet and everybody should know this including entrepreneurs who should have started a restaurant--wait, I should start a restaurant. Honey?

And she's crying and laughing at the series of life decisions that have lead to this moment. When Sarah is hungry she has the emotional strength of an Extreme Home Makeover family, but unfortunately she has the angry resolve of an America's Most Wanted. She's ticked and she wants to do something about her dumbass husband driving aimlessly and yelling at buildings that aren't restaurants, but all she can do is cry.

With the boys getting fussy, I was about to bail on the whole deal. That's when Laura showed up and everybody was distracted by happiness. We all went to the courtyard of the complex and looked at the fish in the pond. Otto wouldn't stop making advances at the water. He was obstinate about getting in. I grabbed and gave him the stern "no" which, once he has his mind set on something, is like scolding a rock. Finally, he got his wish. He dove into the pond.

I grabbed him in the "oh shit my god fuck" fashion that makes you move at the speed of "balls just got cattle prodded," and I grabbed him from the rather shallow depths of the water feature's feeding stream. Laura took over the other two boys and I stormed into a quiet room where a family was having an end-of-life discussion about a loved one. Before them I wrestled a poopy, swamp-smelling baby to the floor. Of course I didn't know he was poopy until I removed what I thought was just a wet diaper, and Otto, with crap smeared on his back, scurried screaming past the bereaved and into the lobby.

I finally wrangled the beloved boy, and assembled the family remnants for the great grandmother visit. We marched through the halls with a quiet determination, eventually finding grandma at lunch. It was a crowded room and the attention was a little overwhelming for the boys. Grandma looks great. I explained to her that she had a kid, who had kid, who had a kid. As I said it I couldn't believe it was true, and that she was responsible for all this mess.

We weren't there long because we had to eat. We found some food and gathered at a nearby park. The first thing Otto did was catch a bumblebee. Yes, he caught it with his little hand, and the terrified bug stung his thumb. He (Otto) lost his mind. I imagine the bee is going to have some issues as well.

His poor little thumb. It looks like when Fred Flinstone hits his hand with a hammer and it gets all fat and red and throbbing. I was so sad for him, and he was a wreck. We did what we could to make something of the day, but it was time to go home. The boys were unconscious about five minutes into the drive.

I checked them in the mirror and sighed at their greatness. I also noticed I had sunburned the heck out of my head.

But I'll do it again. Otto scares the hell out of me. He's that kid who has come back to haunt me. He is this new version of me attempting all the dangerous stuff I did as a kid: jumping from bridges, lighting myself on fire, wrecking bikes, running into fences and whatever else I never thought was a big deal until it waddled up and called me daddy. My life, infant incarnate. Because of this, I hope that I can give he and his brother as much attention as possible. That way they may not try and get it in some really stupid fashion.

Or maybe maybe if they spend a lot of time with me they'll opt to stay home and be safe.

pretty much all you need to know about males

2010-10-07T13:51:00.001-07:00

Today Quin told me I had a big penis. That was very nice of him. I know I'm supposed to discourage that kind of talk, but that deserved a high five.

While it has been neat for me to tell someone else to stop touching themselves, the whole penis obsession has been hard to watch.

I have so many people to apologize to.

Quin is pretty smart, and when he loses to temptation, says, "I know, bedroom or bathroom," and heads off to whichever is closest. We had an interesting altercation at a friend's house. He was in their playroom being way too quiet for comfort. I went to check on him and found him with his pants down. I reacted with authentic shock and snapped, "Quin, don't do that!"

He ripped back at me, "Don't look at me!" That's his pre-pre-teen response to anything he doesn't like. He then closed the door, which would have been fine if it weren't glass.

His take on his genitalia is still very innocent. He proclaims that it tickles, and that it can grow. Why wouldn't you be enthralled? What other body part does that? The penis is pretty awesome. Quin celebrated these revelations, or at least that's what I think he was doing, when I saw him in the bathroom, pants down, doing something like air guitar, shouting "penis, penis, penis!" at the top of his lungs. I can't see a girl the same age shouting vagina over and over again. Maybe they're more civilized; maybe it's because it doesn't grow.

Both Quin and Otto need to spend less time distracted and more time focusing on not falling. Otto has an excuse. He's still toddling, and toddling comes with a price. I remember when Quin was first walking I actually Googled, "How many times toddler hit head retarded." I didn't come up with much other than copious antidotes of parents talking about their children wrecking themselves.

Three out of the last four days, Otto has had an accident report at school. Last week someone bit him. His teacher didn't specify who, I guess worried I'd be bent on retribution against a 16 month old. The next day he had a report for falling and hitting his head. He's got a bruise on his cheek and a small, purple horn on on the left side of his forehead. When you're a guy carrying a baby covered in bruises, our fear-soaked society of Nancy Grace gawkers becomes rather suspicious. I put his hood up when I went into the store with him.

And then today he had another report. He hit his head again. He has a horn to match on his right side. Now I'm getting suspicious. Who's beating my child? Sadly, it's probably himself, but vengeance against Nathan, Francis or Onofre is starting to sound justified. I'll tell them Thomas the Tank Engine died in a horrible bridge accident.

Yesterday I went into school and the director stopped me before I could get to Quin's classroom. She was urgent about her calm explanation as to why I'd be shocked when I saw my son's nose. Apparently Quin was doing a puppet show. During his performance he leaned too far into the stage, and it went down. He went with it, his face protruding from the stage's opening. A swollen, blue line across his nose depicts where he headbutted a box of puppets.

What's new and weird is being able to have full conversations with Quin. I don't remember when this first happened. In the early days I was never sure what he was saying. His inflection would be filled with purpose and I'd wonder what to say. He sounded like he needed an answer, but I didn't want to confirm something that was wrong or deny something that was right. He'd inqire if I were a fascist and I'd get all excited and exclaim "yes!" thinking he asked if I was the fastest.

Yesterday he started talking about his friend Ryan at school. I don't know how we got into this conversation, and I rarely do. Quin declares the strangest things. The other day we were getting into the car and he said he didn't like salad. He was very serious about it. If you want to know anything about marketing and how to brand yourself, just talk with a three year old. They're always letting you know things about themselves that you can't forget. Try that next time at an important meeting. Right in the middle of talk about budget cuts announce that when you touch your penis it grows. You'll never be forgotten.

Anyway, Q is telling me that he's not friends with Ryan anymore because Ryan punches him. I slowed down the car like I was going to do turn around and actually do something about it. I guess the ladies were right not to reveal the biter. I told Q he needed to tell the teacher if Ryan ever hit him again. And it took a lot of strength--and even some more slowing down so I could concentrate--to not tell him to pop Ryan in the nose. As if he'd read my mind, or maybe saw my hands on the steering wheel, Quin conjured a pacifist mantra: "I don't hit people."

His counter punch had me laying on the accolades. That's so good Q, I told him. And it is really good. Now if we can just keep the bad influences from screwing you up, you know, like your dad.

pretty much all you need to know about males

2010-10-07T13:46:00.001-07:00

My sister's kid Tyler and his football highlights

2010-09-30T14:40:00.001-07:00

Some adults are so ridiculously proud. http://tiny.cc/ahtnl

With apologies to the Wildcats...

2010-09-22T08:10:00.001-07:00

My story may not sound like it, but I'm going to try and convince you to go see high school sports. I grew up in Walden, Colorado. It's just south of Wyoming. It's a very isolated and small town of about 600 people. There are no stoplights, no fast food, no movie theaters or shopping malls, but there is one thing: sports.

Basketball is the king, and volleyball is popular too, and thenâ€¦thereâ€™s football. Thereâ€™s a reason football is lower on the ladder. Itâ€™s not indoors. By October the windswept prairies open up to winter and it blows right through your soul. But still, in the driving snow of about 8200 feet, there'd be our anemic little team taking the field. During my senior year we had 13 guys for an 11-man squad. This meant everybody got to play. Youâ€™d think all that practice would make us better, but for some reason, maybe itâ€™s the high altitude, we didnâ€™t grow all that big.

I wish I could paint a more romantic picture of the Friday Night Lights, but we didn't have lights. Unfortunately, we did have a scoreboard. One of our losing scores was 72-20, and I remember a 62 to 13.

The other teams were from bigger towns. They'd pull up with two buses full of kids. Weâ€™d stand in the blowing snow and watch them unload like a dark version of that clown car trick. And the consequences were dire. Many who watched our games thought the ambulance was our mascot. We were everybodyâ€™s homecoming. Every town we pulled into was decorated with balloons and streamers. We were often part of their parades. I still get nervous when I see little kids in face paint.

But still, people huddled on the 2x12s that made for our bleachers. Here it was, freezing cold, and our elders sat on boards in the snow to see their loved ones run over by a man-child from Laramie. Maybe it was more of a schadenfreude thing but they were there. So how does this help you turn off the TV and go to a high school game? I can guarantee this: 90 percent of the world has a better climate than Walden, and based on my junior-senior football record, I can say most of the football teams would be less painful to watch. It doesnâ€™t even need to be football. You could be indoors at a volleyball game. But go, Iâ€™m pretty sure the concessions are cheaper and I know the tickets are. And you could be witnessing history, or at least something that will have you fondly thinking of your own.

2010-09-17T07:17:00.001-07:00

Headlining at Gennaro's tonight (7:30pm-2598 s. broadway). I know, short notice, but just letting you know...I'm back.

2010-09-14T14:10:00.001-07:00

Great new site for the narcissistic era of tweeterpating facelookers. I'm already signed up. http://about.me/

Pillaged

2010-08-25T11:16:00.001-07:00

Sarah nor I know what the hell happened to us. We ate dinner, we put the kids to bed, and then we spent the night losing weight. I'm not sure if I've ever been this sick. Last night I writhed around on the floor, apologizing to God for making fun of Tim Tebow, and swearing to myself that I'll be as healthy as possible once I'm well again. It's amazing how quickly we go from dignified, upright bipeds to groveling, howling toilet mongers.

And that's something I'd like to mention to my body. Do you have to go so crazy with the wholesale genocide? You'd think you could just isolate the bad guy and take him out, maybe escort him through the kidneys and send him away on a simple pee, so I don't have to feel like my alimentary canal is being dragged out by coat hangers.

We've dissected our dinner from last night. Avocado, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and quinoa. That's much healthier than we normally eat. Maybe my body's mad about that. Otto was almost too embarrassed to sit with us. If there's not meat, and evidence of animal sacrifice to sate his hunger, Otto's out. And so he was the only one who didn't get sick. Quin let loose a few times, but then he slept soundly while his parents crawled around and cursed.

