This weekend I finally told Little-E that we'd be spending our days together. It just popped out while I was trying to get her to pee, pull her up pants, and wash her hands without cracking her head open on some porcelain fixture.

I'm learning that toddlers are just like adults, in that it's not actually what you say, but how you say it that will determine how well your statement is received. So I fumbled, looking for the right hook -- trying to brand daddy/daughter time in a way that seemed most likely to illicit a positive response. I mean, why the fuck not? There's nothing she can do about it anyway, so it might as well make her happy.

I try not to think of this as being manipulative (or deceptive). Somewhere, amidst the bullshit, is a real product that Little-E probably would've enjoyed regardless. There's no need for said product to go to waste just because she doesn't already know that she'll like it. A successful sales guy friend recently told me that having a good product is only 20% of the work. The rest is marketing.

So I started selling. I appealed to the customer's obvious sophistication and intelligence. "Do we have fun together?"

"...Yes." Nice. She's hooked. Based on this, I'll construct a case based on impeccable logic, asserting that, therefore, more time with daddy equals more fun.

"Did you know that we'll be spending lots more time together? We'll get to hang out every day starting next week. You'll wake up from your nap, I'll pick you up, and we'll go have fun. Every day!"

It certainly wasn't subtle. I was in a rush. It was an accident. It didn't go like I planned.

Little-E looked at me, trying to decide whether to answer, or return to the sink to spend more time turning the faucet on and off. On and off. On and off!

"So what do you think? Isn't that cool? Isn't that just freakin' awesome?" And even as the words came tumbling out of my mouth -- like vomitous, explosive, verbal goo that I wasn't really committed to, I recognized the small but significant sounds of desperation. I shouldn't have spoken in the first place -- I should've just let it happen. If she decides, in this moment, that the idea of seeing dad every day is a fate too horrible to contend with, then this will taint every interaction we have from this point forward. Visions of tantrums are clouding my vision -- the imagined screams ripping apart my sensitive eardrums. Please, E, side with me. I'm fun! I'm cool! I am your one way ticket to a good time childhood!

...?

"Yeah," she said. "That's pretty good."

tags: SAHD, toddler, desperate
save to del.icio.us

Little-E likes classical music. So, whenever we're riding in the car -- and because I almost always forget to bring her kids' CDs -- we set the radio dial to Austin's classical station, and rock out. While I'm sure it's possible that this kind of stimulation at the early stages of brain development is making her some kind of uber-genius, I honestly only play it to preempt the impatient squealing that generally accompanies any car trip over ten minutes.

As an added bonus, on Saturday mornings those raucous freewheelers at KMFA let their hair down and play theme music from major movies -- and this Saturday's program was dedicated solely to films of the 80s. I cannot express how much more fun it is to drive my dying 97 Mazda while the triumphant sounds of Back to the Future are marching through the speakers.

I am now 1.21 gigawatts worth of action parent! Great Scott!

* * *

Later that afternoon, we flew kites. This is one of those father-daughter activities that I've been anticipating for awhile now, as it's something I distinctly remember doing with my dad.

The night before I bumped into my next-door neighbor, who was loading up the last few, "I can't believe we've accumulated all this shit" boxes into his car, finalizing his move up to Dallas. He was frustrated, tired, and giving away everything he could live without -- trying not to stuff any memories into a trashcan. It was shortly after commiserating about exhaustion, moving, and Dallas, that I became the new keeper of one barely-used flying dolphin, and her partner in aviation, a large black shark.

I wasn't sure if the things would fly, it'd been so many years since I'd tried it, but of course they did. Little-E was so excited, holding the reigns of her dolphin that sailed higher, and higher into the sky. Needless to say, I was proud of her.

* * *

The dolphin lives on, but Saturday's kite-flying expedition was unfortunately the last for our shark -- now dearly departed (may he rest in peace). Lady-A let go of his handle, thinking it'd be fun to watch him rise...and fall.

Little-E spent the car ride home consoling her: "it's alright. We'll find another one. Don't be sad."

It was a very windy day.

tags: Back to the Future, Kites, Classical Music
save to del.icio.us

I'm T- 8 days and counting to my big escape from the corporate world of existence ala 8 to 5. Until then, the jobs are overlapping, so life is how I imagine stumbling drunk through a shoddy old funhouse would be -- but without the pleasure of drinking. I'm probably just not getting enough sleep.

And then someone really, really enthusiastic comes along, and I can feel them suck the very life that clings to my bones. Like the guy who signed me up for private health insurance earlier today.

