Laid-Off Dad

Valedictory '05

What more can you say about Christmas in the heartland? Everything is covered in a blanket of snow. Neighbors drop in for coffee and one of the 200,000 cookies my mother-in-law has made. And thanks to the subzero temperatures, my balls have retracted up into my body for a long winter’s nap. It’s just as well, really. When your wife sleeps on the other side of the baby and your in-laws are in the next room, the boys know they won’t be called up into active duty any time soon.

Sadly, there is a darker subtext to all this effervescent holiday cheer. We’ll be here for about a week, and part of my plan is to exploit all this live-in babysitting and make substantial inroads on my book, which is due to my editor at the end of January. Naturally, when I woke up this morning I sprang into action—and racked my brain for any excuse not to head off to the library.

How desperate was I to stave off the writing process? I offered to shovel the driveway. It could have been about an hourlong job, but thanks to Robert’s help it took about 90 minutes. He couldn’t wait to strap on his heaviest outerwear and launch himself into another “worker guy” project, during which he magnificently strewed snow on areas I had just cleared. At one point, he told me he was digging a hole for the Second Avenue subway, and I wasn’t prepared to debate him. Maybe he knows something I don’t.

Now, hours later, my hands have just remembered that they haven’t shoveled snow in a dog’s age—one of the perks of my swingin’ city lifestyle—and begun to ache like a mofo. For the next few days, it appears I’ll be typing extra gingerly and delegating all shoe-tying and jar-opening to the missus.

I really have to work on this book thing, plus I have to write our Christmas letter and address all those friggin’ envelopes with these throbbing, semi-useless hands. So this could very well be my last entry of the year, which blessed me with a new son, a Parents mention, some walking-around money, and a fun new place to play around. Things were won and lost. And I turned 40 (as did my proclivities).

Aught-five was also especially good to this blog, thanks mostly to readers like you. So thank you for reading, and many happy returns for an especially Super Farty '06.

Have yourself a farty little Buttmas

In honor of TwoBert's first Christmas, Robert almost exclusively addresses him as "Farty." This is in keeping with the New Scatology that has hijacked Robert's vocabulary; every third word out of his mouth is fart or butt. He's also learned a number of Christmas songs at school and ingeniously bent the lyrics to serve his fun little scheme. Who can forget such timeless holiday classics as:

• Jingle Farts
• Little Farter Boy
• Farty the Butt Man
• It's the Most Wonderful Fart in my Butt ... and many more!

Off the record, this is comedy gold. Officially, however, we disapprove. On our way to a Christmas party on Sunday, we told Robert to tone down the flatugluteal discourse for all the fabulous and/or childless folks who might not understand. To his credit, he was great about it throughout the afternoon, and he waited until we left the building before he wondered out loud where the farty bus was.

Today, lots of frozen New Yorkers are wondering exactly the same thing, because the MTA's transit workers have called for a general strike. We almost made it out of town before the shit hit the fan, but now we have to navigate the mayhem and somehow make our way to the airport this afternoon. Our fingers are crossed for a holiday miracle, because if the roads remain as impassable as they are now, this could be the fartiest Buttmas ever.

Don't look at me ...

This Krupnik business is picking up steam. First, USA Today has picked up the story and linked it with two similar displays in America's Wang. And Metro passed along the latest twist in the saga: A gang of ninja "headnappers" has swiped the severed head and is holding it for ransom.

I was at my Christmas party all night, pleasantly spaced out on bourbon. Swear to God.

While visions of sugar plums danced in their severed heads

Remember that brownstone I told you about? The one Robert and I pass on the way to the park? The owners have decided to lend the neighborhood a little holiday cheer. (You can read more about "slay bells" and such here.)

Just so you know that I didn't make these freaks up.

No, Robert hasn't seen it, nor do I plan to show it to him. Too many questions to answer. Besides, since we've segued to the bike, he doesn't see much of anything he rides past anyway. All he concentrates on is running over detritus in the sidewalk and laying patches at stoplights.