I have one friend who got very sick from avocado. They found her passed out in a gas station bathroom, and eventually it was discovered the source: she didn't wash the skin of the avocado, and when she cut into it her knife dragged disease through the fruit. I've been thinking about that a lot. I've demonized the one avocado we have left. It's sitting on the counter and looking at me right now. It doesn't have eyes, of course, but it has an alien-shaped head, and I think it's reading my thoughts. I'm going to get up and throw it away, and that will pretty much my physical activity for the day.

Sarah did most of the work, as she's much tougher than myself. I took three baths, falling asleep in each one. I was Calgon boy while Sarah lay on the couch, occasionally resolving toy disputes between the boys. We became more part-time consultants as compared to full time parents, but the boys did well taking care of themselves. Otto even stole a sandwich from his more finicky brother and seemed quite content hiding under the table and eating it.

Tomorrow I plan on going to work, but I'm scared. I'm scared of food, liquid, smells, sudden movements and loud noises. My body is like a battlefield after a night of fighting. There's the occasional explosion and scream for help, and my stomach just made a noise that made Paco jump off the couch.

Would anyone else like to vomit?

2010-08-23T22:50:00.001-07:00

(a message sent to my boss)

Otto is better, but now Quin has let go of his belly's possessions. Turns out, upon further investigation, he DID eat some of his avocado. Way to go Quin!

Sarah is sick, too. I'm terrified of what will happen to me.

This means that since July 31 someone in this house has been sick. Croup. Sinus infections. Ear infections. Horking.

And it times perfectly with the arrival of Tim Tebow. If that little weasel is tying up God with round-the-clock prayers and excessive Tweets, I'll make him come here and wash towels and sheets with his tongue.

This means I'll probably be working from home. So, please, call if need be. I'll have my cell, and for only a little bit be using it to find what kind of family deal I can get on medical marijuana. ï»¿

2010-08-23T22:35:00.001-07:00

http://ping.fm/qIAPR

2010-08-23T15:34:00.001-07:00

testing

2010-08-23T15:32:00.001-07:00

please ignore

2010-08-23T15:26:00.001-07:00

testing this thing

The Boys 10/19/09

2009-10-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

Before I even get to the children, let me make this exciting announcement about Sarah. She’s NOT dying. I thought she was because her hair has been falling out. So either I was losing her or she was sneaking around with a radiation tech. I’m not one to complain about leaving hair everywhere, as I molt pretty much every day, leaving fur all over and my poor family to develop a cat-like hair hack. But Sarah’s hair exodus has been extreme. Daily I pull a wookie out of the drain. The bathroom floor tile is starting to look like wicker. Here hair is everywhere. So I accused her of dying.

Turns out that this is a post-pregnancy thing. According to Sarah’s research at the library and consultation with a panel of health experts (actually she just Googled it but I want to remember how we used to do those things,) during pregnancy a woman gets a heavy dose of hormones that increases hair growth. After the delivery the body gets back to normal and, without all the wacky chick chemistry, the new fronds must go.

It could also have something to do with the stress of four boys and a cat.

Or it could be that everyday is about fifteen thousand heartbreaks. And you can’t explain what it is your kids do to you. You’re helpless to celebrate their cuteness and their innocence. You just want to hug them and encourage them and get on some high place and tell the world about them, but you end up stuck, frozen and useless and really kind of gay, if gay means smiling uncontrollably and wanting to dance.

For example, the changing season has been tough for Quin. All the leaves coming off the trees have him thinking something very dire is happening. Sarah picked me up at work, and as we drove down a tree-lined street, he was heartbroken and repeating "tree broken, broken tree" over and over in the tone too somber for a toddler. It’s like living with the crying Indian guy from the litter commercials. His sadness is genuine.

Oh god, imagine that. In his head something awful has taken place. The trees are crying out for help and we're doing nothing but driving on by, often trampling their fallen tears.

I’ve explained to him the whole cycle of life thing, while hoping not to steal from him that incredible tenderness. I mean it’s gotta be hard on the trees. I’ve gone bald only once in my life. But then again, I don't want him to end up with same rambunctious empathy that has me worried my car has feelings.

It has not crossed my mind to say, “Well maybe the trees would have lived if you used the big boy potty.”

I was gone for a week and I came back to a huge baby. Otto’s legs are plump. We’re not used to fat babies. Quin has always been a skinny kid, but he may want to start putting on some bulk now. Otto is huge. He’s wearing the same clothes Quin wore when Quin was a year old. For the record, Otto will be four months in November.

When Otto smiles it’s just flippen deadly. You want to tell him, “Dude, if you can keep smiling like this the rest of your life, you’re set.” You might also be considered an overweight drunk, but your brother’s got your back. He’s a very understanding guy.

Otto!

2009-10-06T07:25:00.001-07:00

Brothers

2009-10-06T07:17:00.001-07:00

tough guys

I know, he's a pain, but he's not going to go away unless we do something cute.

Quin helps Mommy

2009-10-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

Quin's Curious New Word

2009-10-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

One Morning in the Life of Quin

2009-10-03T12:44:00.000-07:00

Make your move dude.

Nice.

We may stop having some of Quin's older friends over.

Big things start so small.

Something inspirational.

Mommy, Daddy, cocaine

2009-09-16T21:17:00.000-07:00

The good news is that Quin goes to the bathroom all by himself. The bad news is that he's going to the bathroom by himself. He'll come running at us yelling, "I peed, I peed!" But we have no idea where.

This morning he really nailed it, toilet and all. I got back from the park with Paco and everybody was all smiles and high fives. I thought we’d finally successfully refinanced the house, but it was even bigger. Quin had told mom he needed to go, and all the proper protocol was followed to the last drop.

To Q’s credit, he’s been interested in the toilet for a long time, it’s just his mom and dad are too weary and too strapped for time to always follow through. His daycare provider said she was ready to go with a program that involves dropping his shorts and taking him to the toilet every fifteen minutes. And then presumably you stand there until he goes, or the fifteen minutes is up. And then I guess the plus side is you’re all set to do it again.

Our issue is that with the new baby and Sarah back at work we’re always in a hurry and only frightening the little guy during a very important developmental phase. (If we ever get too high on our place in the food chain just recall that learning how to poop can mess us up for life.)

But Q is close. And it won’t be long before he’s all set with the toilet thing. And yes I just knocked on wood.

Today Sarah and I discussed doing cocaine. It makes sense why people do it. I want to stay up late and write. Sarah is getting up once or twice a night to feed Otto. We figured we could do it at night to get more done. But then we realized we’d need it in the morning to wake up. There goes the whole addiction thing.

So I think illicit drugs are off the table (barring my mad pining for diet soda and coffee). Sadly, however, Sarah and I ended this evening's conversation with the conclusion that sleep is just a waste of time. We’d like to be up to finish our house and clean whatever in the hell is so sticky on the kitchen floor. There’s just not enough time to get things done.

I’m struck by how strange it is that our brains, part of the very vehicle that needs sleep, has decided that sleep is only a detriment to our day. What in the hell is wrong with us? Did our potty training go terribly wrong?

It’s just a thought. I know I’ll be out cold in about twenty minutes. Although with Q getting up before six and Otto ready to eat at all hours, our children do their best to make it a reality.

Q Tip O' The Day: Work hard. Have fun.

2009-09-13T23:31:00.000-07:00

small talk

2009-09-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

It’s day one for Sarah back at work. The summer briefly flashed itself and we’re standing in the September chill wondering what it was we saw. When Otto was born in June I thought Sarah’s 12 weeks would be a long time. It wasn’t long enough. This morning was chaos. I tried to get Quin to eat while Sarah simultaneously fed Otto and folded onsies. The change is hard on me, mostly because if the kids aren’t with Sarah I have these terrifying attacks wondering where I put them, but it’s really tough on Sarah. Luckily, her emails from work have been more observational than emotional:

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 8:48 AM, sarah ewy wrote:

sarah ewy
to me
subject I am here

This is just surreal. I had forgotten the sound of the elevators dinging and the hum of industrial A/C.
It is SO quiet...it feels like I am in a dream.

Love you,
Sarah

from jared ewy
to sarah ewy
date Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 9:37 AM

You're right. Well said. It isn't really real. It's all made up to give people something to do. But enjoy...reality will be ready to run, jump, play, fall, poop, scream this evening!

Jared Ewy

sarah ewy
to me
subject Re: I am here

That is perfect. And someone just asked me how it was getting back to the real world. They have no idea.
Can't wait to get back to the chaos of home.
I just had a little of the chile casserole on toast. Orange is gone, and apple is half gone. Kashi bar is the next victim.
How is your day going?
I am off to the storage room.

She’s off to the storage room to pump. She’ll be harnessing the leche de vida sitting on a case of soda and leaning against a stack of office supplies. It’s not quite the romantic picture of child rearing, but at least she can take claim for producing the most organic product ever for corporate America.

Meanwhile, back at my work, my hiding in a closet and tugging at my nipples is frowned upon. So I was at the soda machine and in the bazillionth (it never gets old though) conversation with a woman who asked me how our baby is doing. I told her of Otto’s smile and Q’s exemplary work as a big brother. I then inquired about her family with the increasing pitch of a questionable question. I wasn’t sure if she had one. However, her son is off to college and her daughter is fifteen and might as well live somewhere else. She had an awful marriage to a tyrant who put her off to men for many years. However, she’s finally out and dating. She’s had five dates over the past month and she’s thrilled to know all men aren’t like her ex. She wants to call him and tell him that. As I spun away with my diet coke I asked what I thought would be a light and fun exit question. “So what qualifies a man as a good date these days?”

“I’m just looking for a companion,” she said with a shrug. “I’d just like someone to ask ‘how are you doing’ when I get home from work.

Now that sounds easy. It might also sound a little desperate.

But it offers vital information to my project in wife comforting.

It’s something about asking questions. It’s something I’ve learned…gradually…because…

Girls and guys have many differences. One being that guys always want to fix things. I’m not sure exactly what girls want to do in a crisis, but I know part of it is hoping to god their guy doesn’t try to fix it. Some things, it turns out, can’t be fixed. And trying only makes it worse. Like, for example, my operating on my mom probably would have been bad. Another scenario would be a wonderful wife and mother going through ridiculous life change, unable to drink and loaded with hormones having to spend part of the day away from the loin-ripping cherubs of innocence, joy and total goodness. I can’t fix that.

