Laid-Off Dad

Taskmaster

Much of our lives is spent helping our four-year-old keep focused. When we ask him to do even the smallest job--like picking up those goddamn game pieces that I keep walking on and flattening late at night--he won't finish without being herded like a goat. An obstinate, omnivorous goat.

There is some evidence, though, that the goat is learning.

Last night I was presiding over Robert's bath when I announced he had five more minutes of play time before I'd come back to wash his hair. So I wandered over to the computer, followed a little wormhole of clickthroughs, and got completely distracted. Until a voice came from the tub: "C'mon, Dad! Stay on task!"

NosferatuBert [with updates]

TwoBert's three favorite activities with me are 1) flying around the room (while we play "airplane"); 2) hanging upside down; and 3) sinking his teeth into my collarbone. So when I fed him some garlic hummus for lunch today I half expected beams of concentrated light to shoot out of his eye sockets while he screamed hideously and his flesh turned to ash.

Didn't happen, though.

[UPDATE: My wife took TwoBert to have some blood drawn this morning, and neither lab technician could find a vein. Then they stuck him in the heel and the arm, it didn't even bleed. Also, they didn't see his reflection in the mirror. Clearly, it's worse than we thought.]

[UPDATE II: According to this definitive resource, our fears are all hooey. What a relief!]

An epiphany

Two weeks ago my boss and her boss brought me in for my yearly review, and frankly, they had a hard time containing their enthusiasm. Outstanding this, wondrous that. Amid all the abject sycophancy and genuflecting, however, there was one teensy problem about my demeanor. They said more than a few people had noticed that I was often dismissive, peevish, and visibly exhausted at work. And they were right.

Vacations are wonderful things, because they let you reflect on how fucking busy you're not. (About 10 times today I've noticed myself reading on the couch or playing Great States Junior with Robert and thought, "Dude. I am so totally not busy right now.") But I had been more than just busy. I was weighed down, snowed under, flailing helplessly at an avalanche of work I had brought down upon myself. The strain was obvious to everyone but me.

Last Sunday I went to church with the family and spent most of the service with TwoBert in my arms. During the sermon, I zoned out and leaned my nose into TwoBert's face, closed my eyes, and meditated on my current station. I was taking on all these projects, whether I believed in them or not, staying up all night, grousing about deadlines, shortening my already short temper, and alienating everyone around me. What the hell for?

Then it struck me: I'm running. I'm running away from that terrible, helpless feeling of being an unemployed parent. Of needing to work as much as possible whenever opportunities are offered and save it all up because the job could lay me off tomorrow and then where will I be? Last time I had one kid; how the hell could I manage now, with two?

I thought I was over my layoff, but I'm clearly not. Fear has turned me into a workaholic, and I need to develop the will to say no to a gig if it's for nothing but what I perceive to be a little extra monetary security. This is why I have decided to be very circumspect when it comes to choosing work. And why from now on I will worship at the Church of Chubby Cheeks.

Erin go bleearrrgh.

You'd think such a predicament would be easy to avoid. And yet.

Private participation

I was surfing along the Interwebs this afternoon when I suddenly noticed how the silent the apartment had become. Adults at the Laid-Off Lair greet daytime silence with trepidation, because it usually means the boys are Up To Something. Like that one time my wife found Robert filling a cushioned mailing envelope with water and dumping it on TwoBert's head.

When we are confronted with daytime silence, the best-case scenario is that Robert is sitting on the toilet. So I wandered past the bathroom and there he was, his nose buried in Curious George Takes a Job. He looked up and asked me to close the door, because "I need my privacy, is the thing."

As a blogger who doesn't splash his real name around, I take privacy very seriously. Which is why I wouldn't ask you to take this BlogAds survey unless it was 1) short and 2) completely anonymous. It's also supposed to be about momblogs, but they e-mailed me so I guess we fathers have been sucked into the matriarchical rubric. Too bad. I was feeling so masculine today.

Attention all misogynistic cultures!

Nearly two weeks ago (on Robert's birthday, as it turns out), my neighbor Cornelia gave birth to her second son, Davis. This latest arrival is the seventh child to be conceived in my apartment building over the past six years, and all of them have been boys. That's right. Seven for seven, which has a raw statistical probability of 0.78%.

