just write a little bit everyday

nocturnal demon love hussy

Here I am, awake, partly because of Satan's kitty, and partly because if my brain isn't shut completely off it will turn on me.  Otto woke me up first, and as I drifted back into the cozy warmth of slumber, Allie cat did her 3am-i'm-a-cat-and-can-do-whatever-the-hell-i-want thing.  Her routine is this:  If she's in Quin's room, she attacks the door to get out.  If she's not, she meows to get in.  When you abide by her request, she waits approx five minutes and attacks the door and/or meows again.  I don't help the situation by leaping up and fuming about the house.  Being a very tired person who hasn't followed through on his dreams of throwing the house pet makes for someone who's dangerous to be around.  I've got a lot of pent up frustration, and I think that could be Allie's angle.  She waits for me to give up on sleep--because angrily rolling around doesn't seem to be restful--and get out of bed.  It's when I sit on the couch with the laptop that she mosies up to me as if to say, "Can't sleep?"  And I can't but give up on everything and pet the nocturnal demon love hussy.  When I tell her I want to kill her it's in a gentle kid voice.  

please hold, Otto's first over-produced giddy dad feature on the way

but this should tide you over (tide...tithe...never sure on that one)

at least our days seem to be getting longer and longer

When Sarah and I started dating, we didn't want to take things so seriously, so we measured our time together in month-iversaries.  Anniversary seemed pretty dire.  It was something our parents celebrated.  Month-iversaries were for cool, younger people who lived fast and had short attention spans.  We stopped thinking that when they surpassed 50.  And now, today, April 13th, we're on our 156th month-iversary.  That's a lot of goddamn gifts.  Stick with years, or decades, and you'll be just as cool as any youngster out there. 

If there was a celebration of the 156th month, it was superiority over our son, Quin.  He's been sent from the future to destroy us, but together, Sarah and I were able to defeat one of his tantrums.  He doesn't throw them all the time, but when he does he can't stop himself. He's a screeching, screaming semi truck of madness barreling towards his bewildered parents.  But tonight we stood tall, and when he didn't want to pee before going to the park, I stepped over him, grabbed his brothers (Paco and Otto) and left.  Ten minutes later he arrived with his mother.  He'd peed, and he wanted to give me a hug.  I gave Sarah five.  We cheered our victory over a two and a half year old.  To celebrate we took him to the swings, then the slides, then the bouncy dinosaurs, the jungle gym and the climbing wall.  

some very important advice

I just spent three hours at the social security administration office.  And for your next visit, I now have some advice: don't pee yourself.  Not even a little.

I have this trouble where I attract the loud, embarrassing talker.  This very sweet but very vocal elderly woman was telling me about her granddaughter who had been in a car accident and they were replacing her rectum with flesh from her thigh.  She was so loud, and had repeated this so many times--and there's a bladder problem too, they thought it was fixed but it keeps leaking--that people were looking at me to stop the carnage.  So I left to get my laptop.  I end up sitting next to another older woman who looked over my shoulder at footage of Otto.  I was editing this little video of him.  "Oh, he's so cute," she declared, but I'm editing it for time so I keep replaying it and cutting it down.  She complains that I keep showing her the same thing and she wants to see something else.  I humor her by showing her some pictures, and then she just keeps watching.  At this point all I want to write about is this lady who's complaining I'm not entertaining her enough.  I'm missing the rectum talker.  So I close up my Mac and, mind you, in the cold molasses drip of the bureaucratic pick-a-number game, we are at D24.  It has taken an hour to get from D17, and my number isn't until D32, or the next Broncos Superbowl, whichever is first.  I have time.

I go to the bathroom.  I place my Mac on the edge of the sink.  It slips.  Now my Mac isn't just a computer.  It's my children's childhood.  It's 10,000 pictures and 5,000 songs.  It's produced videos of Quin walking and Otto rolling that stole from me entire Saturdays.  It's your phone number, your address, your likes and dislikes, because if you're reading this I probably know you.  My Mac is familiarity; the soft clicking of keys and the shiny worn spots on the spacebar segue mere flesh and blood into its silicon superiority.  Artificial intelligence?  No. It's the center of my work universe, the stick for my tetherball, where a firmly placed home row keeps me from being flung into some wide open disorganized space.  And my lord it's sexy.  So when it's in danger great sacrifices must be made. 

I make a quick move to grab it, therefore peeing on myself a little bit.

If you've ever been to the Littleton SSN office, you'll note that it's a five by five square of chairs, and it's like a classroom.  The bathroom is up front, so you walk out like you're either going to perform or teach.  After a little self-loathing I realize the severity of the situation.  And that’s the thing.  I don’t know if you’ve peed yourself lately, but it’s difficult to look at yourself and not be really very disappointed. There’s a deep, deep affliction that takes place here.  Here I am a sober, working professional who should be able to handle himself in public, yet I’m looking in the mirror at a urine stain running down my right leg.  

I needed to make a quick move.  I bolt out the door, for some reason holding my breath.  I exit carrying my laptop much like a middle school girl would her Judy Blume books, but instead of hugging it to my chest, I shield my crotch.  I go outside and I stand in the wind.  And this is good.