When she went to work after Quin's birth, I didn’t know what was going to happen. It was emotional. I was scared. Futility frightens me; neuters me into a paralyzed state of village idiotness. Sarah had to leave the home with very little comforting. When she rode the train downtown people gave her that he-beats-you-doesn’t-he look. I don’t, but Sarah said she would have preferred it.

So what in the hell does a guy do? You don’t—I repeat, don’t—interrupt her tearful dissertations with things you’ll do to make things better. They can’t be made better, especially not by the once-cute boyfriend-turned-husband-turned-father who would now be the last person rescued in a house fire.

All you can do is ask, “How are you doing?” And then you have to stay and listen, too.

In our email exchange today I was relieved to hear her voice. It was bona fide Sarah and not one cajoled out of her by one of my many misguided attempts at comfort. But it also reminded me of our partnership. We’re a team, and one that we think would be really darn good on The Amazing Race. We’re also music enthusiasts when we actually listen to some and we really like quirky people who invent practical, energy-saving devices. We’re not early morning adversaries bicker-fighting over the whereabouts of the burp rags. OK, we’re that too, but it’s all about versatility, and crawling above it all for a little conversation.

Tomato Pie

2009-09-08T22:38:00.000-07:00

We have tomatoes out the hoohaw. Our lips are dyed red and Quin is attracting aphids. We eat tomatoes not just everyday but for every meal. I've never had so much cottage cheese. So now we're on the market for good tomato recipes. My friend Bronwen gave us this one. At first it scared me, and I'll tell you why, but first here's how you do it:

Ingredients:

9" Pie Shell
3 medium tomatoes sliced thick (although we did five and threw in some little ones on the verge of too ripe)
1/2 teaspoon salt (this can either be added to the mix or sprinkled over the tomatoes)
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/4 cup chopped chives (forgot these)
1/4 cup mayo
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar (we always go Tillamook Extra Sharp)

Bake crust @ 425 for 5 minutes. While that's happening slice tomatoes and lay out on a rack. Here's where you can salt them and sprinkle with seasoning and chives. Fill pie shell with tomatoes. Combine mayo and cheese. Spread evenly over the top. Bake for 30 minutes at 400.

That's it. I was a little worried because:

1) The recipe giver is Welsh and you don't often hear people say, "I'm going to Wales for the fine dining."

2) She also lives in a male-majority household and men have tendency to dilute the palate until Hot Pockets suffice for dinner. I could have gone with just the cheese, but I have the family to think about.

3) The mayonnaise. Ever since a frightening dinner incident at a Midwestern household that included two emptied jars and the phrase, "There's more mayo if you need it," I've been wary of any recipe other than a ham sandwich that calls for anymore than a dollop.

But darn, it was good. We have enough tomatoes to make about hundred more. Just give me a heads up and there'll be one in the window.

The Boys 9/6/09

2009-09-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

I can finally thank Quin for getting up at six this morning. At six this morning it was difficult to appreciate his zeal for life. But now, sixteen hours later, it seems like today has been at least three days, and while I feel 80 and that I might pee blood, I’m happy he could extend our holiday weekend by about a week. Saturday was several days as well. By the end of tomorrow I'll be begging for the serenity of the workplace.

But even though I’m tired and I want the children to sleep, whenever I do anything with the boys it is the best time I’ve ever had doing it. Yesterday I had fun being a migrant worker. I don’t think that’s something I’d ever say before Quin.

I will lavish praise on Quin and then it's Otto's turn. For Otto has risen. The sign of the O is nigh. First, however, Q should be lauded for having more focus than most adults. Yesterday we went to a big organic farm where they let you pick all the fruit and vegetables you want. For me it was heaven, getting away from the city and mowing down a strawberry patch. Quin had business to do. As we walked down the narrow highway to the farm, Q noticed water in a ditch next to the road. From atop my shoulders he declared, “I splash.” That, in Quintanamos, means, “I’m going to throw rocks until I’m restrained and dragged away.”

I told him we would have to wait. He was okay with that, because what I didn’t know is he’d formulated a plan. Wherever we ended up, he was packing up his pebbles and going back to the ditch.

About a half a mile and a tractor ride later, we were out in the middle of a Brighton, Colorado field. One of our adult buddies, Ray, and myself picked berries and learned to appreciate undocumented workers more than ever before. Quin was only mildly interested. He grabbed some fruit out of my bucket and took off. He was going back to the ditch. Ray and I ate strawberries and watched him. I shouted some classic parental guilt and fear lines. “Uh, son, we miss you!” I said. He continued through a thicket of corn. When he got on an old road I tried again. “Quin, we’re just going to go ahead and leave you here!” It didn't faze him, except for unsettling a couple of nearby mothers.

It took me about a hundred yards to catch up to him, and when I did, his mouth was flush with strawberry and his hands were full of rocks. And to think I drove thirty miles to entertain him at a farm when all I had to do is put him on the bike and ride to the river. That’s what we did today, or at least on the second day of today, just after the first day of playground/breakfast/Wii/snack/basketball/book/book/Play-Doh. By then it was 9:30 a. m.

And now Otto.

When he was born I wasn’t quite ready for another child. Sarah’s labor was so easy (relative to Quin and yes I have no idea) that I didn’t have the 24 hours of trauma Quin’s labor did to help me for fatherhood. Otto just showed up, and it didn’t help that he looks like his brother, because in the hospital I had this crazy idea that maybe we’d only dreamt the past two years and he WAS Quin.

When we got home from the hospital most of my duties fell in Quin’s realm. We did all our cool guy stuff while Otto ate and ate and ate and vomited. And ate again. I used to look at Otto and wonder what he could possibly do to arrest me as successfully as Q has. Could it be that this new guy would know all the tricks of the wily veteran? Apparently, they’re both wired for charm. Otto has flipped the switch. The tractor beam is active. When he smiles at me before I leave for work I just want to go eat some bad meat or run on a wet floor just so I can stay home. He’s got that look, that one that says, “Oh, it’s you! I like you! I know only good things about you! Please, tickle me.”

I hope I don’t mess him up, but I often scold him. Stop with the cute, buddy. Just stop. Quin’s already ripped my heart out and tossed into the creek. What can you do to make it worse? But no matter how foreboding I try to be, Otto just kicks and waves. Often punching himself in the face. You can’t but love a guy who when he sees you gets so excited he whacks himself in the head.

It’s unadulterated, unconditional and, thankfully, mostly uneducated. One day they’ll know too much about me and it’ll all be over. But it’s a good reminder that smiles, hugs and hucking rocks are pretty much all that matters. You got any problems you can nap on it, and by the time you get up it will be a whole new day.

Things That Make us Sound Like Parents

2009-09-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

Some years ago a friend and I were putting together a display booth for a real estate company when he dropped a pair of pliers. When the tool hit the floor he said, "whoop!" in kind of a kid-friendly "oh crap" way. I didn't think much of it until he followed by saying, "Isn't it weird when you start making the little noises your father used to make?"

Yes. It is. You never know when a moment will come along to torment your consciousness. And like the hum from the TV, I hadn't thought much about it until he mentioned it. I mean I know I do things like my dad. I grunt when I eat, I walk with fists clenched, and I pound the earth, the floor, or whatever surface has the misfortune of me stomping across it with the heel-grinding zeal of somebody in a B-movie gorilla suit. I know these things. I think about them as much as possible, and sometimes, when clutching my beverage with one hand and shoveling taco salad in my head with another, I get glimpses of me as my father. And now this.

My dad had a lot of things he did/said while we worked together. Do I do them...let's see:

Cussing at inanimate objects. Check.
Talking to the dogs/kids in doggie/kiddie voice. Check.
Harassing the dogs/kids in doggie/kiddie voice. Check.
Making up songs. Check.
Stopping for no reason to space out at horizon. Check.
Taking sudden interest in small, inconsequential detail that suddenly must be altered no matter how late/cold/painful. Check!

Funny little noises. Check.

Drop something and I'll go "huuulp!" It's like creepy Muppet. Dammit, exorcise me!

This is compounded by several other recent parental sightings. Sarah and I noticed both our parents when Paco was found digging up our newly planted bushes. I said, "we can't have anything nice around here!" Sarah looked at me and said, "serious?" Yah, that was a question, but the statement was loud and clear: "You are older than the sky."

And then yesterday Quin wouldn't stay at the dinner table. I demoted him from his big person seat and pulled out his high chair. He was ticked. But I sat and waited until he calmed down long enough to eat a few bites. The whole ordeal might have been ten minutes, but I aged about fifty years. There I was, some old guy who used to be me, making a younger version eat something he didn't want. If there were a plug I might ask you to pull it.

But somebody's got to clean up around here.

Who's Who of Q's Two

2009-08-31T10:46:00.001-07:00

You don't realize how lucky you are until you throw a party and people actually show up. I have actual party anxiety because in college I could throw a rager and all I had to do is kick open my front door and yell "I've got three-day-old, warm, flat keg beer!" Within minutes the place would be grinding and vomiting and I'd feel like I was the coolest guy around. Nowadays my last-minute party plans often fall flat. There's something about packing up the kids for an evening of keg stands that hasn't stood the test of time. However, I now have a secret ingredient. It's Q. After all the presents were opened, the candles blown out, and the forty-some people filed out of the house, I confided to Sarah that I must pass the torch. Quin not only pulled in one heck of a crowd--even single, childless people!--but even after we said, "no gifts," he got great gifts. People must have taken it for reverse psychology, or perhaps they think we're emotionally abusive louts.

Q already upsetting ladies by paying more attention to guitar.

One of our favorite gifts makes no noise. Although the fire truck is cool and the Wiggles guitar is clearly Q's top priority right now (which begs this serious side note: Daniel and Ruth Anne, I'm sorry for whatever we did to have you bring that into our house), I believe it is the homemade cape that will stand the test of time. Here is a picture below. The pic is linked to the site of the cape's maker, a woman who's managed to turn her obsessive compulsions into creative endeavors. Her crafts are so much cooler than just very clean hands.

Now I'm going to admit the kind of thing that has social services starting up their van: I already have a cape. Or at least my alter ego does. So this is so cool, I'll even be the sidekick.

Quin takes oath of superherodom.

So thank you everybody for coming over. We thought the party was perfect, except for one minor oversight. Despite a Costco cart worthy of an anti-American propaganda video at a terrorist convention, we forgot to feed Quin. We had trays of fruit and pounds of meat. My sister even made a cake in the shape of a pickle.

And while Sarah and I regaled each other with the day's activities, we questioned one another as to who had taken the time to feed our son. That would be neither of us. He did get a handful of frosting, I recalled, but from his two or three bites of lunch to his bed time just after eight, he had nothing of substance. Now I could dwell on the negative aspects on a malnutritioned child, and I know some negative people will, or I could point out that the party was so great that food was of no consequence. Now that's a magical day.