Has anyone else been through this process? There was this mockingly cheerful, but oddly obsessive quality to everything the man said -- as if most callers get halfway through the "assessment" and decide they'd rather die from lack of medical attention than listen to another energetically augmented clause about Super Special New and Improved GOD FORBID YOU SHOULD EVER KICK THE BUCKET, BUT JUST IN CASE Life Insurance Addendum that could, for a tiny additional fee, be tacked on to your policy.

I hadn't felt that affronted by a salesman since I tried to buy a used car -- driving some (probably stolen) piece of shit down the highway while the steering wheel had epileptic fits, mentioning this to the barely-sober Customer Service Partner Care Coordinator in the passenger seat next to me, only to have him respond "What? You -- the STEERING WHEEL? No. Wheeze. I don't think so." Like that even fucking made sense.

But every time I get all bent outta shape, I just imagine myself working in pajamas, or riding Austin's kiddie train with Little-E at 3pm on a weekday, and I feel much better. Ohm.

tags: working, health insurance

save to del.icio.us

I recently had a brush with celebrity. Kind of.

In Austin, there lives a man who's best described as a sort of alternative town mascot. Rumor is he's homeless, but he's so legendary around here that I can't imagine he doesn't have a place to sleep. In any case, the reason he's so famous is because he wanders around with his bare, hairy ass hanging out -- dressed only in thong underwear from the waist down.

LA has Britney Spears (and Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan), New York has that naked cowboy in Times Square, and we have Leslie.

I was walking into a coffee shop this past weekend, and, much to my surprise, Leslie was standing at the door. Part of me felt like I should say something. You know, acknowledge the situation -- like when I made eye contact with Janeane Garofalo once in the East Village -- eek out some half-assed fragment that addresses the fact that yes, you are famous, and I know it. But what should I say? What will he say? I wasn't in the mood for anything weird, and, by initiating conversation with a half-naked hippie who's homeless by choice, I figured I'd be pretty much asking for it.

He held the door open for me anyway.

"Thanks dude," I muttered in the slightly deeper voice I use with male strangers -- just so they know we're cool. No need for apprehension here, sir, for I am merely "one of the guys." It was habit in this circumstance, as proving to this dude that I was the normal one was really no contest.

But then, in one of life's little ironies, Leslie responded: "No problem, man," in a voice even deeper, more normal, and more manly than mine.

tags: Leslie, Austin, celebrity
save to del.icio.us

I've been learning to ignore my innate distrust of hedonism.

We recently discovered this enormous, loud, bright, ridiculously fun (and padded) play center full of millions upon millions of children careening to and fro screaming AAAAAAHHHHHH OHBOYOHBOYOHBOYOHBOYOHBOY MY LIFE, IN THIS MOMENT, IS FINALLY FULL OF MEANING, DIRECTION, AND PURPOSE BECAUSE THIS PLACE IS SO AWESOME!!! In a small way, it may be proof that -- at least for children -- there is an afterlife, and it's worth being good for. At the very least, it's existence will one day be held up as an example of how 2007 was the triumphant pinnacle of human civilization.

But this just isn't right. Surely these people have some kind of hidden agenda. Karmicly, we're spending too much in this place. The pendulum will inevitably swing the other way and send us headlong into an inescapable depression -- so maybe we should at least pretend like we're not having such a good time because you know that somewhere, somehow, someone is watching, or at least keeping score, and for this ubiquitous indulgence we, the merrymakers, will most certainly be punished.

Where the fuck does this come from? Are my genes so soiled with the bullshit ideology of my self-loathing, puritanical ancestors that I'm distrustful of Radijazz, the most wonderful playscape created by mortal hand? I'm not even Catholic, for Christ's sake!

This is why I never made it as a musician. Sure, I could write songs, and I played in some bands, but the other guys could really take drugs -- with that unchecked disregard for personal well-being that only real artists have. They had sex with strangers, together, in the back of vans, while I conveniently made other plans to mask the fact that the whole thing made me just a little uncomfortable.

And this is never going to be me. (Somewhere, reading this, Lady-A says: "thank fuck.") But as Little-E gets older, I hope she never loses her passion, and the almost overwhelming, unfettered joy she's able to experience right now. It's one of the many things about her that's truly remarkable.

tags: radijazz, guilt, joy
save to del.icio.us

Snow days are awesome.

In Texas, freezing temperatures are accompanied by a small amount of hysteria. Network television stations broadcast Action Danger Super Winter Weather News Action Alerts all day, and people stock up on bottled water and canned food at the grocery store -- just in case, you know, it never gets warmer, and Austin becomes the final battleground between good and evil for possession of the endless tundra.

