When I'm not dropping the F-bomb around here, I spend a lot of time writing for parenting website called Blogging Baby. This week begins a new regular feature I'm writing about being a separated parent. It's sort of like my posts here, but I can't say fuck.

When Edan was born, I couldn't speak. I just stared at her while the doctors brought her into the room, my body tingling like I'd gone into shock, my eyes welled up like they'd burst into tears if I dared allow myself to breathe. As I held my daughter for the first time – surrounded by her mother's family – the most earth-shattering moments of my life played out in a room full of strangers I didn't think I could trust.

Welcome to life as a separated parent.

tags: Blogging Baby, Separated Parent, Proof that I can write sans explitives
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All the real wackos are at the park.

On the weekend, you'll find everyday families -- decent folk looking for a good time and a little exercise in the cozy Texas sunshine. Ahhh.

This is the not the case Monday through Friday. It seems there's an entirely different subset of the population that must spend their Saturdays and Sundays performing ritual sacrifices of neighborhood kittens in bomb shelters stocked full of canned goods and Ozarka -- a schedule which renders them far to busy to unleash their insanity on my city's playgrounds and playscapes like they do every weekday.

Seriously. I'm surprised nobody warned me.

I can probably count on one hand (or at least on both hands) the number of times I've been physically threatened by someone I didn't think was full of shit. But on Tuesday, a little shin-kicker spent the better part of half an hour marking his territory by smacking, shaking, and rattling brightly colored pieces of playground equipment with a menacing look and the stare of evil intention. Every mis-step was met with commands that I "GET OFF OF [HIS] CASTLE!" and when Little-E and I made a "restaurant" out of a small plastic table, the boy scoffed at my request to join us, instead choosing to repeat the aforementioned glare du demon while standing just a little too close, growling at us like "a dragon."

All I could do was laugh, which is my way of telling children that they can kiss my ass. 'Cause look, dude, your "dragon" sounds like a disgruntled terrier post-castration, and just because you're 5, it doesn't mean I can't think you're a dick. (Ok, really, I was just frustrated because his mom was sitting there doing nothing, and I felt too uncomfortable parenting somebody else's child to tell the kid to get his act together.)

Then there was the boy from the future.

We bumped into him at the city's larger, centrally-located playscape, where, frankly, I expect to see the offspring of hippies, dancing around with their kids to world music on their iPods. In spite of my cynicism, that's actually what I enjoy about this park, but I get freaked out when I'm told by an 3rd grader that the alien mothership from sector 41.7 alpha was invading, a nuclear spill was causing DANGER DANGER DANGER (but was fortunately contained to the slide) and that we should hand all plastic bottle caps to him immediately for safekeeping from (and then he'd mumble something incoherent)! And then he said it again, and again, and AGAIN -- all while sprinting around us in circles, googly-eyed, occasionally checking the skies above for descending spacecraft. Not that I'm anti-imagination, but it's hard to have fun at the playground when your toddler is wrapped around your leg, whimpering because the crazy big kid is scaring half to death.

I couldn't help but think about how much junior high is going to suck for that kid. Poor bastard. The thug from Tuesday is probably going to beat the shit out of him.

tags: playground, SAHD, invaders from outer space
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After college I went reactionary. In the wake of a naval-gazing collegiant experience full of needlessly articulated explorations of "self," I was hurt. Badly. I felt like I'd been shit on, I was scared, and hours spent wandering the sunlit, Springtime, cobble-stone streets of Liverpool gave way to the reality of single parenthood -- mandatory health insurance, child support, and getting a fucking job.

My daughter was brand-new, and I loved her. But on some level I was pissed, and I took it out on anyone who enjoyed -- consciously or otherwise -- a conspicuous absence of responsibility. I smirked at those who believed, or felt passionately, and openly scoffed at earnest college students, widdling away at their identities on tattered coffee shop couches.

Earnestness. Ha. What bullshit.

But it wasn't their fault. I was just unhappy.

* * *

The past two weeks have been an exercise in what feels like unchecked hedonism. Every day I wake up, I read and I write. I sip coffee in my pajamas, refusing to accept that I should shower, probably stink, and am a slob because no one sees me like this, so it's like that tree in the forest that nobody hears. In the afternoons I hang out with a toddler and we do whatever the fuck we want. All the time. Unless she has an accident and pees on something. Then we deal with the pee before having more fun.

As I was laying on my back in the yard, trying to photograph the setting sun on one of our trees, Little-E tacked me and pinned me to the ground. As she laughed, and I tried not to swallow my Adam's apple post-impact, I couldn't remember the last time I'd been so completely absorbed and in love with a single moment.

* * *

I don't want to go back to the insecurity and self-doubt of incessant self-examination, nor am I interested deluding myself into believing that my life doesn't carry responsibility. But I think it's ok to take deep breathes every once in awhile, and I'm sure it won't kill me to be a little more earnest.

tags: college, naval gasing
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A brief essay on why mornings blow large, fat, stinking, horrible chunks. (And if you'll bare with me, I'm writing this in the morning, so it will probably also blow chunks in the aforementioned fashion. Don't judge me.)