Happy Birthday!

Otto tore it up.

For the Kids: Creepy Guy

2009-08-27T23:20:00.000-07:00

Message to the Kids: Dangerous Dirty Socks

2009-08-27T06:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naAKqkcXS2o

Message to the Kids: Conference Dreaming

2009-08-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

What we did on our vacation

2009-08-17T16:28:00.001-07:00

Just kill me now.

2009-08-15T21:44:00.001-07:00

Live with Q in Durango

2009-08-15T07:39:00.001-07:00

We have pickles!

2009-08-15T07:38:00.001-07:00

Doesn't look like much on the outside...

2009-08-12T21:30:00.001-07:00

But it really opens up on the inside...

Mommy gets some Otto Time

2009-08-12T21:13:00.001-07:00

Self Timer on a Mountain. Durango.

2009-08-12T20:57:00.000-07:00

Day 1 Trip to Durango: Sand Dunes

2009-08-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

longer:

I dominated the other children

2009-08-09T20:59:00.000-07:00

Otto en Fuego

2009-08-09T20:40:00.000-07:00

He's on.

And now the first ever Otto Quaid Caption Contest.

What is he saying here?

You could win an evening with our children!

Otto Quaid at 9 weeks

2009-08-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

Mirroring his brother's picture taken at about the same age.

And now the extended Grandma version with annoying father noises.

How Man See Boy

2009-08-03T20:48:00.001-07:00

Nothing is more honest than lycra

2009-07-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

If you want to finally be very aware of your baldness, attend a convention of Native Americans. There are some very pretty people here, and then there's me, so very white, so very maneless. I don't know how I got this job, liaison to most of the tribal nations in America, but I can hear someone in some high up place perusing through photos and saying, "him, that's the guy...we need to show the Indians that the conquering race is vulnerable, but still large and consuming." So here I am, at the Native American Journalists Convention, and no one seems to give a darn what I am. I just try to listen and learn as much as possible (and my wife just laughed), and I tell you, there's so many assumptions from so many parties that I think we all need to redo that original Thanksgiving dinner. I don't know what they talked about then...

"Mary...this is Runs with Wolves, Runs with Wolves, Mary. Now lets put our heads down to pray. Mary...we're looking down now, not at the well-muscled fellow with the piercing eyes and perfect skin...Mary....OK...could someone get Mr. Wolves a blanket?"

But we need to talk again. Many tribal nations only make the news because of the 80% unemployment, or the suicide rate, or the alcoholism or the such and such anniversary of something about Russell Means. I meet people who live in the poorest nation within our nation, and they still have hope. Many tribes are working on renewable energy, and there are even more who are working night and day to preserve their culture while ensuring their children can step off the reservation and succeed in the biggest cities.

And here's something to keep in mind: Native Americans aren't simply Native Americans. They're Navajo, Kiowa, they're the Rocky Boys, Paiute--Cui-ui, Koop Ticutta and Toi Ticutta, to name a few Paiute--Kickapoo, Cherokee and 550 other tribes officially recognized by the federal government. So you think you now what you're doing but you don't. You have a great conversation with one person and you terrify the next with your warm greeting.

This all went down with my naked pate shouting about the room. The Hyatt has mirrors everywhere, and if there's a place that's the furthest place from being outdoors, it's a hotel ballroom, where the vibrancy of noise and enthusiasm is swallowed in a giant of sock of carpet and textured wallpaper. You could get more acoustical bounce if you yelled into a pillow. So in the muffled chatter of today's events, I would drift and see myself in the mirror, and see just how different I am. I am the minority, at least in the Hyatt, and maybe Albuquerque, where my white head orbits like a full moon. And I felt self-conscious and a little large and awkward. Mirrors are bad for me anyway because I've never stopped seeing myself as the 19-year-old me, which means a lot of shock every morning and days full of running into walls and door frames and tables that at one point offered much more clearance.

Here's the weird part; people who feel self-conscious often say they feel naked. I didn't. It was worse. I was wearing lycra. And every nuance, every crevice and fold were magnified. My body language seemed out of my control and larger than it was. A lifted finger was taunting wag, a weight shift was a irreverent booty shake. It made it hard to move.

But it helped with being humble.

Big Brother Blues

2009-07-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

Paco's been acting up a bit. I mean he is a little needy, or a lot really, but his life has turned to absolute shit. Imagine being the only one who gets all the love and all the time at the park, and then within a two year span a cat and two babies show up. And in that time we invited every wayward, halfway house rehab experiment in the metro area to stumble around our house with power tools. Yah, we remodeled. Well "we" didn't, but some others tried.

Q's been good. Maybe a little moodier, but today I got off work early and we went and threw rocks into the river. It's great therapy.

Oh, god, it's late. I'm just going to post some pictures.

sadness abound

and then there's the new guy...

Flamenco: Either you're born with it or you're not.

Otto can do it in his sleep.

What Every Kid Hopes His Father Will Do at His Friends' Parties

2009-07-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

Quin: toddler, mother

2009-07-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

So our little friend Scout got a baby doll for her 3rd birthday. Our son promptly stole it and took to cuddling, swaddling, cooing and loving it. Look at his technique...so much like mom I think I even heard him cursing his nursing bra.

I quickly replaced it with a football.

If this doesn't say youth and summer and bliss...

2009-07-12T08:10:00.001-07:00

To be this comfortable

2009-07-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

and here's why we can all sleep so easy...

Day 2 Message to Family

2009-07-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

dang it, hot

2009-07-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

I only slept 4 hours last night. All the free time nearly killed me. But I did write. Conversely, I wasted a lot of time trying to upload that stupid video (below). I think I come off as creepy. I need to go for more kid friendly (in the video).

It is hot. Even at midnight. I was starving last night so ventured out of the room. We're near the convention center which in Latin means "nothing open after ten," so I ended up drinking beers at a bar that I did not want to leave because it's so damn hot. I mean I wasn't even enjoying the beers or the bar--to the extent they can't be enjoyed--as I'd already seen the Sports Center they were showing over and over, and I wanted food more than booze. But I didn't want to walk back into the heat. It's crazy. It's like every where you go you're just a few feet from a fire.

Are we sure Native Americans lived here before us? Or were we tricked into conquering a place no one wanted.

Guys Club at Park 09

2009-07-07T00:53:00.000-07:00

Message to Boys from Phoenix

2009-07-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

Sarah: Probably more annoying than interesting but special message for Otto at 1:18, for Paco at 1:52 and for Q at 4:52.

Trip to Phoenix 09: Time Sucks

2009-07-05T23:07:00.000-07:00

I flew in with a conversational baiter. She wanted to talk to me so badly, and I'm usually that guy who will speak to anybody regardless of the detriment to me and others around me, but today, I stood my ground. My airplane neighbor, her largess spilling onto me, would spout little trinkets of conversational curiosity. "I went to Mardi Gras once and didn't like it. I didn't like it at all really..."

She lay out some meat and waited for me to walk into her steel jaws. It was hard but I didn't ask why she didn't like New Orleans. I looked out the window and down at the Afghani terrain of southern Arizona.

"A lot of people are so crazy for New Orleans, but I'm not," she proclaimed, going for pride but kind of sounding lonely.

I'd already been trapped once and by this very woman. Earlier on the flight we hit turbulence, and a lot of it. She grabbed her husband's hand and closed her eyes. The husband, feeling a little self-conscious with the drama, said, "she needs medication just to fly." I felt bad so comforted her with, "I don't know how the wings stay on these things."

From behind her clenched lids she exposed her husband. "I know he's scared too, I can feel the sweat in his hand."

And dryly he replied, "Honey, that's your sweat."

So there the door was opened to dialogue, and the discussion went from airplane safety to god. I call it Born Again Magic: The ability to take any conversation back to Jesus. The King of Kings, it turns out, saved my seatmates' business. She and her husband recycle electronics for a living and a year ago they were down to their last thousand dollars. Well she prayed, convinced her husband to pray, and even implored their employees to pray, and upon hearing all that chatter God tripled their profits. I thought that was great. Except I hated thinkng that people are dying in Bangladesh because God is distracted by the metals market.

From there I just wanted not to talk. I didn't know if we'd all end up in a vigil and feeling each other's sweat.

She set the trap again.

"Everybody sure thought Obama was going to be great but..."

And I looked towards the window and inhaled. It's like she knew exactly what would get me. Politics and a naked conjunction. I held fast and very nearly prayed for strength

-------

The trip to Phoenix is an hour and a half, much of that just up and down, but I'm still not sure what time it is. Sometimes we're the same time as AZ, and other times we're not. If we travel back and forth can we actually stop time?

I hope so.

My friend Jason pointed out that kids born the year we started college are now going to college. Jason is a prick.

I don't know for sure yet, but I think children, at least in the short term, help you forget time.

With kids you live in events, not hours and minutes. You're worried about things like potty training, which has no fixed chronological denomination, and time sneaks on by. Potty training should be a unit of time. Maybe something much longer than a month but not quite a year.

"How long were you in Nam?" A full potty training.

The same could be said for pregnancy. "It's been a human gestation since the Broncos last played!"

As parents this is how you live, not an hour of class with a thirty-minute lunch during a three-month semester. All these events, pottying, learning the alphabet, covering when you cough rack up real time until you're just a menopause away from retirement. If we put numbers on these things we might keep better track of time. I'm afraid it won't be long before I wake up and say, "Seems like yesterday Quin was just in diapers!" Now I could try to defy time and keep him in diapers into his twenties, or just be a better steward of time's presence. I guess this can be done by paying a whole lot of attention. I'm talking Ritalin attention. Taking in every detail and noting every change. Which might be impossible. Because in four weeks and a few days, a time frame I'll refer to as an "Otto", our newest kid has completely changed. And I don't know when it happened.

Otto looks at us now. He's waking up to the world and he definitely fits the bill as an "old soul". Or at least "an elderly person upset with the service at Denny's." Occasionally he lights up. He'll be staring at the ceiling fan and I'll say "Otto..." and it startles him. He's got this "who in the hell are you" face that cracks me up. I'll be holding him, cooing at him and bouncing him on the pilates ball (Lord bless this gift from angels) and he's shocked I'm there.