LOD the hip, city-slickin' libertine couldn't care less about this; free speech is free speech, regardless of how pathetic and sick you are. But LOD the avuncular, concerned parent is really pissed off, because shit like this is as objectionable as burning a cross in someone's yard. So chime in, legal scholars: What can society do (apart from the obvious answer, vigilantism) when someone burns a cross in their own yard?

Teetering

Well, the Joyous Season of Yuletide Ass-Kicking continues apace. Work piles up, laundry piles up, dishes pile up, mail piles up, piles pile up, and while I'm off breadwinning my wife works herself to a frazzle trying to cobble together some sort of Christmas for the boys. When the fuck is any of us supposed to do any shopping? I barely have enough time to stay up all night and write blog posts.

My best respite from the constant nonstop is the Friday afternoon bus ride home, a pleasant little ritual that affords me about 45 minutes of relative peace. I love riding Manhattan buses because of the special demographic they attract. The movers and shakers all flock to the subways, but it takes a special quality to ride the bus at rush hour. You have to be either calm enough not to worry about when you'll get where you're going, or nuts enough not to have anywhere special to go.

This past Friday I sat a few rows away from a large guy who looked asleep. His clothes told me he wasn't homeless, but his weathered face and large, blistered hands told be he lived a hard life. Perhaps he'd left the job site early and went off for a few pops with his crew.

After a few minutes, our man entered a new layer of consciousness and began lolling to and fro. He'd loll forward, catch himself, look alert for about half a second, and then loll over in another direction. He teetered and bobbed liked a multi-axis drinking bird for several minutes, and the effect was very soothing. As close as he came to falling out of his seat, he never lost his center of gravity. Sometimes, his body would ease itself almost parallel to the ground, yet somehow he'd steal just enough clarity to push himself back to the vertical before his eyes flickered shut and the cycle renewed. I was mesmerized by his innate sense of self-preservation--until the bus stopped short and he pranged his head on the seat in front of him.

At that point, the tall Caribbean gentleman with resplendent graying dreadlocks down his back  adjusted his half-moon granny glasses and said to no one in particular, "Dat fool be stone drunk." Then he returned to his knitting.

My drunk, undulating friend epitomizes my Christmas this year. We will wobble and slump, we will nearly founder, we will raise a welt on our forehead, but we will persevere until we reach our destination--even if Daddy has to stuff every stocking with cash.

Busting my hump-hump-hump

TwoBert is almost 7 months old and absolutely desperate to start crawling. He's spent much of the last month on his belly, arms locked, while his little flagella beat with a force that could whip skim milk into cake frosting. Now that he's learned how to get a foothold on the floor, he can sense that forward locomotion isn't far off. So he thrusts with great urgency, reaching for all that will soon be attainable, but all he ends up doing is hump-hump-humping the floor and bobbing his head like a teen-aged headbanger--until his arms give way and he bangs his head.

This is exactly how I feel as the end of the year approaches. I spend almost all of my day spinning my wheels, working at one of my three jobs, and at day's end all I feel I have to show for it is an inch of progress and a slight headache.

The all-work-and-no-play syndrome is starting to take its toll, because the relentless ubiquity of In-Your-Face-Christmas is rankling me more than usual. I might just be reacting to the sheer length of the season, because retailers have been piping in the holiday schmaltz since well before the pumpkins rotted. But if I hear one more overwrought chanteuse croon about building Parson Brown out of snow, I might just snap my cap and become a Mennonite.

Like TwoBert shows me every evening, sometimes the best way to get anywhere in this world is to roll over.

Epilogue to a stomach flu

A conversation for a snowbound Sunday morning:

Robert [poking TwoBert firmly in the head with his index finger]: Poke! Poke! Poke!
Daddy: Robert, cut it out. You wouldn't want someone to do that to you, would you?
Robert: OK, I'll stop.

4.7 nanoseconds later:

Robert [resuming the poking]: Poke! Poke! Poke!
Daddy: Didn't I just tell you to stop poking your brother?
Robert: I can't help it. The diarrhea is controlling me.