I'm from Cleveland, where we drive on snow and ice for recreation and drinking story fodder. But they don't salt the roads in Texas, so any moisture turns the streets into one big, hard-to-drive-on hockey rink. This is a great excuse not to drive to the job you'll only have for another couple weeks anyway, so instead I holed up in the house with Lady-A, where we bummed around like junior high kids who scored the day off school.

That's when we remembered that my parents recently shipped me the Nintendo 64 (a video game system) that used to host the most epic Mario Kart battles between my brother, sister, father and I. I fucking kick ass at that game, but hadn't hooked it up yet because we were missing some important cable. (Fie!) But after 45 minutes on the phone, calling every Best Buy and Circuit City in a 20 mile radius, Lady-A -- rockstar that she is -- found the part we needed at a Radio Shack up the road. Only those geeks at Radio Shack would have a little-used part for an out of date gaming system in stock, God love 'um.

So, while most Central Texans were huddled together with $500 worth of emergency groceries, we ventured out onto the ice -- without flares, flashlights, or sticks to beat off the looters. Well, first we scraped the ice of the car. We tried using a spatula, then a cheese grater (which was surprisingly effective), because in 2 1/2 years down here this is only the second time I've seen ice on a windshield, and we don't own a goddamn icepick.

Fortunately, nearly everything except Radio Shack was closed, so the streets were free of dumb asses taking turns at 30mph (it's like the ice makes Austinites even worse drivers than they were in the first place). We were assured by the friendly clerk who sold us the all-but-irrelevant piece of nerdy techno-gaming-junk that the store stays open in case of emergencies because they sell flashlights, batteries, etc -- "it's a community thing." I think this translates into: your corporate bosses are dicks, and make you skate to work even while the cool heads at Fox News are declaring a state of fucking chaos.

But our emergency was taken care of, and now I'll end this post so I can go waste the rest of my evening whooping the ever-living shit outta Luigi, or Toad, or Princess, or whichever cute little cartoon character Lady-A picks to try and defeat me. Hooray for the snow day!

*As an addendum to this post, it should be noted that, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to get the damn Nintendo to work. I plugged it into the system, and then into the TV, but nothing happened. Finally, frustrated, I gave up, and in about 30 seconds Lady-A had it fired up and ready to go. I feel just a little bit ashamed of myself.

tags: snow, weather, mario kart
save to del.icio.us

When it comes to parenting the punk rock toddler du defiance, there is no spoon.

There is no knowing what she really means, or how she's actually feeling. There is no telling when the adorable bundle of gooey warmth and love that somehow, miraculously graced your comparitively colorless existence will turn on a dime and become an aggressively depressive nutcase -- careening towards tears while mercilessly manipulating you from the turbulent emotional nexus of teenagers, old European men, and women in the throws of menopause.

This, you already know.

But I've recently re-discovered a place I haven't been since Little-E was brand new. It's a little nook of escapism I'd all but forgotten about now that it's possible to deal with my daughter verbally -- sometimes even rationally. There is no sound here, no movement, and no light. There are no thoughts here. Only quiet.

Welcome to Jonathon's cave. Here, there is no spoon.

(What the fuck? Who's this nu age hippie that ate Jonathon?)

Ok. Even though I've admitted to some rather unfortunate emotional hang-ups here before, and recently told thousands of strangers about my increasingly disturbing problems with jogger's jock rot, this is an admission I'm slightly less comfortable with. Mostly because it makes me sound like a flake.

Someday, however, when fate returns the favor, and Little-E has a child of her own -- an unending source of unfettered affection that can, without a moment's notice, turn into a spitball straight from the very bowels of hell -- she'll say, "Daddy! Help! What do I do?"

And, without a moment's hesitation, I'll say "It's ok, Grown up-E. Just go to your cave. Because remember, there is no spoon."

She'll look at me blankly, while the kid continues writing on her bedroom wall in slimy, diarrhea poop, and I won't feel flaky at all.

tags: there is no spoon, Jonathon's cave, the poop is on the wall
save to del.icio.us

Days before my daughter's birth, I drove from Ohio to Texas. As I left the midwest and turned South on IH 35, I knew, for certain, that somewhere in the beautiful, rolling hills of Oklahoma, I'd suddenly started to stand out. I made out like I understood the world around me, but only with the windows rolled up, so no one could see that I was a liar.