The good news is that he's sleeping better. He still makes a lot of squeaking noises, and with the strength of a hundred babies can rip out of his swaddle so he can swat at his head. He's really got a problem with punching himself in the face. And the pacifier only causes more problems. He gets mad at it and starts chomping and flailing and by then all you can do is get him out of the crib and go work on your core. Sarah may have rebounded so well with Q and Otto because she spends several hours a day balancing on an inflated sphere.

It's a lot of changes and fast. I worry one day Quin won't be the most loving person on the planet, but I'm sure he'll want to pull pack on the hugs and kisses some time soon, hopefully for him before he joins the football team.

I always thought it was weird and maybe a sign of instability when someone grabbed a child and growled, "I just want to gobble you up," before actually gnawing on them. But a horrifying reference to cannibalism seems to be the best way to vent the frustration of change and time and love. I mean I want to get a marsupial pouch for each of my boys and maybe if I spend every waking second monitoring them I won't come to one day to a houseful of teenagers and wondering what in the hell happened to our children.

Local Children Frightened by Constipated Baby

2009-06-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

Rock n' Roll Lifestyle

2009-06-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

Constipated Infants. It's a cool band name. In our household it's also a popular Internet search term. I saw Sarah had already clicked some of the same headlines that caught my eye. Purple were the links for "Constipation in Baby" and "Infant Constipation: Symptoms, Causes, Treatment." None of them had much for little guys like Otto, who for the last 24 hours has been groaning instead of sleeping. His strained baby grunts come from a belly tightened with gridlock. I don't how this could happen. He DRINKS his food. So I imagine a marble or wad of dog hair about to shoot out like a little cannonball.

I've been manipulating Otto's tiny legs in a rowing motion. This, according to an Internet video, will help get the gas out. A woman demonstrated it using a stuffed animal. I was worried it hadn't been tried on humans, but then Otto started gassing with every pull of his leg. He was like little, fecal billows and I could see why this shouldn't be done on real people if it can be avoided.

It's been a rough weekend. We stayed up late Friday night watching season 4 of Weeds (nice move with the sonogram, Nancy, but you're still a dumbass for ratting Guillermo) counting on the kids' naps to catch up on sleep. Well no one napped. With a bazillion dollar wedding to emcee Saturday night, I needed rest badly, but Q has started teething again and he didn't take the 2-hour nap that we hope to count on until he's 18. Q has been manic. It's like living with Axl Rose. There's some pretty good performances, but at any moment there could be a meltdown and the show's over.

Well, I got back from the party at 1 this morning. Quin was up at 5:30, and Sarah was already busy with the Constipated Infant (the whole house is a rock n' roll analogy, except without the sex and booze, just the erratic behavior and Motrin,) so it's been a wakey wakey time ever since. This afternoon I found myself in the sleeping aid section at Target looking for Mylicon. It's a gas relief medication, not an insomnia cure, but I had this image of one big baby blast and then calm throughout the house. I'm not sure the Mylicon helped, but Otto eventually did rattle the neighborhood. He let one rip for all of us...he farted for all of mankind. Sarah and I sat up and congratulated Otto and then each other. It was like we'd just landed something on the moon.

As for Q, he's out. Motrin is his Pharma Phriend. We're no longer afraid of drugs. Back in the early Q days Sarah and I would be disheveled and weary in the dim light of Quin's nursery. He'd be screaming and we'd be going cross eyed trying to measure exactly .4 of a milliliter. Nowadays I'd administer it with a foot pump.

Sarah just asked the time. It's nearly midnight...again. A couple of years ago I would have panicked that we may never ever get any sleep as long as we live. Now I know I was wrong. We WILL never ever get any sleep. It's just accepting it that matters.

Otto is now asleep. Quin is awake. Welcome to the Jungle.

Otto at three weeks

2009-06-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

Otto is good. Big Brother is good. And first, before anything else, I should say I'm very proud of Quin. He's such a good kid. He was born, we did lots of new parent bungling, and at 22 months he brings his dinner plate to the sink. I didn't teach him that. I wouldn't know how. To be honest, I don't think he's our kid. If Quin were truly our child he'd stress out about not exercising but never do anything about it. He'd watch TV and wonder aloud if the world is really that dumb. He probably wouldn't take his dishes to the sink.

Quin eats broccoli. He loves peppers, olives and apples. He sleeps all night. He says thank you, often when he doesn't need to, and he hugs and kisses everything and everybody. The other morning I was leaning across the couch to close the blinds and I could feel something on my leg. I looked down to see my oldest son hugging and kissing my knee. Perhaps too much time at the dog park, but it's better than punching and kicking.

And Q is the cutest creature on the planet. Bar none. Bring it. Bring your precious cherubs and we'll line them up. We'll measure them by the cute things they do and they'll be crushed. And then they'll all be thanked, hugged and kissed.

Finally, he's been a great big brother. He loves to moisten the baby's head with affection. And that's a good idea because--and this is where I talk about Otto--he's big. Quin was in 0-3 months clothes until he was six months old. Otto has already grown out of them. There must be some kind of hard-wired genetic thing in the second born that says you need to grow ASAP or someone will sit on your head and fart. As a little brother I grew, but unfortunately not fast enough.

Otto's already got a one-up on the three-week-old Q in that he's been sleeping most of the night. He has stayed up late making strange gurgling noises, which had Sarah wonder if we had a Guinea pig, and me reprising my role of household idiot by waking the peaceful infant as I try to feel his tiny breaths with my trembling finger.

Otto has gotten louder. At three weeks he's working on focusing his eyes. And his furrowed brow has him looking caught between wonderment and consternation. It says "Ooooh, I get to pass gas! But how?" He gets mad and really wails, but it's hard to take him seriously with his eyes crossed.

But this morning at 3am, right before I swaddled him in the loving snuggle of a psychiatric ward, I got a chance to talk to the new guy. He looked up and with big blinks tried to figure out what in the hell I was. So there might have been some communication problems, but at least it was nice telling him everything's going to be all right.

7

2009-06-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to write about Sarah, but to date I haven't been able to get it right. I've had a couple brushes with near satisfaction; the only one I recall is trying to capture her uniqueness with a short ditty focusing on her being practical and self-assured enough to use a giant butt-mounted tote bag. She read it and could sense my trying too hard. She also said it was "too complimentary."

So I try harder, and Sarah knows that's the real issue, my trying too hard. As a matter of fact, my trying too hard has been a major source of most of my failures. "One punchline is enough, Jared," she'd say after I'd repeat verbatim a radio break with three. I'd really do that. I'd remember everything I'd said on the air and, in an effort to get some her feedback which is like refreshing, cold chocolate milk to my ears, talk through the radio break in it's entirety. I didn't want her to miss any part of what the audience had heard (endured) so she'd get the entire context. After a while she'd say, "Ok, just tell me the punch line," with her hands spinning like tape reels that might speed me up. But that would make me start over because by interrupting she wasn't getting the full experience. Invariably, she'd ask if what I was repeating was what I'd really said, as if to make sure I hadn't sweetened it to improve the chance of better reviews. Usually it was as-is, but sometimes I would add emphasis to the punchlines just so she'd know which line was most integral to my ego. She'd roll her eyes and go about the hand spinning. Often there would be so many punchlines it was like discerning umbrellas in one of those old photos of a rainy day in Manhattan.

But getting to the point...

I'm about to offer you advice on writing. As far as my credentials go, that's like a homeless man giving landscaping tips, but this advice isn't mine, it's stolen from a writing teacher--Professor Red Bird of Fort Lewis College to be exact. He had this suggestion: simplify. Let’s say you’re sitting outside of your old high school and you want to write about the good ‘ol days. As often is the case, you'll be overwhelmed by the opportunity. There's too much to write about and you'll freeze. This is when you narrow your focus. Instead of looking at the entire school, move in, and keep moving, across the lawn, the sidewalk and past the memorial park for that one kid who died way too young, and stop just short of the brick wall. It is here where you start--with one brick. The same way you'd build the school, one brick at a time, is the same way you'd write your story.

I'm happy to announce I've found my brick. I won't be writing about my school, though, and my construction begins not with rocks and mortar, but with the most mundane detail in our most adventurous relationship.

And by adventurous I mean exciting, like we do some cool stuff. Have you and your husband crash-landed in a hot air balloon? Has your husband dissed the rapper Ice T not knowing he was really talking to the rapper Ice T? Did I tell you about the time we sneaked into the fancy Tahitian resort?

Well I'm not going to. I have a brick.

It's this little slice of an evening, one where we're all grown up and out for dinner thanks to a baby sitter. Sarah is pregnant and Quin is at home with a lady we know through daycare. That's how we know people now, through daycare. It's like we had a kid to meet people who could take care of him.

On the surface we might seem--or at least that's the hope--that we know what we're doing. That's how grown up we are, we rarely go out alone anymore and on this night all the safeguards are in place. The house as been cleaned, the emergency contacts highlighted and the hired help knows exactly where to find our child's pacifier.

But at the dinner table in a little Italian restaurant, the conversation goes like this:

"So, dude, are we really having another kid?"

"I know, it's flippen crazy."

And I'd denote which one of us said what if it really mattered.

After the longest meal we've had since 2007, we set out to walk across the street. This journey isn't exciting or gratuitous in any way. Sarah didn't collapse and give birth on the crosswalk, it was just us, a couple of thirty-somethings getting to the other side of Broadway. We were leaving the restaurant Pasquinis and heading to the southwest side of the intersection, the home of a Winchells, which Sarah noted is open 24 hours.

There are many nuances to a couple walking together, and I know our audience of commuters lined up on either side of the light, or at least half of them, noticed the important details. I say half because while the men counted down the eternity it would take to get us across the street, the women noticed something they recognized: The reins.

When we walk hand in hand Sarah uses my hand as a driving device. It's like she's taking me out for a stroll, but on a short leash. I don't mean to say that in a mean or disrespectful way, it's just that my arms aren't very long. And with Sarah holding my hand she can finally get me to slow down. Often, while storming towards a hamburger joint, I speed ahead of Sarah. I'm not intentionally ditching her. I'm either not entirely there or my stomach has taken the wheel. I know we'll be together again when we get inside.

On this night, after our lengthy, kid-free dinner, we stepped from the sidewalk's edge.

I saw at least one woman glance and smile at Sarah. She was in a Jeep Cherokee and part of the crosswalk audience. I became self-conscious and sped up, dragging my wife, nine months pregnant, into the intersection.

What's wrong with guys that we take off for the horizon? I mean have we not learned that leaping ahead only has us wondering why we didn't take more advantage of "back then"? Where I am now is always the place to be. It really is the only place you can be. And that's where I found myself Saturday, May 17th, 2009. In the street, feet on the pavement, hand in hand, teaming up to take control of the clock.

