This is the first of many
Tonight the dog ate a roll of tape. Or maybe she didn’t. I mean, she chewed it up, but we have no way of knowing what parts of it are insider her and which aren’t. Including the metal death saw that actually cuts the tape. Yeah, we didn’t find that bit. So it might be in the dog. We wait, check the dog’s poop for blood, and hope she didn’t actually eat it. How on earth am I supposed to keep a baby alive? I mean, granted, newborns don’t tend to chew up rolls of tape, right? They don’t have teeth, for goodness sake. But eventually he’ll be mobile. Eventually he’ll have teeth. Eventually he’ll put everything in his mouth, and put his fingers in and on anything he can’t put in his mouth. Cat poop. Rolls of tape. Electrical outlets. I’m going to kill the baby. Statistically speaking, we should be ok. Most babies aren’t destroyed by this or that knick knack of modernity. One deep breath and I can remind myself that, yes, we’ll be fine. We don’t have to put the baby in a kevlar bubble until he’s 25. He’ll be fine. But there’s that moment. It’s like an ice pick right in whatever part of your brain gives you confidence. Oh god, we don’t have any ice picks do...
The Story So Far
A little more than two years ago, I met Ms again for the first time. For the second time. Shit. A little m… You know what? Screw it. Let’s just cut right to the main storyline: “And that’s when the dwarf wrangler said, ‘Oh no, Mr. Luck Dragon, Atreyu is MINE!’” Wrong storyline. *flips pages frantically* Ah, here we go. Over the last two years, I’ve had a number of Very Good Days. More, in fact, than in the previous 38-odd years combined, I’d say. I could be wrong. Very Good Days are pretty easy to come by when you’re 4. Just get some extra ice cream and suddenly you’re living in a goddamn toilet paper ad. So let’s start when I was, oh to pick a number out of thin air, 8. A lot of things changed for me when I was 8. Family splitting and scattering across multiple time zones (and we’re not talking any Mountain Time BS here). I started zipping around the planet, as often as not on my own, to see the family diaspora. What does this have to do with pregnancy and fatherhood? It’s simple, really. I’ve had an interesting life. More than my share of interesting. I’ve lived in multiple countries, flown planes in loops, yanked a baby sheep out of a mother sheep, nearly tackled a sitting US senator. I’m pleased with my life. But I haven’t always been happy with it. For a very long time, I was isolated in more ways than I can properly describe. Comes with the territory when shuttling between parents means shuttling between continents. I lived my life, made very good friends, but was always ready to rely on myself as my only constant companion. Didn’t always have to, but was always ready to. We’re coming to the bit about pregnancy, just hang on. So then Ms came into my life, for the second time. Sort of. It’s all very complicated. Anyway, blah blah, two years of endless joy and blah blah. What? I can’t blah blah that bit? Fine. Two years of which any given day could take the place of some entire years, as far as bliss goes. Blah blah. Today was one of those days. Up at a sensible hour to feed the animals. Ms went off to work (a rare Saturday commitment), I played with the dogs and cleaned the kitchen floor and did other miscellaneous odds and ends. Ms came home just as I’d finished sucking down last night’s Chinese food leftovers. And then we packed the dogs up for an enrichment day at the dog park. Down the Interstate, up the highway, mild cursing as I realized I’d gone the wrong way, a mad caper of trying to get turned around in a state that fully embraces the U-turn as a standard driving tactic EXCEPT RIGHT IN THIS SPOT BECAUSE OH NO THAT WOULD BE TOO GODDAMN EASY. *inhale* Across the causeway, up a bit of highway again, mild cursing again as we missed our right turn due to construction. And then we were at the dog park. Took the girls off their leashes and wandered for a bit. Lovely. And then we got in the car and, on a whim, after finding a place for my increasingly bladder-challenged other half to pee (and, y’all, she’s starting in the shallow end of the kiddie pool in bladder terms, if you catch my meaning), we crossed another causeway to a state park...
Clubbing
Okay, I lied. I said I would take you with me to my glucose test and I didn’t. The office didn’t have wi-fi, well at least not wi-fi they would give to a jacked up pregnant woman. So I live tweeted it. It was finally summed up with this: And then I went to work, and slept under my desk for about 30 minutes. I passed it. It’s bullshit. I’m convinced it’s bullshit. Glucose tests have the same intrinsic value as the PSAT. But, for what it is worth, I passed it. So suck it sugar. Suck it hard. Since then I’ve had a little side project that I’m enjoying quite a lot. Turns out there is something in the water here in Tampa because the whole damn world is getting themselves all Knocked Up. This realization brought out a characteristic in me that is worth explaining/exploring: I have a fascination with clubs. Not the sandwich with an extra slice of bread in the middle. Not the kind you kill baby seals with and not the kind you go with your girlfriends to so you can hook up with a guy that has the same name as a state and then find yourself at 5 a.m. sneaking out of his apartment and realizing, “Oh shit, I’m wearing his skinny jeans, not mine…” and you swear to stop hooking up with guys that have slimmer hips than you so that this can stop happening and how does this keep happening? I mean… Oh wait. I’m sorry, I went back to my “unhappy time” for a little bit. Let me take a moment to thank Mr. Forty again for saving me from myself and not having slim hips. I love you. Okay, so… clubs. I like the clubs that have a specific membership. I don’t mean “no girl’s allowed” exclusive, or “the elite aliens that protect the President” secretive. I just mean I like groups of people who have similar interests or lifestyles or hobbies. When I was young I was forever creating clubs that I would force my poor childhood friend, Dena, to join. I would make her a membership card, and explain to her the complex dues structure, and my ideas for building a 2-story clubhouse out of refrigerator boxes in the backyard. (“But what happens when it rains?” she would ask. That Dena, no vision. I hear she makes six figures as an auditor for one of the big accounting firms. That’s… impressive. Perhaps I should have listened to her more). I wrote manifestos for my clubs, I priced out die casting decoder rings (very pricey on a 7-year-old’s allowance), I joined other clubs I found in the back of comic books (I still have my membership card to Cracked, back when they were a Mad rip off and had a papery thingy called a magazine). I appreciated the ideas of secret handshakes and passwords and clubhouses. In high school I excelled at clubs. I joined ALL THE CLUBS. When I graduated, I was an officer in no less than five clubs (Thespians, Youth In Government, Omega Service Organization, Latin Club, and National Honor Society – and yes, that made me super popular and really cool just as you might imagine). Then I went to college and it kind of fell apart. I tried. But it turned out I was kind of a shit sorority girl (I still maintain that Birkenstocks can be “dressed up” if matched and...