I passed through Austin, headin' South, and it was already late, but after all the driving I'd done, two hours more seemed like nothing if it meant I could finally be where I was going. I pushed on to a stretch of highway that rolled out into the pitch-black Texas countryside. So black, in fact, and with so few landmarks, that it was very easy to miss your turn -- winding up stranded at a lonely gas station, 20 miles from nowhere in every direction, asking an old, drunk, Mexican cowboy for directions to anyplace you could locate on a map.

Eventually, hours later, I found myself at another gas station -- a place abandoned for the night, surrounded only by silence. Then, faintly, wafting through air where it hadn't been before, was the sound of music. Later I would learn that the sound was coming from an outdoor speaker above the entrance to the food mart, but at the time -- nearly delirious I was so tired -- I assumed it was the sound of Texas itself. Lo and behold, I thought, even in the dead of the night, in this godforsaken hole in the middle of nowhere, I can't escape the hideous twang and obnoxiously asinine story lines of country music. I had arrived in hell.

My relationship with all things Texas has come along way in the past 2 1/2 years. I own cowboy boots, I laugh at t-shirts proclaiming "Texas is bigger than France," and I root for the Astros if I catch a game on TV. But the last two days I've had a guy in my office that normally works in a different building. He's brought with him a portable music player that works without headphones.

"Do you mind if I play some tunes?" He asks. I think you see where this is going.

When that familiar, naseauting sound came wretching out of his speakers I could feel my shoulders tense. However, in light of my advances in appreciating Texas culture, I tried to give it another shot. But as I listened to yet another dumbass revel in bullshit nostalgia about "sittin' on the porch, pluckin' his six string, wavin' to passersby and drinkin' Cherry Coke" I could no longer deny the truth: I FUCKING HATE COUNTRY MUSIC.

tags: country music, texas, mexican cowboys
save to del.icio.us

If I were of a religious bent, I'd be certain that S/he That Is The Vindictive Almighty invented washing dishes as punishment for whatever shitty karma mankind's amassed on it's great quest toward modernization.

Goddamnit. Few daily tasks so efficiently suck enjoyment out of my life like cleaning my plates and cutlery. This mind-numbingly senseless waste of time so vexed my forefathers that -- more than one hundred years ago -- someone invented a machine to do it for you. Phones, cars, dishwashers. The late 1800s produced some worthwhile shit.

But I don't have this machine. I live in the sanitary dark ages, scrubbing dried chicken off my dishes until I'm certain the bird bits have fossilized and fused to the ceramic.

My understanding partner, Lady-A, pained by my frustrated cries, spent the better part of the last 20 minutes offering to scrub in my stead. But I, racked with guilt, am in no condition to bail on domestic responsibilities. I've cooked maybe three meals that didn't involve the microwave, I never notice when the bathtub needs cleaning -- nor do I lift a finger when someone else comments on how filthy it's become -- and the inside of my car (which Lady-A is oft forced to ride in) looks like our bedroom and my office had lots of dirty, smelly babies that puked all over my seats.

So I scrub on. In pennance. But that doesn't mean I'm not pissed about it.

tags: washing dishes, angry god, domestic lame-o
save to del.icio.us

Just 'cause I look "sensitive" doesn't mean I don't like sports.

Sure, real dudes wear pants they could drop a stealth shit in, and most don't need their girlfriend's help to assemble a grill. But they also understand why Shallow Hal was a fucking awful movie, and most can't manage their aggression any better than they could when they were teenagers. More importantly, they know the rules to every sport, minus the crappy ones like figure skating, and sometimes tennis.

Really, despite the baggy pants divide, me and real dudes have plenty in common. So why is everyone so bewildered when the conversation turns to football, and, lo and behold, the artsy, hipster type in the corner (who you may have thought was gay) knows the fucking rules? Is it because I use words like "bewildered," when I could've just said "confused?"

Yes, my pants are tight, and I generally refrain from keeping my hair cropped to military standards, but it's not like I was born in some tv-free cave du introspection and emotional awareness. I was raised in a suburb of Cleveland, OH for Christ's sake, but judging by the shocked expressions that follow any admission of sporting enthusiasm, you'd think I had "Bred By Hippies in San Francisco" stamped on my forehead.

Not that I'm rejecting my people. I've documented on more than one occasion the ways in which fatherhood has turned me into a pussy, and I'm no stranger to sad-bastard, I-think-men-are-pigs-even-though-I-have-a-penis indie rock. But, like Jessie Spanno (or whatever her real name is) in Showgirls, I'm more than just a stripper. I'm a dancer.