Sarah said "Carpe diem," with a tug on my arm. She might also have said, "Slow the f#$k down I'm flippin brimming with baby!" We weren't even across the first two lanes when I asked Sarah if she needed to go back. I hope I never know for sure, but it seems a good way to slow time and really capture a moment is have someone stand on your bladder.

To describe our relationship I often make this comparison where I’m the kite and Sarah’s the flier keeping me from whisking away. It works, my lifting her whenever she needs it, and her hanging on tight to keep me grounded. I get a whimsical image of Sarah running through the grass, her hair in the warm, summer breeze, but in the real world examples of this marital metaphor aren't so romantic.

The one time I know my kite served us well is when Sarah let it fly from our apartment in Colorado Springs to the chapel on the University of Denver campus. It was May of 2002 and we were planning our wedding. We'd only been engaged since February, but thanks to another, less popular kite moment we were getting married that June. It was hot in our stuffy, one bedroom nest at Parkmoor Village, and in the heat Sarah melted. She flopped against the wall and slid to the floor. The wedding planning, the moving (we were also quitting our jobs and buying a house) and the overall chaos had gotten to her. Red in the face and welling with tears, she told me she could not go on. We were giving up and going to the courthouse (I'm assuming she was speaking of marriage.) On an inspired wind I blew up to Denver. I threw down plastic and bullied pastors. I contacted Realtors and admonished wedding planners. I returned home to a much cooler place where our madness seemed nearly possible.

On a much more frequent basis Sarah must be the tether. Because I'm busy dreaming I don't have time for planning. Every birthday, every anniversary, every Valentine’s Day, I want to do something amazing. I dream of huge surprises, something like those special Oprah shows where she gives away cars. I have this recurring fantasy where I’m at her parent’s place and all the in-laws and outlaws are gathered around and I surprise everybody by knowing how to play the piano. I'll sit down and shock the room by belting out Elton John’s “Your Song”. I know this will not happen, but I get so caught up in these impossible scenarios the holiday nears without me so much as learning chopsticks.

It is on the eve of these events when Sarah reels me in and says that tomorrow is, say, Christmas, and we need to put up our tree. After twenty-four hours of madness we usually pull off the perfect holiday. There are no special surprises except that we still like each other.

Today I am at work and without Sarah and it is the day of our anniversary. I had thought of a big event for a renewal of our vows. We'd do it in her parents' back yard in Baltimore, and the kids music sensation Billy B, one of Sarah's childhood idols, would re-marry us with a happy song. I'd fly out some family and friends and on a summer day--where at least in my head it wouldn't be stifling and sweaty in Maryland--we'd have the time of our lives.

Last night, exhausted from work, more work and babies, I realized that this would not happen. After Otto's nutty sleepless night the best gift I could give my wife is a nap. But today, in my cube, I've got my brick. It's where we’ve got our leftover pasta from Pasquinis, and all we need to do is get across the street. Sarah’s normal gait has taken leave for a waddle, and she's got this husband who wants to help but just needs help in exactly how. I forget about the cars looking on and am only thinking about holding Sarah. If it takes us a lifetime to get to the other side that's fine with me.

Mom and Her Boys

2009-06-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

New guy, or Otto as he's named, gets major points for G-ma hugs. And dressing the same.

Little Boxer Down for the Count

2009-06-15T09:13:00.001-07:00

What's Better than a Cute Baby?

2009-06-09T13:38:00.000-07:00

A tired cute baby.

We're thinking he'll one day grow into that schnoz.

We're Home

2009-06-07T13:33:00.000-07:00

Sarah's home, the baby is home, we're all home. That makes it hard to judge how difficult this will really be. Because soon I'll be at work and Sarah will be here with an infant, a toddler and the world's neediest dog. I've been handling much of the Q duty. We've gone to the store and learned how to say "we're rolling" while cruising the new Target in their high tech, super smooth grocery carts. We also dug around in the dirt and pulled some weeds while Sarah was drinking up time with the baby, the only guy left in the house who will cuddle.

Soon she'll be holding one child and chasing down another. This is the beginning of the crazy. It's also when moms learn how to make PB & Js with their feet.

Eventually Q will go to "school" for part of the week, so Sarah will have time alone with the New Guy to indoctrinate him into a world of hugs and Julia Roberts' movies.

But the house is nothing short of a love fest right now. Our conversation is full of superlatives; everybody is 'the best' big brother or the 'most wonderful' dog ever. We're learning how to have multiple 'bests' and that number one is many.

The New Guy is good. Well, that's my take, but I'm the one who slept most of the night. Sarah was up with him a lot yet she still seems to like him. I have no idea how she maintains...could be she's the best ever.

Big Brother Appreciation (Extended Grandma Version)

2009-06-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

Baby is here...

2009-06-05T14:37:00.000-07:00

I'm tired. But compared to what Sarah has done my talking about fatigue is like complaining to a Somalian about hunger.

I'm telling you you'll not love a woman more than when you hold her hand and do what little, tiny bit you can do--which includes counting to ten and trying not to faint--to help her give birth. My advice is to concentrate on the northern hemisphere. Doctors make the big bucks for a reason.

Last night I did my best to be more of a help than a hindrance. First I did the honored male tradition of timing contractions. I also got to run the back massager. We literally cooked, with electrical burning smell and all, a back massaging device with Quin's birth in 2007, so this year Quin and I bought Sarah a mother's day gift of the most durable vibrating device on the market. Our neighbor’s lights dimmed as, somewhat frightened, I followed Sarah's commands to plow "harder!" into her lower back. From bedroom to living room to hospital room I followed her, plugging in wherever possible to alleviate her pain.

Like with Quin's birth, I did my best to avoid pointless conversation. But the problem is that you'll never find yourself more awkward than when you're pert near useless. It is these moments when I can least not say anything. Quin's autumnal arrival gave me football to talk about, but guys let me help you with this advice, the latest college rankings isn't something your wife wants to hear about when she's pushing a human through her vagina.

Last night I was helping big time with ContractionMaster.com. It calculates the length and time between contractions. (It does not, however, gauge the fear of a man seeing his wife grab his arm and shout in her Satan voice, NOW! every three minutes or so.) The problem is whenever I'm online I'm easily distracted, and when Sarah was crushing the feathers out of a couch cushion, I couldn't help but open CNN.com and read a headline about the Catcher in the Rye author suing for copyright infringement.

Here’s a gem of conversation:

Me: "I thought JD Salinger was dead?"

Sarah: "NOW!"

I know, idiot move. But Sarah, being a mom and therefore selfless to a fault, excused my idiocy (unless it's building up in some bank somewhere) and while whatever dark female thing was flexing the baby towards the outdoors, managed to say, "We gotta go in tonight and I'm so sorry because you're going to have to sleep in that uncomfortable chair thing again."

The hospital delivery room chair was definitely designed by a woman, one who was tired of her husband not being uncomfortable enough. The chair looks like something out of sixties Star Trek and is supposed to recline into a bed. At least you want to believe it’s a bed. But it points downward and is covered with slick vinyl. Over and over you are gradually deposited on the floor, your butt cramped from trying to grab on your way down.

I know, I’m telling an Iraqi I’m tired of the Colorado heat.

You'd think your wife being pregnant for most of a year would prepare you for a baby. It doesn't, or at least in my case, it didn't. I found myself holding the new kid and reminding my hands to hang on as firmly as one should hold a fresh child. I was floating. I was somewhere between the hospital and 2007, and not quite sure if this was our second child or maybe it was Quin, and I'd only dreamt the first two years of his life.

I actually had been dreaming and almost missed the delivery altogether. I was taking the best ten-minute nap of my life when the nurse came in and announced it was time to push. I had no idea what was going on. I was tired and chilled and felt a cold coming. Sarah watched me, hoping at some point I'd turn into a man. The first birth I'd had adrenaline on my side. Now I was emotionally naked. I felt small, rumpled and raw. I needed a boost so asked if I could get some coffee. They said there was some fresh-brewed joe in the break room. Well, there was coffee but it was cold and had that old coffee oil slick-looking thing on top. I poured some in a styrofoam cup but the microwave melted the cup. Then I found a dirty mug in on a patient's tray. While I was washing it a nurse burst in and said, "They're looking for you to help deliver!" I panicked. I ran to the nursing station and asked them something like, "Wife baby now?" They didn't know so I picked a room and ran in. It was the wrong room. And I may have sped up that woman's delivery.

Finally, Sarah's nurse found me and within ten minutes we had a kid.

Sarah was amazing; of course her performance was never in doubt. It's mine that's drawn skepticism. But I have to say that I did better than when Quin was born, and the doctor asked me to announce the baby's sex. I saw the penis. It registered. But my proclamation to my anxious wife and awaiting medical staff was, "I'm going to pass out."

That little guy is in bed right now, and Sarah is conked while the hospital staff watches over the sleeping, new kid. It is weird, though, three years ago Sarah and I had nothing but ourselves and a kitchen the size of a port-a-potty. Now we have a dog, a cat, two kids and a mortgage that almost makes me miss those days when you could open the oven from the dining room.

I wonder if I’m really awake after all.

Early Pics of the New Guy

2009-06-04T20:26:00.001-07:00

please forgive me...I was tired and irrational and Michael Bolton can suck it

2009-05-22T23:38:00.000-07:00

It’s time to stop doing weddings. I never want to do another f@#king wedding in my life. I don’t care if my mom sends a message from beyond and says, “I can only come back if you harmonize the marital bliss between me and living flesh.” I’ll say hell no. I’m not going to do it. She’ll want some bullsh#t song and like last night, tired, my left eye not even workng, I’ll have to surf the forgotten nethers of the ‘net to find it. I had to keep closing my left eye and focus on the screen with my right, searching for this song, “Love is a Beautiful Thing.” But not the new country version, and I'd asked the bride and groom, “Do you mean Al Green?” and they said no, it’s “Love is a Beautiful Thing,” but really inspiring. And then late last night in the mist of sleep deprivation I figured it out: inspiring = hokey. Hokey = Michael Bolton. They meant “Love is a Wonderful Thing.”

My kids are in bed, my wife is in bed, my dog is in bed, the cat’s…somewhere—we never know where the cat is—and I’m awake, not writing, not creating, not doing anything but looking for a f@cking Michael Bolton song. And I found it on Itunes. And you can’t just buy “Love is a Wonderful Thing” as a single. You have to buy the whole goddamn album.

Michael Bolton, people don’t like you enough to buy the whole goddamn album. You’re just hanging on with this little gimmick designed to f*ck the wedding deejay. F#ck this. No more weddings.