When people say, "I'm not a morning person," they mean they feel more alert, or more productive at other times throughout the day. When I say it, I mean that in the morning, I'm not a person at all. I'm a hideous pile of chaotically miscategorized bone and flesh -- re-organized without warning or forethought into a biological trainwreck while I was sleeping. As the indescribably irritating chirping of that fucking alarm rips me from serenity, I feel like I've been punched in the face -- my nose, congested, my lips, cracked and dry, and my breath, an unholy concoction of foul-smelling death that tastes like a dog shit in my mouth.

I lay, aghast at the thought of myself: "this is fundamentally flawed. This is the quintessential example of mankind's nosedive to self-destruction. We have strayed. Oh! We have strayed."

Lady-A, on the other hand...

(And let me preface the following by saying that I love my girlfriend, and almost everything you're about to read is my fault because I'm a grump -- and has nothing to do with her.)

...is different. She's so damn excited to be alive -- a disposition that, at 7 AM, is so completely at odds with the wants and needs of the inconsolable morning monster that it's impossible for us to communicate.

I stumble -- literally, stumble -- to the bathroom as she dances to abhorridly upbeat music on our local "Jammin" 105-point-whatever radio station. She sings nonsense songs at the top of her lungs while I try and remember what to grab while I pee.

Really, her enthusiasm is sweet. And we'll hope that I'm endearing. Either way, I'm now finishing my second cup of coffee, and I'm only just ready speak out loud.

Good morning. Apologies for all the typos.

tags: Mornings Suck, Waking Up, Bleh
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"HOLY SHIT!"

tags: Holy Shit, Photo
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When I was a kid, I'd tell my parents about all the kick-ass things I did with "my other family." Their images are fuzzy now, but I remember my second-string mom and dad carting me off to many-a-celebrated outing of endless amusement. My real mom, fed up that the other parents got to do all the cool stuff (or worried that I'd gone completely bat-shit crazy) insisted -- almost in tears -- that I'd only ever had one family: "This one!"

Little-E has a Purple House. This is one totally phat crib where adults are powerless, and my toddling despot is free to create the laws (governing play, work, and/or the physical world) as she sees fit. E has 3-4 kids of her own at the mauve mansion, an additional 2-3 babies, and countless animals of all sizes -- over whom she wields an iron fist of unchecked power and absolute authority. Inside the house du fantastic, you can swim, play on the playground, drive cars, fly, and hang out with Santa Claus. Hell yes.

Like Columbus, as he first stumbled upon the islands America, or Freud, as he navigated the uncharted recesses of the human mind, today, we too became the stuff of the legends -- discovering the famed Purple House in all it's fantastical glory.

It may look like a white gazebo on the grounds of Austin's Botanical Gardens, but don't be deceived. Contained within are all the wonders of the world.

On days like this, I find myself staring into Little-E's eyes every time she stops to think. I think at any given moment, the time around us will stop, and she'll pick thoughts out of the air like they were frozen raindrops.

Because somewhere there really is a Purple House, if only she can remember how to find it.

PS: Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

tags: Purple House, My Other Family
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I just killed an intruder. And as he was soaking to death, burning alive in a pool of industrial strength grease remover, I tipped over the box of Ziploc bags in which he'd mistakenly taken refuge, and dumped his writhing insect body onto my kitchen floor. There we sat, he and I, while I watched that dirty little cockroach bastard give in to death.

This is not my most endearing quality.

* * *

Trying to bend a toddler to your will is a total head fuck. Because she's too small to fight me, Little-E has fine-tuned her whiney voice to a pitch so inconceivably grating that it disrupts natural order -- warping time and space to isolate us in a vacuum of auditory despair. And when that doesn't work, she gets mopey and calls for her mother.

For a guy in my situation, ever-so-slightly fearful that he'll forever be a second-string parent, this stings -- like a reminder that whenever I fuck up, there's always the real parent for E to go home to. And while she doesn't know why, and I work my ass off not to let her see it, E knows it gets me, and has no problem using this to her advantage.

So. When I drove away from E and her mother earlier this week, and heard my little manipulator screaming, "DADDY! I WANT MY DAAAADDY!" I felt like I might just be a real parent after all.

I know, that sounds bad.

* * *

This week I saw my daughter every day. This is so small, and simple, and straightforward and overwhelming that I'm not sure it's really happening. The prospect of doing this every day, until it's normal, is astounding.

Every afternoon, as I drive away after dropping her off, I take a deep breath, and remind myself that I'm not going to wake up.

tags: Cockroach, Dad Stuff
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I'm in one of life's mini-revolutions, pissing on the grave of Corporate Dude, and embracing the new me: Shamelessly-Answers-the-Door-in-His-Pajamas-at-Noon Dude. Huzzah!

While I'm elated, I'd like to take a moment to focus on pee. And my new shirt. And the unfortunate, impromptu introduction that brought the two together.

There is no panic like that which comes from being responsible for a toddler that needs to piss. On multiple occasions we'd adopted the guerrilla approach to potty training -- ditch the diapers and hope the kid doesn't soak anything important. After puddles at home, at the park, and in the home decor isle at TJ Maxx, we abandoned this hardline approach -- twice.