Meanwhile, as I dry, the people who had been at lunch or self-tanning or whatever they do when all the windows are closed, show up.  Feeling fresh and ready they lifted their blinds and actually helped some people.  I go back inside and this woman exclaims, "They called your number!!"  And in the tight bonds of the community that forms in a government waiting room, this is the kind of story people don't even want to joke about.  It’s usually only the stuff of legend, until I walk in with a moist groin and an ashen face.  I never dreamed the horror would be as severe as it is.  I asked one lady what the protocol is and she sends me to the security guard who tells me that I have to get another number.  I wonder if he wants a new rectum. 

And heads were turning.  I mean I'm the story in at least 28 households tonight.  I'm the guy who missed his number.

The guard explained that everyone thought I'd left.  That was kind of nice.  I'd been there so long most everybody kind of new me.  I was up for tribal council.

I lost D32 and ended up with D41.  I had to sit there and wait for approximately another hour.  It gave me time to work on controlling my anger.  Even though in front of me was the worst person on the planet.  She's a twenty-something-year-old attractive Latina who was with some beleaguered mother figure.  This little girl had just inherited some money and a house.  She shouted the details of her new wealth and how her grandmother and grandfather had made a huge mistake in not transferring it directly to her instead of going through some trust.  She used the word "communisty" several times to describe her ordeal in having to wait. Also, if she worked there she'd light a fire under everyone's ass.  As a matter of fact she'd fire everyone's ass!  Retards, she explained, fucking communisty retards.  When she finally left, a soft-spoken woman turned to me and rolled her eyes.  I said, 'Wow, glad she's not your daughter."  She replied, "She wouldn't be my daughter.  She'd be dead."

I wanted to say more, but I stopped and just nodded.

Easter 2010

This weekend we've done three Easter egg hunts.  Quin's not all that sure why we're doing it, but he likes these newer parents that let him wander around in fields and eat candy.  It would be scary to itemize his diet over the past 48 hours.  I do remember him eating an apple slice, and if I had my way and didn't worry about where Quin put me when I'm old, I'd be the parent hiding vegetables around the back yard.  Quin did very well, but unfortunately he takes after his mother and father (he's really screwed here) in that we both grew up loathing occasions where adults were certain we'd have a good time.  The more measured the care that went into the event, the less likely we were to like it.  It's amazing Sarah and I even had a wedding.  It's precisely those ceremonies of expected results such as joy and frivolity that make us recoil.  I remember in the 5th

Most family photos catch me in the unsuccessful attempt to get Quin to smile.

grade, getting sent into the hallway because I thought the Valentine's Day party was stupid.  All the kids were told to wait until 2:30 and then they could raid their stashes of pre-fab, junk-filled greeting cards.  At the appropriate time the class of ‘92 rushed to their tubs.  I stayed at my desk refusing to be played like a marionette.  Yes, I wanted the candy.  Yes, I wanted to see if Wendy wrote some more special to me than Brent, but I wasn't going to have someone else be so certain I should have a good time. 

Already at 2, Q revolts at the same suggestion.  It's not one of those traits you put in the baby book.  And now Sarah and I are the expectant adults.  "This will be great fun, Quin, run along."  And he folds at our feet.  We are trying our best to not hype anything.  We state things plainly.  "Quin, a magical bunny is coming to bring you chocolate and toys," we say as if we're delivering bad news about the stock market.   It didn't stick.  The hype got to him at the big Englewood hunt.  Hundreds of kids and a deejay tore away our sullen shroud.  Quin needed to be pulled into the hunt and even then he didn't want to pick anything up.  At least we know two years of discouraging candy and things found on the ground paid off.  But by the second hunt, the little one we had in our back yard, Q was down with the idea, especially since he was more into the logistics of the tradition.  He had, it turns out, not only seen the bunny, but heard it fall down as it was running away.  And then--this is something to think about future parents--he was wondering how the bunny had fared with the fox that sometimes visits our backyard.  Only briefly I thought we could end this tradition right now with a stuffed bunny and some ketchup.  We were too busy getting ready for the third hunt, one that found Quin only casually hunting, like the cool veteran who's been there before.

By the end of the day we were beat.  Q had a mental/sugar breakdown and spent the evening demanding he go to the doctor.  This was not a medical related request, but something planted in his head when I asked his mom where Otto's immunization card was.  (He needs TWO forms of ID to get a SSN.  How does an infant have two forms of ID, especially since I'm trying to get at least one?  Should I bring in a poopy D and a cup full of drool?  Yep, this is him...)   Quin likes the doctor because they have cool aquariums.  He doesn't yet see the tragic irony of their having a Nemo clownfish.  He also likes the doctor because last time he won major props for helping his little brother.  When Otto got his shots, Q held his hand and told him it would be OK.  I thought of that touching moment while he lay at my feet and refused to eat.  It helped me enjoy dinner despite the tantrum.  It was also a nice time for Sarah and I to reflect on how long we've been parents, something like thirty years.