Why do weddings? I do it because I like to please people. Everywhere I go people are getting married. They say, “Hey, can you deejay our wedding?” And I say, “Sure!” and the next thing you know I’m the asshole deejay. Deejaying a goddman wedding. Wedding deejay. Yah. “What do you do?” people will ask me. And I say, “I’m a friend. Just a friend doing this as a favor. I can’t even say “wedding deejay.” It’s painful. Soul devouring. I put people with real talent out of work.

I’m going to give my wife a Taser, and anytime someone asks about some event or some nuptials they want deejayed or emceed and I leap forward to say “yes!” I get Tasered. If I say anything that sounds like the consonant “y”—“ye”, “ya”, “yu”, “yo”—I get f#cking Tasered into the ground. Sarah can stand on me and melt me to whatever surface my people-pleasing ass is sitting on.

My friend Ashley gave me the book, “The Disease to Please,” and I told her I couldn’t read it because I’d only do it to please her. I’m not going to read it. I don’t need to. I just know that now for over a decade I wasted a whole lot of f#cking time saying “yes” to things and they’ll say, “oh, we’ll pay you!” and I’ll say, “No!” and then I’m up late looking for a f#cking Michael Bolton song.

i may have sarah come do a press conference

2009-05-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

A rough outline of my day so far:

8am: Any baby?
8:10: How's your wife?
8:12: Is there a baby?
8:16: Where's the baby?
8:20: Donut.
8:24: I hear you're having a baby?
8:24: No it just looks like it.
8:26: What's the latest with the baby?
8:26: Yes, very blessed. Thank you.
8:26: And lucky, yes, very.
8:27: Ready for the baby?
8:28: Any names yet for the baby?
8:29: BABY!
8:31: Pee.
8:32: Yah, a lot of diapers.
8:34: Let's talk about your wife's biology.
8:35: Girls carry lower.
8:36: Boys have a faster pulse.
8:36: Then it must be a girl.
8:36: Something about someone's uterus.
8:37: My daughter had to adopt.
8:37: I know, we're lucky.
8:37: yes, very, very lucky.
8:38: Wow, very cute, Chinese?
8:39: I don't know, I'll ask if she has heartburn.
8:40: Yah, we're very excited.
8:40: No, I am excited, probably just sound tired.
8:40: No, really, we're very excited.
8:41: I didn't know that about sperm.
8:42: I know...we're very lucky.
8:42: I guess she feels OK.
8:43: Log on to computer.
8:45: "Just a quick email to see if you've had a baby!"
8:45: "No, but there's a lady in my office who has a bent uterus."
8:47: "I know. Just being funny. But, yes, we're very lucky."

Grandparents: The Best of Bad Examples

2009-05-11T05:44:00.000-07:00

Our neighbors think we either got a chimp or a stripper

2009-04-24T07:31:00.000-07:00

...as Q's been shouting his new favorite word.

First Haircut

2009-04-19T20:20:00.000-07:00

Second, really, as we did the first, but that was just a snip of frizz above his ear. This was the real deal.

The barber's chair, the smell, the combs in the jar of mystery liquid and the lady chewing gum like it had done something wrong to her. Q even had an audience. Two guys went in before us and the second let us go first. He was an uncle to six, he said, and felt it was his Karmic duty to give back to a parent because of what he'd wrought on his brothers and sisters. You see, he bought all their young children fireworks last July, and there still seemed to be some sore spots about letting the kids play with explosives.

Quin was excellent. I think it helped he had a crowd. He always does better when it's more than just mom and dad trying to get him to eat/sit/wear pants. If you don't mind I'll have a bunch of you over to watch me change his diaper.

But this is about Quin being good, so good in fact that a mere bystander gave him a bouncy ball. It's not covered in LSD, or at least I don't think, but that's what we'd always hear about toys from strangers. Although Quin has taken to sprinting up and down our newly carpeted hall shouting, "go, go, go, raaaawr, go, go..." so who knows.

Newly carpeted hall

Newly coifed child

Someone please tell my loved ones they mean a lot to me

2009-04-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

I'd like to blame Comcast for this.

It all began last July when I decided to cancel my T-Mobile cell phone. I wanted to save money. I was tired of cell phones. Canceling seemed like a good idea.

I've written about the process of getting rid of a cell phone and how the cell phone support staff seems it unthinkable, and if you just go to Starbucks and get a tea and think about it for a while you'll come to your senses.

I didn't, so today I want to pull you through the labyrinth of decisions that has stole from me several hours of my life, as well as many of the friends, family and business contacts who have since made better acquaintance with some guy named Scott.

Shortly after freeing myself of the electronic leash of my T-mobile phone, I found myself in a Radio Shack comparing prices on pay-as-you-go Tracfones. It was a desperate move to get connected for my work with the upcoming DNC. But no matter my intentions, there's just something sad and lonely about shopping for anything at Radio Shack.

I will feel that way one more time in this bumbling manifesto, and I won't be wearing pants.

Now let's fast forward to about one week ago. I'd decided the Tracfone was too expensive because, well, it is. I'd kept it for emergencies but they kept popping up everywhere, like when I was driving and bored. So I talked it down to zero minutes and gave it to Quin as a toy.

To replace the Tracfone I stepped up to a Verizon family plan. This meant that Sarah--the woman WHO NEVER HAS HAD A CELL PHONE (all caps intended to capture the reaction of every human who hears this news)--would get wirelessly connected as well. So, to help you follow this debacle, let me summarize.

--Last summer I dropped my T-mobile plan.
--I gave Quin my Tracfone.
--I ordered two Verizon phones. One for me and one for Sarah.
--Sarah's phone was our home phone. I ported the number to her new cell.
--My phone was 303 264 8234. A very cool and memorable number, but yes, already in the past tense.

We'd officially joined the culture of the cool and untethered. I called my brother to tell him. As I dialed on my new Verizon Samsung phone I made my way to my basement office. The signal faded with each step into the din. I wanted our home phone back.

Where was our home phone?

Gone. And here's where I should blame Comcast. I'd just canceled our home phone because they'd raised our rates on our "bundle", which is advertising for "a way to sell you things you don't want". Fired up about the higher bill, I tried to cancel our cable TV, too, but Comcast said our "bundled" Internet would be more expensive without it. They somehow sold me on the fact that one thing is more expensive than two, so I should pay for two even though I'd only use one.

So, here's where we are:

--No home phone.
--Two Verizon phones, one with our old home number.
--A Tracfone now covered in toddler excretion.

Unhappy with Verizon, disillusioned by Comcast, and realizing I wanted our home phone back, I called Qwest for their best deal on home and Internet. They were so happy to get some business they gave me a fifty dollar gift card. After being showered with deals I'd settled on a new Qwest home number: 303 789 9266. I liked that one not only because of the consecutive exchange digits, but because 9266 spells XCON. I have a friend in San Fran who had the very same number and I used the mnemonic device to keep in touch. (For the record he does have one widely publicized incident with psychedelic mushrooms and that made it appropriate enough.)

So now I have:

--Comcast cable and Internet, which individually are more expensive than both.
--A pending deal for Qwest Internet and phone.
--Two Verizon phones, one being our old home number.
--A Tracfone being used as a hammer on a Pound-a-Peg

And then I went to work yesterday and was issued a work cell phone.

As I was going to sleep last night I started to think about expenses and how stupid it is to have all these phones. Not only that, I asked myself, "Why have a new home phone number when everyone already knows the old one?"

This morning I got up and canceled the two Verizon phones. I even avoided the early termination fee. I called Qwest and asked them if I could get my old home phone number from Verizon. They can, but I had to redo the entire order with this one lady who's fairly new to the country. XCON would be no more. Great. It only took an hour of loudly spelling my name and address and I scored another fifty-dollar gift. However, Qwest can't hook up our home phone for two weeks. That's fine, I say, because we'll just use the Tracfone to keep in touch. I commandeered that from Quin, chipped away dried banana, went online and added minutes, then called my friend who'd I knew been trying to get a hold of us.

That was the last I saw of it.

Until a few moments ago when I found it in my pants. In the washer.

It is rare when I change out of let alone wash my Carharts, but even rarer is when I remember to take my cell phone out of them. I keep it in the little tool pocket that sits just about mid thigh. It's a nice fit for a mobile phone, perhaps too nice, as whenever it rings I end up digging and spinning like a dog with a bad itch. Because of this secure enclosure it isn't often I think of my phone. It has to ring or I have to lose my pants. Tonight I was looking for both when I stopped and, in a tone that made it sound I'd just realized a murderer, whispered "Carharts." Sarah heard me and groaned. She knew she was about to have to tell me the bad news about my durable work jeans. She doesn't check pockets that well, especially the nontraditional tool pockets on a white-collar worker, so at least three other times some gadget or another has been thoroughly cleaned. We're 3 for 3 with functionality, but I'm not so sure with this Tracfone. It's still a little moist. It's still not turning on.

It would have been much safer with Quin.

So here's where we are now:

--Comcast home phone is gone.
--Qwest home phone can't be turned on for another week.
--Verizon phones are in a box to be Fed-Exed back to wherever.

In three days I've had three phone numbers and now none of them work, except maybe the Tracfone, which is by the fireplace drying off. The one phone I know is working is my old T-mobile phone. But some guy named Scott owns that now and he's tired of taking my calls.

Q Can't get no Lovin'

2009-03-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

Should I tell him it will be much like this the rest of his life?

Road Trip Reality

2009-03-21T07:30:00.001-07:00

I'd gone from listening to NPR and nodding at the next move of the Obama administration, to tearing up over a country song about a lady who works at IHOP. She only got two tips on the overnight shift.

I wanted water so badly. Into every road trip I find myself wanting nothing but lettuce and water. And floss.

But I got to the point where I couldn't drink anymore. I'd had so much coffee and water I couldn't pee it all. I was like a sponge that no matter how hard you squeeze is still saturated. Peeting wasn't even fun anymore. So I started looking for something else. That's why the five-pound bag of saltwater taffy made sense.

I went into a truckstop with a Subway, but even Subway--and this might have had something to do with the people standing in line--looked kind of unhealthy. So I wandered around and found these big, plain bags of saltwater taffy. It's a long way from lettuce, but they seemed a nice diversion from the greasy oasis of McDonalds or Del Taco. I told the lady at the register that my pregnant wife sure would love to have some.

Aside from my alimentary canal needing a taffy pull, the road trip was pretty good. I had to go to Rock Springs, Wyoming to help some people having some computer problems. Like any road trip, you discover too much time by yourself is not good.