However, during our most recent attempt we applied some peer pressure (read: we spent a lot of time fawning over Little-E's Elmo doll every time he asked for, and then used the potty), and it seemed to work. Like clockwork, E would turn to us every couple of hours -- her face all contorted in shock and desperation -- "Daddy I have to go to pee!" And then she did. Excellent.

So, it was without fear that I drove 30 minutes into the suburbs, taking E to see the unfortunately named children's musician,"Mr. Johnny." It was with a state of zen calm that I watched the 100+ kids filter into the library, grinning as Mr. Johnny delighted them with musical tales of numbers, animals and whatever.

Then it struck. (The pee.)

E had been sitting on her coat, on my lap -- and, to be honest, it felt kinda warm down there, but I was in denial. Years from now, when E stumbles in at 3am, reeking of booze, mumbling some ridiculous excuse, it is this very denial that will save her drunken ass from an adolescence wrought with punishment. It is this very denial that allows parents to watch their kids act like total assholes on the playground while the rest of us recoil in horror and disbelief. On Saturday, however, it was this very denial that would send us racing...

To the bathroom. But then she didn't have to pee because she'd just pissed all over her coat (and probably, though I didn't stop to check, the floor where all the kids were dancing).

And then to the car, where I figured she'd be ok for 30 minutes in her wet pants while I raced home pretending that everything was fine.

And then to IHOP, because she immediately had to pee again ("Daddy! Daddy! I have to pee NOW!"), and I really didn't want a soaked car seat. It was packed for weekend brunch, and we sheepishly cut in front of what seemed like 8,000 people waiting for tables -- the smell of urine co-mingling with that of coffee and buttermilk pancakes -- snuck into the bathroom, got the job done, pulled the wet pants back up (all I'm thinking is "rash, rash rash"), and head back to the car.

Then the shirt. I couldn't bare to let E sit in her own urine for the entire car ride home, so -- ala McGyver -- I improvised a diaper from the shirt I'd purchased the day before -- a shirt I happened to be wearing for our trip to visit Mr. Johnny in the suburbs. While I'm happy to say it diffused the situation, somewhere amidst the chaos my garment became rather damp. Bummer.

The rest of the ride home went something like this:

"I'm sorry I peed, dad."
"It's ok, honey. Accidents happen."
"I'm sorry I peed on your shirt, dad."
"That's ok, too."
"Yeah, it's ok. It'll dry."
"...right. It will."
"But it's kinda yucko."

...

"Yes it is."

tags: pee, potty training, mr. johnny
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"Look look look look! This can be, like, the symbol for the Bears!"
"What? These are supposed to be tough men. That looks like the Chicago fucking chipmunks."
"Shut up! These are the ears of FURY."

tags: Super Bowl, Chicago, Ears of Fury
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About twice a year, I'm obliged to admit that I was raised in a red state, and that -- in spite of a brief period at the end of high school when I believed in socialism as a model for government -- my inner Ohioan will always, at least in part, guide me.

This is one of those times.

If there's one event -- one triumphant symbol -- that encapsulates all that is good about the country I live in, it is the Super Bowl. Sure, Americans do some lame-ass stuff, but now is not the time for talk of trees or casualties (or whatever). Not today! Ideas like that are mud-in-you-eye, stinking-floppy-wristed-democrat-unpatriotic bullshit -- especially during this, our nation's finest hour.

Because I spend most Sundays chasing after Little-E, I rarely even have time to follow football. Occasionally I catch a game -- and when I do, the psychotically competitive adolescent that resides in fiery pits of suppressed anger, way down deep in the unholy bowels of my soul, sides with a team at random and yearns with unhealthy desperation for victory (or death). All who oppose me in these moments of ill-advised obsession are flagrantly ignorant whores to a dying breed of sport -- destined to fail, embarrassed by their mis-guided loyalty to a sorry sack of losers.

I've played the game. I know how it is.

Lady-A and I are hosting a Super Bowl party this weekend. A tribute to the magnificent spectacle -- a celebration of tradition, paying homage to the pigskin and basking in the hilarity of top-notch advertisement. It shall be grand. It will give us purpose.

Or something.

It's so nicely packaged. There's cut and dry rules that everybody has to follow. Break 'em, and you're punished. Teamwork, dedication and superior ability are thus set free to triumph, and in the end there is a winner, and a loser. No ifs, ands, buts, or wiggly little grey areas for verbose and vitriolic so and sos to finagle a placid "everybody wins" resolution to the conflict. ('Cause that shit is so lame.)

The funny thing is, everyone we hang out with is an artist of some kind -- a group of people not normally known for their commitment to televised athletic competition. So, this Sunday, I'll be playing it cool. Munchin' on chips and actin' all casual, until I drink one too many beers and call the opposing team's quarterback a number of disrespectful things that imply, in various ways, that he's not up to the job. Ohio, I am one with you. I roar like my forefathers, screaming for blood from the mythical banks of the mighty Cuyahoga!

And so, I'll be rooting for the Colts. I dare you to defy me.

tags: Super Bowl, Football, Ohio
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