Or, in this case, not.

tags: More Than Jessie Spanno, Real Dudes, Sports
save to del.icio.us

Now that I'm going to be working from home and/or chasing after Little-E during the day, we're thinking about getting a dog. My main motivation is so I get to watch more shit like this.

Duncan, the brown dog she's really pissed at, doesn't like little kids, and kept giving E shit the whole time we were in Cleveland. You can almost smell the sweet revenge on her breath.

She also insisted on calling him "Donkey" for most of the trip -- like Eddie Murphy's character in the Shrek movies. It's not like E learned his name wrong, or that she couldn't pronounce "Duncan." She just preferred to call him Donkey, and didn't give a rat's ass what you thought about it.

February cannot get here fast enough.

tags: dogs, video, a toddler's sweet revenge
save to del.icio.us

And then I quit my job.

It wasn't like I stopped showing up, got fired, or walked out in protest because they didn't promote my friend Claudelle to shift manager even though everyone thought she totally deserved it more than that douche they brought in from Starbucks. I told my boss why I needed to leave, and she supported my decision. It was one of the most straightforward, honest conversations I've had in this brief corporate stint. Just in time for me to leave.

Telling people you're abandoning the 8 to 5 so you can "freelance," is, I'm discovering, a lot like explaining how you found gold rammed up the Easter Bunny's ass. The unspoken suspicion is that when you say "writer," you mean "heroin dealer," as that's almost certainly a more lucrative and socially acceptable profession.

I will probably make less money. I will have to buy my own health insurance. I will spend my mornings with my 2 1/2 year-old daughter instead of rotting away at a desk.

Time with one's little girl does not grow on trees.

When I was a kid, everyone told me that I could be "anything I wanted" – which is exactly what they told all the other children, but it left me saddled with the idea that whatever I did had to mean something. Important. So, with the world of possibility at my disposal, I accumulated achievements, fought for purpose and pretended to care, but in spite of all my scrambling toward the prize, I wasn't able to quiet the mounting frustration that somehow I was missing the point.

Refreshingly, this seems different.

tags: quitting my job, staying at home
save to del.icio.us

Holy motherfucking shit, it's 2007.

I'm at this stage where my days are marked by quantifiable accomplishments (or lack thereof), and life rides on an undercurrent of unacknowledged panic. So, as the world stumbles into yet another year full of new opportunities, my hope of endless possibility gets choked by the overwhelmingly unmanageable list of things I've yet to achieve.

Welcome to my Type-A personality.

Last week Little-E, Lady-A and I were in Cleveland -- where you "gotta be tough" -- basking in the warm glow of gooey holiday goodness. We spent the week as emotional equivalents to the soft, mushy core of a just-baked chocolate chip cookie -- my dad and I took hordes of pictures, and E got more awesome presents than she could ever possibly know what to do with. (To see the full 2006 holiday photo essay, go here.)

'Twas the week daddy went from hero, to zero, and back again.

We chased through airports, shared airplane adventures, and successfully bribed Santa with chocolate milk and cookies, resulting in him leaving the aforementioned packages of supreme awesomeness. As my brave Little-E, 1000 miles away from home, drifted off to sleep in a new bed, in a new room, after chasing new dogs, and re-befriending rarely-seen family members with whom she generally has only a photographic affinity, I was momentarily overwhelmed by how proud I was of her. We were a team. We were the best team!

And then, self-proclaimed World's Best Dad (for a day, to myself), decided to push his luck (dumbass, shit, you dumbass).

The circumstances are unimportant, other than that E was tired, and I didn't listen. 20 minutes later, after manipulating her to put on her coat, and then her hat, and then her boots, E would repay me with a sound she's only made three times since I've known her. It's the kind of scream that makes the little green-faced girl in The Exorcist look like nothing more than a moody tween. It's a scream filled with such acute hatred for he that is inflicting the undesired state of affairs that is the very embodiment of the "dark side" of the force -- tearing the air apart at such a heinously inappropriate decibel level that it could've shattered glass into thousands of ear-piercing, daddy-loathing shards. E, I am your father. (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! It's not true!)

And then it was over. Poof. Like it never happened.

The next day, we flew home, Little-E's bravery again on display, and our team re-united for one more journey into the unknown.

She spent New Year's with her mom, while Lady-A and I sat on our couch, exhausted, watching movies until it was 2007, and the panic set in.

(Parting note: as I was reading over this, I think I sounded just a little bit negative. Don't be fooled, our trip was amazing. We had a blast!)

tags: Christmas, New Year, screaming
save to del.icio.us