Pictured Above: Wyoming

Pictured Below: Wyoming

I tried to add some levity, crank some classic rock and slam some caffeine, but there's no way to make a work trip seem like a road trip. I even shouted "yeehaw" a couple of times, but by yourself with a suitcase full of paperwork you're just not road-tripping material.

I did go through the cycle of emotions. As with death's stages of grief; denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance, there seem to be stages of the Wyoming trip. First, you can't believe you're driving five hours through Wyoming. You try and convince yourself it can be avoided. "No, I don't think I'll really have to drive five hours through Wyoming," you tell your wife who asks if you're really going to have to drive fiver hours through Wyoming.

Then, you're getting gas in Laramie and thinking that maybe you could find a quiet place in a park and get things done with some phone calls. But soon enough you're back in the car and madder than hell that your life has amounted to a five hour trip through Wyoming. You listen to the sad country song just to hear how dumb it is.

Soon your in a gift shop attached to a Conoco near Medicine Bow and really sad that an elk lost its leg for a lamp. What have we become? you ask yourself. Later, a dead cat on the interstate nearly has you in the fetal position.

Wanna wee? Better buy an elk leg lamp.

And then you find an upbeat country song and as you close in on Rock Springs, you beleive you've done the right thing. This is it, you shout with glee. I'm so important someone has paid me to drive five hours through Wyoming!

Prologue

Rawlins will never know they were the benchmark for my emotional ascent. I picked up my voice recorder and said, "I have a chain attached to a raft of rotting regret. I want to bang that thing away, chisel it off, and catch a wave leaving behind all the corpses of missed opportunity."

And then I was embarrassed and mumbled, "dumbass."

Once I got to Rock Springs I stayed in a hotel that was probably the coolest place ever in 1983. Now it just needs some new linens. I was excited about the Continental breakfast, but as per usual, "We've got bread!" shouted the morning buffet. It might have something to do with using a plastic knife to cut your waffle on a Styrofoam plate, but it's so far away from good 'ol country cooking.

I did get the computers fixed. Although one client visit was an awkward appointment in a house full of animal pelts. I'm OK with animal pelts. I don't like them hanging above my food in restaurants, but here wasn't so bad. The woman who was my Rock Springs guide refused to sit down on the bison. That made things more uncomfortable than dried bovine fur, so I sat down on the animal's epidermis. And then the guide lady left, and it was just me and the woman of the house complaining about her married life. Her daughter really likes her new husband, she said, but she's not so sure she likes him. I just kept glancing around at all the severed heads hanging on the wall and working as fast as possible on a dialup Internet connection. If you haven't heard that screeching in a while, it can be a little unsettling.

As I desperately tried to contact the outside world, I glanced out her kitchen window. There was elk's head lopped off and left to rot in the back yard.

To add to the atmosphere, the lady kept calling and telling her husband to hurry home because I wanted to hear some of his hunting stories. I kept saying that's OK, really, I needed to go. And as soon as she'd hang up she'd go into some story about how he used to cook/go on hikes/cuddle but doesn't anymore and she just might move back to Winnemucca. I wanted out before I was the hunting story.

I got things working and avoided being turned into a Davey Crocket hat. And I have to say that it's easy to make fun of Wyoming. But we're all pretty much the same everywhere, and then there's me too tired to drive fast enough for the left lane. You could be some educated wonk from Boulder, or some dude who makes home lighting accessories out of animal parts, and you'd both have some fun passing the guy in the Corolla holding an empty bottle of Diet Pepsi and crying.

Roadside Inn

2009-03-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

I don't think there's anything more like a fart in the wind than a roadside inn.

Everything is fleeting. The Interstate doesn't even want to be here. No one stops because they want to. Sleep being one of those annoying necessities. Do people even make love at Roadside Inns? It's a guardrail for drifting tumbleweeds--whisking scrambleweeds.

I sat in the Mexican themed restaurant of this roadside Inn and loathed the plastic decor. Under a fake palm tree, and smack dab in the middle of the room, there's a trickling water fountain. Duct tape sticks its power cord to the floor. Somewhere someone could probably use that electricity. Somewhere some monkey and a family of iguana lost their home so we could drill the resources to make a crappy, plastic fountain. Now no matter how deep I dig, I can't seem to make it matter.

At roadside Inns you'll never read about the old couple who ate breakfast every Sunday. No one comes back. If there is a regular he's an aberration. He makes families want to get back in there minivans and keep driving.

But I'm good. About to drift to ESPN. One person in one room of the roadside inn.

And now...Ladies and Gentlemen...

2009-03-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

Introducing...

Allie cat!

We have a cat

2009-03-10T01:56:00.000-07:00

So I didn't think it would happen this quickly. I told my last web host that I was going to cancel and I thought they'd say, "Oh please don't Mr. Ewy. You've spent so much time and money with us that we couldn't bear to see you go." But POOF! I was gone. And now I have this bare-ass naked site with a few words and even less soul. I never thought you could get attached to a user-interface, a concept as bloodless as concrete, but I did and now I feel like Cheers has closed and I'm forced to share my stories at a Chiles. I'm going to give it a go though. I'll keep telling myself the other host wants me back, but I'm like Gloria Gaynor and will survive with this canned Blogger thing.

We did get a cat. The first few hours went okay. Those were the hours that Paco didn't know we had a cat. And then on a sunny Sunday he looked inside our/his house to see a kitty peering back at him. It must have been confusing for him, like maybe he was in the wrong backyard. But he did his doggy best to scare the large squirrel expanded to a starburst of fur and fear. Allie, the cat, put on a hissy show before leaping off the sill and trotting away from Paco. She looked content, like she figured she wouldn't have to deal with the dog looking in from outside. We did have to let him in at some point, being that we are but stewards of his king-sized bed, and that's when me, with camera in hand, was left with a blurry shot of the first introduction. Allie found shelter downstairs, but couldn't have been too comfortable with Paco barking and screaming like the Exorcist girl.

Now Paco paces the house day and night, often imploring us with a "Dude, Cat!" look on his face. He doesn't get why we're not doing anything. And when we find Allie she stares at us with an 'it's gone, right?" look of despair.

Allie is a lovely creature, a wandering soul who'd made herself at home with friends who already have two cats. They also have two doting little girls. We brought Allie home to sixty pounds of mutt muscle and boy toddler who's full-body hugs include lying on her in the Missionary position. So to say we've "rescued" her is a long shot. But we're hoping for a happier household soon. There's nothing wrong with hope.

Good Night

2009-03-04T05:34:00.000-08:00

Last night was perfect. Earlier in the day a co-worker mentioned how kids change everything. I guess that could be the case in defining the success of a night's activities. What did we do last night? We ate Kraft mac n' cheese and went to the park.

Local Man Reaches Out, Touches Self

2008-07-18T19:14:00.000-07:00

I cancelled my cell phone service because of a hypochondriac fear of brain tumors, and I thought I was wasting too much time talking on it. Now I spend a lot of time caressing myself.

The other day I was in a hurry to meet my wife. I was thinking I needed to get a hold of her to tell her I would be late, when I suddenly found myself stopped in busy pedestrian traffic, alternately patting my buttocks and pawing my thighs. That’s what I do now. Whenever I’m tardy, I madly grope my pants. Sometimes I even run my hands across my chest. I’m thinking it might help to reduce stress of not having a cell phone.

“I’ve got to have a cell phone somewhere,” my brain says to my body. But I don’t. I only have concerned mothers pulling their children closer as they pass the lonely man intensely frisking his nethers.

I’ve also experienced phantom vibrations. I think I feel a call coming in, excuse myself from a conversation, and end up in front of bewildered onlookers wondering what I’ll eventually find in my pocket.

How did we even live in 1995? Were there pay phones in the bread aisle? Before ditching my mobile, I’d leave our house for the store only to call my wife and ask what we needed. Now I have to find someone who looks somewhat healthy and take inconspicuous glances at their grocery cart. I typically don’t have to be too coy as often they’re busy on the phone.

I’ve also found that a lack of a phone on my person means I’m going to have start planning. There are the shopping lists, and I never realized how accustomed I’d become to running late. With a phone, tardiness didn’t matter as long as I gave the waiting party a quick call. And that’s what people always say, “I’m not mad you’re late, I just wish you would have called.” The silver lining here is that I’ve been surprising a lot of old friends with quick stops to use their phone. Of course now they’re saying, “Come by anytime, just make sure to call.” So I’ll have to create a network of people who from home I can call to say I’ll be by to use their phone to call the people waiting for me to call.

So going cell-less won’t be too awful, as long as when you see some guy tugging at his jeans in the street, you let him in to use your phone.

My Cell Phone Break Up

2008-07-07T19:12:00.000-07:00

I’ve canceled my cell phone service. For years I thought it impossible, but now I’m on the other side of my lengthy conversation with Keri, and am finding life to be rather pleasant. Keri, by the way, is an employee at T-Mobile. When I called to cancel, a rather bored sounding customer service guy said, “You want to end your relationship with us? Let me put you through to Keri.” First of all, I didn’t even know I was in a relationship, and secondly, it’s not fair to bring up intimacy and then send me to Keri, a perky gal who I’m guessing puts a big heart-shaped dot over her “I”.

Immediately, the playful customer service Ninja was concerned about “us” and wondered how it could be that I would want to break it off. She worked her verbal pole dance and I felt like I was selfishly smashing the heart of a sexy, happy-go-lucky gal who only required about 1000 minutes a month. It took me a half an hour to convince her I was convinced, but by then I wasn't so sure. With my phone records on the screen in front of her, she gushed at how popular I must be and wondered aloud how someone like her would ever be able to get a hold of me. By this time my wife, Sarah, hearing me struggle, sat down to watch the show. She’d doubted I had the strength to let go of my cellular woobie.

I’d wanted to get rid of it because I’d been wasting too much time on it, and because an increasing amount of neurosurgeons warning of brain tumors. Sure, I could use my hands-free device, but I’ve never been more dangerous driving than when I’m trying to untangle it from the parking brake. Also, I often found myself mindlessly thumbing through my directory looking for someone to call. Often I’d reach Lori2 when I’d meant to dial LoriDenver, and it’s just wrong asking someone who can’t have kids how their son is doing. To Keri, none of my reasons were good enough to leave her, so I made up a story about getting a new job with a new phone. She knew I was lying, but breakups aren’t supposed to be pretty. Although I do have ninety days to change my mind, and if I’m too forlorn, I can always try and cancel my cable.

…to be continued…