Clearly there is some otherworldly, mystical mojo at play here. Something in the water, or the heating system, or the fetid labyrinth of our basement is invigorating our Y-gametes.

The upshot: If you're reading this from some part of the world that devalues feminine offspring, or you're an heirless English baron looking to unload your crumbling manse, we should talk about bringing your lady friend over for a night of belly-bumpin' at the Laid-Off Lair.

(Not with us, though. Sheesh.) *see below

I have to warn you that, given the rarity of this offer (and my general distaste for gender bias), this night will cost you an arm and a leg, plus another arm. Though if you're willing to do some laundry for us, I could knock off a few bucks.

[EDITED TO ADD: The problem with having your wife reading over your shoulder is the unfortunate need to edit your more prurient sexual thoughts. Anyone who wants to swap apartments and wives must submit to a rigorous screening program (i.e., visual proof of hotness).

There is also the sticky issue of whether you want to use Laid-Off Seed to fertilize your scion. Prevailing wisdom is that this is not possible, but if your proposal is really indecent--like, buy-me-a-pimped-out mini-mansion indecent--I'll see what I can do.]

First Caesar, now this

This morning, a mere 2050 years after Caesar ignored the soothsayer's warning, Opinionated Parenting passed into the ether; you can read my little eulogy here. I enjoyed the experience, and I enjoyed the money, which paid for a year of preschool. (Makes me want to endow a Winfrey Water Table in his classroom.)

If I'd been calling the shots, I think I would have done a few things differently. Overall, though, I think it's good to lose a job every couple of years. Helps maintain my credibility.

There's some connection between this and a Caesarean section, but I haven't yet figured it out.

Eats gargage, shoots, and leaves

Sure, you homeowners can bloviate about your investment equity and your tax write-offs, but you have to admit that nothing matches the extreme adrenaline rush of apartment life. (Click on the picture to enlarge.)

That's right, owners. We renters are livin' on the edge.

Buff daddy (the saga continues)

At the end of another breakneck week, I can happily report that I can see the end of the Boulevard of Broken Necks. My manuscript is submitted, the OP is about to be euthanized, and I'm on vacation all this week. Now that my daily schedule is about to downshift from three jobs to none, it's time to divert some attention from my overtaxed mind to my oversized arse.

In keeping with my long-time, binary love affair with the gym-rat lifestyle, I'm going on-again. I worked out regularly for years, until the job with the kick-ass gym kicked my ass out. Then I joined a cheap biker gym that was open 24/7, and it closed after a month. I got resourceful and bought Robert a bike, but 1) that's only a warm-weather thing and 2) eating your four-year-old's dust gets really old really fast.

I've resisted joining the Snooty Chain gym, mainly because a lot of my neighbors work out there, and although nudity is just fine with intimates and strangers, it just doesn't work with casual acquaintances. (When I'm in the steam room, I really don't want to have to grope for small talk about recycling.) But when the place offered to waive the entry fee, I decided to plonk down the rest of my blogging money and invest in my physical plant. For too long I've been relying on caffeine and 5-HTP to get through the day while my natural endorphins have had their feet up, swilling beer and watching roller derby. The weather is warming and Bike Season is approaching; if I don't start generating my own energy I'll never keep up.

It took me two weeks to get over there, and even then it almost didn't happen. I couldn't find my combination lock. Then I found it, but I didn't know the combination. Then I found the combination, but I couldn't find my sneakers. Then I remembered that the boys had Gullivered me earlier that night, and Robert had lashed my shoes to the dining room chairs with knots as big as pine cones.

But when I got my kit together and finally pushed through those doors, it all came back to me. That haunting bouquet, part industrial cleaner and part feet! Those towels as soft as 40-grade sandpaper! Vats of vibrantly colored goop labeled "body wash"! Acres of pale, tubby flesh!

I'm back, and it's like I never left.

Gee, your hair smells revolting

For all the money these natural-products purveyors command for their roots and sorghum and flax and whatnot, a little more attention to truth in advertising must be paid.