Load of Bollix

Today we had a birthday party for my almost two-year old and he cried pretty much the entire time. It was just family but that didn’t seem to matter. I have this one sad picture from my mother-in-law, taken during a brief respite from the crying. My arm is sore from holding him. It’s 8 PM and it feels like 3 AM. The weird (or not weird? Because what is normal?) thing about my child is that he is totally fine with adults but freaks out around kids. He didn’t use to do this, but it’s obviously upsetting and makes me, at times, spiral into the parenting black hole of “OH MY GOD WHAT DID I DO WRONG?”.  We go to playgrounds. We go to stores. We went to a toddler art class for pete’s sake. He’s SMART. He speaks in complete sentences and his word du jour is “parallelogram.”  So what is going on? Is my child a super introvert? I’d say it’s likely. He’s got the genes of two introverted parents and doesn’t like loud kids. I’ve already began explaining to him that some kids are loud, and...

Dedicated to my Didgie. I love you to the moon and when the time comes, please put me in a good home. Chapter 1: Pregnancy Here is the breakdown: First few days: Happy excitement. After that through month four/five: Vomit zombie. One day in month five: “I feel like a person again. I can do this!” After that through month nine: WHALE. Chapter 2: Birth Horrifying. Chapter 3: Aftermath Also horrifying. My favorite was the nurse emptying my catheter while my entire family was crammed into my room. This is also when the Breastfeeding Army begins their onslaught. Hopefully you have a good partner who will tell them to **** off. Chapter 4: Coming home Post-partum sounds like post-mortem and it is not a coincidence. It’s a good thing I took a parenting class because it was helpful as bollocks. Also, I get my period back super-fast and thought I was bleeding to death. It’s funny now, but at the time I was straight-up hyperventilating and realized maybe I need some Zo...

Do you remember Instant Messenger? It was how we wasted time online before we REALLY started wasting time online like we’re doing RIGHT NOW. In college, it was a great way to post the Greek letters of your sorority and make people wonder (ENVY) how cool you were by being away and inactive for so long. I used to change my away messages on Instant Messenger ALL THE TIME because I was that good at wasting time. Though IM is long gone (I think?), I often think of things I WOULD post as an away message, if it were still around (it is gone, right?). Maybe these are the sort of things people tweet now, but if you think I’m going to start tweeting you can go jump off a bridge. So here are just a few from the last day or so: *** -Should I just buy a scrunchie already? Jill Biden wears them and she’s like 80. *** -Jim and I’s 13ish year relationship can be summed up in the following very short exchange that takes place most mornings: J: Did you hear the rain/wind/thunder/car alarm/fi...

Today is my own personal new year. Last weekend, my sister-in-law asked me if I feel old. I honestly don’t.   Since the age of five I have been an angry old man, so if anything I am one step closer to becoming my Most Authentic Self. But since I do now have the sagacity of 36 years on this earth, and since I am on the blog-twice-a-year plan, I offer the following 36 pieces of “wisdom” (sic). Some are certainly things I’ve learned, some I’ve just observed, and some are just statements I can say because it’s my birthday and my blog, damnit. Cheers and thanks for reading. *** 1. Real butter is worth it. If you have been denying yourself real butter because it’s fatty, bad for you, not as cool as ghee, etc. pull your head out of your ass and start eating it. A little goes a long way and there is no substitute. 2. All things in moderation. Especially moderation. 3. Anyone that denies themselves entire food groups by choice is a lunatic. We have one life...

About once every three to four years, I like to do something that normal human beings do all the time, yet makes me feel like an alien observer that just landed on Earth. Today, that meant going to a salon to color my hair. This was Essential because I hate summer. I’ve always hated summer as an adult, even when I had the summers off. Because I hate summer, I start hating everything (I can hear your thoughts so let me qualify---I start hating everything more than I normally do), s o I decided I hate my hair and my glasses the most. Since I already own three pairs of glasses, I should therefore change my hair. I make an appointment at a salon and actually go (which is big for me). I arrive at the salon and am immediately uncomfortable. It’s summer, so I’m not wearing make-up. I’m wearing a dress I bought at Gap about 10 years ago, and I haven’t *technically* combed my hair, a fact all the more shocking since I drove to the salon with my windows down. This is both My Normal an...

I can’t say that I typically become reflective before a birthday, but I am this year. Maybe it is because I’m entering a new age demographic (the “you have no good eggs left” bracket). Maybe it’s because I have the time to be reflective--I’ve also been thinking about my future, and I’ve decided that when I’m 65 I will teach chair yoga to other old people on the beach in Florida. Or maybe it’s just that Frank Sinatra and I share a birthday, so I’m always humming Frank Sinatra at this time of year. You'd smile too if you shared a birthday with MBP. As any Frank fan will tell you, when you hum Frank, you hum “My Way.” And if you’re reflective and Frank croons: “Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention,” you turn this into a mental exercise: what are my regrets on the cusp of 35? I thought of things that were kind-of regrets, but then I dismissed them. Should I regret that I trashed my HS boyfriend’s locker after he dumped me? No. It’s a funny story now...

The Dalai Lama says that change in the world always begins with an individual who shares what he or she has learned and passes it on to others. Thus, I offer you what I have learned thanks to my ongoing Ken Burns’ documentary binge. 1)       I have roughly the same glasses as all the men in the Lyndon Johnson administration. 2)       People in the 1960s look like they smell bad. 3)       People in the 1860s look like they smell bad, but they had the excuse of living over 100 years ago when germ theory was just in its infancy. 4)       Excessive facial hair is GROSS and can’t possibly help with the smell (see 2, 3). 5)       I should have read my US history textbook more carefully, especially since my high school history teacher referred to the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression”. 6)       I taught history fo...